Contributor Guidelines & Copyright

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Chemistry in Australia is the magazine of The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. (RACI). Our full colour, 44-page magazine is published 4 times per year.

We publish more than chemistry

Our editorial content reflects the diversity and character of chemistry and the RACI community, and we welcome contributions along these lines. Our content includes not only chemistry but also topics of interest and importance to chemists and all RACI members, including:

  • general features on themes that affect and engage chemists 
  • research, industry and general news
  • letters to the Editor
  • regular views and reviews on topics such as media, climate change, education and networking
  • special features covering careers in chemistry.


We are particularly interested in receiving feature articles in the following contexts:

  • careers
  • opinion and debate
  • education
  • the bioeconomy
  • cross-disciplinary, e.g. with arts, business, management, other enabling sciences
  • history
  • problems and challenges in chemistry and science
  • innovation and ‘big picture’ science
  • future trends.

What we are not

Chemistry in Australia is not a peer-reviewed journal. Contributions of a highly specialist or technical nature, with extensive reference lists, should be submitted to appropriate scientific and technical journals.


Preparing feature material

Our preferred article length is usually 1800 words. You should write for a general chemistry audience, in a relatively informal style, for example using the first person (‘we/I’). Your feature should start with one or two catchy ‘leader’ sentences, to engage the reader. Follow with the main contention or theme of the article; try to avoid extensive background, method or materials. Refrain from specialist terms where possible and define them clearly if they are included.


Reference lists should be avoided. Instead, contributors should provide essential citations within the text and include a DOI link, e.g. “Smith and colleagues found that … (https://doi.org/insert-doi-identifier-here)”. If the information is accessible at several sources, the citation should be omitted altogether. 


Visit our website homepage at chemaust.raci.org.au to see some examples of published features. 
Your article may be sent in confidence to our features subcommittee or to another reviewer before your submission is accepted.


Artwork

We welcome photographs and line illustrations.

We require clearly named electronic files of photographs or line illustrations as high-resolution .jpg files (preferably 1300 pixels wide). 


Author proofs

If your article has been accepted for publication, it will be edited and typeset. We will then email a proof to check before the magazine is printed. Note that in-house proofreading of your article will happen concurrently at this stage. We may need to make changes to your article for the purposes of clarity or space.


Copyright

Unless otherwise stated, copyright of the text of Chemistry in Australia is held by the publisher, RACI. Permission to use part or all of a published article should be obtained from the RACI through Chemistry in Australia. We require that all contributors acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions of the copyright transfer agreement (see below). Note that by proceeding you will be acknowledging and accepting the copyright transfer agreement.


If you are submitting previously published text or images for which you do not hold copyright, you must obtain and supply written republication permission from the relevant copyright holder(s), and pay any associated fees, before submission to us.


Deadlines

Please contact the Editor for feature deadlines; however, your contribution may be scheduled for a later edition, depending on available space. The Editor can advise you when you make your submission.


Sending your contribution

Please email the following to the Editor, Guy Nolch at editor@raci.org.au:

  • the text of your article, in Microsoft Word 
  • any electronic artwork, as individual .jpg files
  • names, titles and affiliations of all authors.

Download full Contributor Guidelines & Copyright here

Copyright transfer agreement

Authors submitting feature articles for publication to Chemistry in Australia are requested to transfer copyright of their article to the publisher, The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. 


For publication to proceed, authors must acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions in this document. In practice, the magazine does not decline reasonable requests to republish feature articles in other publications, but we wish to keep track of and be appropriately cited in republished material.


Please read the copyright transfer information and note that by proceeding with publication you will be acknowledging and accepting its content.


I, the principal author, declare the following with regard to the submission of the above-named article:

  • The text or parts thereof has not been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.
  • The text represents original work and its publication will not infringe the copyright or any other intellectual property right (including a right in the nature of a trade secret) of any entity or individual.
  • I am the copyright holder of, or have permission to reproduce, images, line art or text excerpts supplied. (Parental consent should be obtained/confirmed for images of minors.)
  • All authors have agreed to this submission (if more than one author). I also understand and agree on behalf of all above-named authors (either in my own right or as an agent for my employer) to the following terms and conditions of transfer: 
  • The author(s) assigns to The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. the entire copyright in the text of the article. 
  • No payment will be made by The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. to the author for producing the article or for transferring copyright.
  • The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. grants the author(s) a non-exclusive licence to reproduce the text of the article for their own internal purposes, research and public presentations. 
  • Creators of any artwork and research data to be reproduced will retain their copyright. 
  • The author(s) grants The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. a non-exclusive licence to reproduce in whole or in part the artwork and research data in the article, and to permit third parties to reproduce in whole or in part any such materials contained in the article. 
  • The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. may reproduce the article in all forms and media including online and electronic publications. 
  • After publication in Chemistry in Australia, the text of the article as published in Chemistry in Australia may be uploaded by the author(s) to their own website(s) or to an online institutional repository, provided that the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Inc. is acknowledged as the copyright holder.
  • When exercising any of the rights granted in this agreement, each party must appropriately acknowledge the contribution made by the other party to the published article. 
  • This agreement is not a guarantee that the article will be published. Copyright in the article will revert to the author(s) if the article is not published within one year of the date of this agreement.