Recently, the Office of China's Excellent Action Plan for Scientific and Technological Journals issued the Notice on Publicizing the Proposed Projects Selected for the 2025 Second Phase High-Starting-Point New Journal Category of the Excellent Action Plan for Scientific and Technological Journals. The notice stated that, following project application, eligibility review, and defense evaluation, a total of 70 projects were proposed for selection. Among them, National Materials, independently founded by the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Peking University, was successfully selected for the High-Starting-Point New Journal project under China's Excellent Action Plan for Scientific and Technological Journals.
It is understood that the second phase (2024–2028) of the Excellent Action Plan is jointly implemented by the China Association for Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the National Press and Publication Administration, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The plan includes five sub-projects: English standalone journals, Chinese standalone journals, high-starting-point new journals, cultivation of high-level journal management talent, and cluster/group pilot projects, with an implementation period of five years. The High-Starting-Point New Journal category adopts forward-looking planning and domain-specific journal selection, emphasizing leadership. Guided by the principles of addressing weaknesses, filling gaps, and promoting the aggregation of high-quality publishing resources, it prioritizes support for the establishment of high-starting-point English or Chinese scientific and technological journals in areas of traditional strength, emerging interdisciplinary fields, strategic frontiers, and key generic technologies, thereby expanding high-end academic exchange platforms.
National Materials is an international flagship journal in the field of materials science, newly co-founded by Peking University and the internationally renowned publishing group Wiley. The journal is co-edited-in-chief by Academician Jin Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University) and Nobel Laureate in Physics Prof. Konstantin Novoselov (National University of Singapore). It has assembled an international editorial board composed of outstanding scholars from around the world.
National Materials focuses on advanced functional and structural materials, committed to publishing innovative achievements across the full chain—from materials synthesis and processing, structural characterization, and performance optimization to applications. With the goal of building an international frontier exchange platform for materials science, the journal aims to unite the global materials science community and drive innovation and development in the discipline.
