International Materials Reviews
International Materials Review publishes critical reviews in materials science and engineering, including structural ceramic, composite materials and electronic materials industries.
International Materials Reviews publishes peer-reviewed critical assessments of the literature on all aspects of materials science and engineering. Its aim is to provide timely, authoritative introductions to current thinking, developments and research in carefully selected topics. Leading edge reviews provide a concise overview of rapidly developing areas of the discipline, while maintaining the journal's high standard of rigour and critical assessment. Most reviews are invited by the Editors but proposals for reviews are welcomed.
| Phillip J. Withers | University of Manchester, UK |
| Krishan Chawla | The University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA |
| Ainara Aguadero | Institute of Materials of Madrid (ICMM), Spain |
| Erik Bitzek | Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH, Germany |
| Aldo R. Boccaccini | University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany |
| Gerard Fernando | University of Birmingham, UK |
| Costas Galiotis | University of Patras, Greece |
| Stephan Hofmann | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Ian Kinloch | University of Manchester, UK |
| Alvaro Mata | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Kevin Musselman | University of Waterloo, Canada |
| Eiichi Sato | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan |
| Yutaka S. Sato | Tohuku University, Japan |
| Steven J Savage | Swedish Defence Agency |
| Milo Shaffer | Imperial College London, UK |
| Paul Shearing | University College London, UK |
| Aude Simar | Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium |
| Elizabeth Tanner | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Min Wang | University of Hong Kong |
| Roger Whatmore | Imperial College London, UK |
| David Bahr | Purdue University, USA |
| Christopher Berndt | Swinburne University of Technology, Australia |
| Yip-Wah Chung | Northwestern University, USA |
| Ryan Deacon | Raytheon Technologies Research Centre, USA |
| Andre Costa E Silva | UFF, Brazil |
| Katherine Faber | Caltech, USA |
| Jiyu Fang | University of Central Florida, USA |
| Mary Anne Fleming | ASM International, USA - Staff Liaison |
| William Frazier | Pilgrim Consulting LLC, USA |
| David Furrer | Pratt & Whitney, USA |
| Sivaraman Guruswamy | University of Utah, USA |
| Scott Henry | ASM International, USA - Staff Associate |
| Hideyuki Kanematsu | National Institute of Technology, Suzuka College, Japan |
| Zi-Kui Liu | Penn State University, USA |
| David Matlock | Colorado School of Mines, USA |
| Matthias Militzer | University of British Columbia, Canada |
| Andreas Mortensen | EPFL, Switzerland |
| Tatsuki Ohji | AIST, Japan |
| Eugene Olevsky | San Diego State University, USA |
| Kathy Peizhen Lu | Virginia Tech, USA |
| Vilupanur Ravi | California Polytechnic State University, USA |
| C. Ravindran | Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada |
| Huseyin Sehitoglu | University of Illinois, USA |
| John Shingledecker | Electric Power Research Institute, USA |
| S. K. Sundaram | Alfred University, USA |
| C. Suryanarayana | University of Central Florida, USA |
| Uday Vaidya | University of Tennessee, USA |
| Edgar Zanotto | Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: International Materials Reviews
International Materials Reviews only publishes articles commissioned by the editors. If you would like to publish a review, you will need to first submit a completed review proposal template to either the UK or the US editorial board to be considered for commissioning. It is not possible to submit a review article without your proposal being first commissioned by one of the two Editorial Boards. Please see Section 5 of these guidelines for more information.
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/inm to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Sage disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of International Materials Reviews will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that International Materials Reviews will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper to a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If your paper is accepted, you will need to contact the preprint server to ensure the final published article link is attached to your preprint. Learn more about our preprint policy here.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Identifiable information
4.4 Supplemental material
4.5 Reference style
4.6 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Before submitting your manuscript to International Materials Reviews, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope;
International Materials Reviews publishes peer-reviewed critical assessments of the literature on all aspects of materials science and engineering. Its aim is to provide timely, authoritative introductions to current thinking, developments and research in carefully selected topics. Leading edge reviews provide a concise overview of rapidly developing areas of the discipline, while maintaining the journal's high standard of rigour and critical assessment. Most reviews are invited by the Editors but proposals for reviews are welcomed.
International Materials Reviews accepts the following types of article: Full critical reviews, Leading edge reviews. All reviews are commissioned by the editorial panel on the basis of a completed proposal outline. Unsolicited full reviews cannot be submitted for consideration, as the journal only publishes commissioned reviews.
Please note, International Materials Reviews does not publish original research.
Full critical reviews should be authoritative and convey accurately the state of the art to those who are not specialists in the particular field, but who need a focused, comprehensive overview. The review must be critical and interpret the literature. Annotated literature surveys, however comprehensive, will not be accepted.
Reviews should be less than 12,000 words in length although this guideline figure may be varied in special cases at the discretion of the editors. In the case of a first review of a subject, it may be necessary to include material over 10 years old; if so, this should be on a selective basis, where exclusion would seriously affect comprehension by the reader. Where an adequate and readily available critical, interpretative review has already been published, the author should concentrate on developments subsequent to that review.
All the most important items of literature should be surveyed, including patents where appropriate, and the accompanying bibliography must be comprehensive in coverage but selective. Reference must not be made to unpublished work. It is expected that the author will draw on personal experience to comment critically throughout the review. An authoritative summary and conclusions section is of particular importance. Authors should seek to draw together the main themes and findings of the review, and give a perspective on the future direction and development of the field. A full review might typically have 20-30 figures and 2-5 tables.
Leading edge reviews aim to provide an overview of important rapidly developing areas of the discipline (guide length is less than 5,000 words). While maintaining the same standards of rigour and critical assessment as full reviews, the aim is to assess progress to date and highlight areas of particularly rapid development. A Leading Edge review might typically have 10-15 figures and 2-3 tables.
Please visit our Sage Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstracts.
Visit the Sage Author Gateway for general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication.
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
- The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
- The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
- The author has recommended the reviewer.
- The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by at least two expert reviewers. International Materials Reviews utilizes a single-anonymised peer review process in which the reviewer’s name and information is withheld from the author. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their names to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for their identities to remain concealed. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by the alternative regional Editorial panel and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
International Materials Reviews is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Web of Science (previously Publons). Web of Science is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for International Materials Reviews can opt in to Web of Science in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Web of Science website.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools. If undeclared artificially generated text is detected at any stage the submission will be rejected.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves. If the use of an unauthorised third party is detected at any stage the submission will be rejected.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
International Materials Reviews requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of International Materials Reviews to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
International Materials Reviews does not publish papers reporting animal and/or human studies.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
International Materials Reviews and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information, please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
International Materials Reviews offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
International Materials Reviews adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file.
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the Journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
International Materials Reviews only publishes articles commissioned by the editors. If you would like to publish a review, you will need to first submit a completed review proposal template to either the UK or the US editorial board to be considered for commissioning.
It is not possible to submit a review article without your proposal being first commissioned by one of the two Editorial Boards.
Because we receive many more proposals outlines than we can commission and because sometimes we comment on the structure and scope of proposed reviews, please do not write a complete review for IMR on the expectation that we will be able to publish it.
Please ensure that all listed authors have approved the submission of the proposal.
International Materials Reviews is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created for you. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
We encourage all authors and co-authors to link their ORCIDs to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. We collect ORCID IDs during the manuscript submission process and your ORCID ID then becomes part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the International Materials Reviews editorial office as follows:
Philip J Withers: p.j.withers@manchester.ac.uk
Krishan Chawla: kchawla@uab.edu
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com