Journal profile · Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Soft Matter
ISSN 1744-683X · eISSN 1744-6848 · Royal Society of Chemistry · ENGLAND · Monthly · Founded 2005
Soft Matter: CAS Zone 3 · Chemistry (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 2.92; hybrid open access; APC charged, amount not published; review about 1.6 months (community reports); community-reported acceptance: fairly hard; 989 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Soft Matter is published by Royal Society of Chemistry and is in Zone 3 of Chemistry in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization, Surfactants and Colloidal Systems and Material Dynamics and Properties, together about 23.5% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Research may report new soft materials or phenomena, encompass their design, synthesis, and use in new applications; or provide fundamental insight and observations on their behaviour. Experimental, theoretical and computational soft matter approaches are encouraged. The scope of Soft Matter covers the following. Soft matter assemblies, including colloids, granular matter, liquid crystals, gels & networks, polymers, hybrid materials, active matter and further examplesSoft nanotechnology, soft robotics and devicesSynthesis, self-assembly and directed assemblyBiological aspects of soft matter including proteins, biopolymers, cells and tissuesSurfaces, interfaces and interactionsPhase behaviour, coacervation and rheological behaviourSustainable soft materials including recycling, circular economy and end of lifeMechanistic insights and modelling
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Editor-in-chief Alfred CrosbyPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 25%); most named Mainland China 1, India 1, Spain 1, Australia 1 (4 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Pickering emulsions and particle stabilizationMaterials Science8.2%
- Surfactants and Colloidal SystemsChemistry8.2%
- Material Dynamics and PropertiesMaterials Science7.1%
- Polymer Surface Interaction StudiesMaterials Science5.4%
- Micro and Nano RoboticsPhysics and Astronomy5.3%
- Lipid Membrane Structure and BehaviorBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.3%
- Supramolecular Self-Assembly in MaterialsMaterials Science4.7%
- Advanced Materials and MechanicsEngineering4.7%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Chemistry Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Chemistry | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Materials Science, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Physics, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Polymer Science | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Chemistry Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Chemistry | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Chemistry, Physical | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Materials Science, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Physics, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Polymer Science | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Chemistry Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Chemistry | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Polymer Science | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Chemistry, Physical | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Materials Science, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Physics, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
ESCIWeb of ScienceMEDLINEPubMedPublisher website
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 2.92LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 2.9Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 5.2LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.67LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 0.77LetPub ·
- h-index
- 143LetPub ·
- h-index
- 232OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 12,391OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.91OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 10.3%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 40.97%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 767LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 21,401 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 619 | 383 | 176 |
| 2025 | 989 | 693 | 2,537 |
| 2024 | 1,024 | 679 | 4,955 |
| 2023 | 1,033 | 540 | 8,021 |
| 2022 | 988 | 362 | 10,478 |
| 2021 | 1,106 | 423 | 14,032 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 1.6 monthsLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- Fairly hardLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 30 daysPublisher website ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer review, Single anonymous peer review, Open peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Hybrid open accessLetPub
A subscription journal in which authors can pay to publish their article open access.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher website | GBP 3,100 | — | — |
A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare4 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- 50–250 words
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 2,000 words
- Reference style
- ACS
- Templates
- LaTeX and Word
Article types accepted10
- commentsSoft Matter publishes: Communications Full papers Reviews Perspectives Tutorial reviews CommentsLength not stated
- communicationsCommunications in Soft Matter contain novel scientific work of such importance and interest that rapid publication is required.Length not stated
- full paperFull papers in Soft Matter present original, high quality primary research that has not been previously published. Full papers start with a brief unreferenced a…Length not stated
- full papersFull papers in Soft Matter present original, high quality primary research that has not been previously published.Length not stated
- perspectivePerspectives are invited contributions offering the personal viewpoint of leading scientists in their area of research. They present a state-of-the-art account …Length not stated
- perspectivesPerspectives are invited contributions offering the personal viewpoint of leading scientists in their area of research.Length not stated
- reviewReviews and Perspectives in Soft Matter must be authoritative, critical, state-of-the-art accounts of the selected research field, focusing on the key developme…Length not stated
- reviewsThe purpose of a Review is to bring the reader up to date with research in a particular field.Length not stated
- tutorialTutorial reviews should provide detailed discussions of techniques, methods, and protocols of important topics relevant to the journal readership. The article s…Length not stated
- tutorial reviewsTutorial reviews should provide detailed discussions of techniques, methods, and protocols of important topics relevant to the journal readership.Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Conflicts of interest, Data availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Preprints
- Authorship Authorship
Include full names and affiliations for all authors. Everyone who made a significant contribution to the conception, design or implementation of the work should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author has the responsibility to include all (and only) co-authors. The corresponding author also signs a copyright licence on behalf of all the authors. If there are more than 10 co-authors on th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Conflicts of interest
In accordance with our policy on Conflicts of interest please ensure that a conflicts of interest statement is included in your manuscript. This statement is required for all submitted manuscripts. If no conflicts exist, please state that ‘There are no conflicts to declare’.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
Data availability statement required Model summary
A data availability statement (DAS) is required to be submitted alongside all articles. Please see the submit section of these guidelines for more details and examples of suitable statements you can use.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Using images and copyright
Any images that are used should be numerically referenced in the figure caption. If your work is solely for your course, and will not be published publicly, you don’t need to obtain copyright permission. If you are preparing an article to be published you will have to obtain copyright permission. The publisher/copyright owner of the image will need to be contacted and asked for their process for r…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open access publishing options
Gold open access APC £3,100 Model summary
Gold open access For authors who want to publish their article gold open access, our article processing charge (APC) of £3,100 (+ any applicable tax) is applied. Our APC is all-inclusive and makes your article freely available online immediately, permanently, and includes your choice of Creative Commons licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC) at no extra cost. It is not a submission charge, so you only pay if…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Transparent peer review
Transparent peer review available Model summary
In the interest of transparency and open science, transparent peer review is where the editor’s decision letter, reviewers’ comments and authors’ response for all versions of the manuscript are published alongside the article under an Open Access Creative Commons licence (CC-BY) . You can see some examples here: Transparent peer review example oneTransparent peer review example twoTransparent peer…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprint servers (for example, ChemRxiv, arXiv)
ChemRxiv & bioRxiv: The citation should include the author(s), the name of the preprint server, the year, the word “preprint” and the DOI (including version number). S. Bhattacharjee, S. P. Chaudhary and S. Bhattacharyya, ChemRxiv, 2019, preprint, DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.9794270.v1 arXiv: The citation should include the author(s), the name of the preprint server, the year, the article number and th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- Country or region
- ENGLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Founded
- 2005
- ISSN
- 1744-683X
- Electronic ISSN
- 1744-6848
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Soft Matter
What CAS zone is Soft Matter in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Soft Matter is in Zone 3 of Chemistry, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Materials Science, Multidisciplinary / Physics, Multidisciplinary / Polymer Science. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Chemistry. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Soft Matter?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 2.92; CiteScore 5.2, h-index 232.
How long does peer review take at Soft Matter?
Authors report an average review time of about 1.6 months; the community-reported acceptance is “Fairly hard”. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Soft Matter?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: 50–250 words; Manuscript length: ≤ 2,000 words; Reference style: ACS; Templates: LaTeX and Word. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Soft Matter based?
Of the 4 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 25%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Mainland China (1), India (1) and Spain (1). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Soft Matter?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Soft Matter is indexed in SCIE and Scopus. The journal's website also lists ESCI, Web of Science, MEDLINE and PubMed; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Soft Matter open access, and what is the APC?
Soft Matter is a hybrid journal. For open-access publication: APC charged, amount not published.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .