Editorial

The time is ripe for a historical overview. The journal Materiales de Construcción was founded in 1949 at the Technical Institute for Construction and Cement, the forerunner of today’s Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Science, under the title Últimos Avances en Materiales de Construcción. Boletín de circulación limitada [latest developments in construction materials: restricted circulation newsletter]. In 1958 it was renamed Materiales de Construcción. Últimos Avances and since 1974 has been published under its present title.

Although the journal’s first issue is undated, Professor José Calleja, then member of the Editorial Board, informs us that it was released in 1949. It was not until 1951, however, that the issues began to bear a date. Although now nearly 70 years old, Materiales de Construcción remains young in every respect and brimming with updated vitality.

The journal’s Editorial Board and Advisory Council, and on a daily basis its Editor-in-Chief and Secretary of the Editorial Board, strive to maintain that fresh, youthful spirit in pursuit of the ongoing renovation required by any international scientific publication. Materiales de Construcción takes pride in its internationality and demanding standards: in 2017 80 % of the articles submitted were received from abroad and the total rejection rate was on the order of 70 %.

The journal’s listing in the major databases of peer-reviewed literature such as Scopus and Scimago reinforces its international prestige as a benchmark in the area of building materials. Moreover, since 1998 the journal has been uninterruptedly indexed in the Web of Science (today WoS-Clarivate), the world’s foremost platform for scientific journal evaluation. That achievement is shared by very few Spanish scientific journals and confirms that, driven by an unrelenting resolve to improve, Materiales de Construcción has consistently maintained its international prestige.

WoS-Clarivate recently released its 2017 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) impact factors for scientific journals. Now standing at 1.803 (up from 1.343 in 2016), Materiales de Construcción’s IF consolidates its Q2 ranking in the category ‘Construction & Building Technology’, where it is listed 24^th of 62, four higher than in the preceding year, and its Q3 status under ‘Materials Science, Multidisciplinary’, where it climbed 28 positions to 158^th place out of 258 journals. According to the National Research Council’s Publications Director, that sets an if record for all 37 of the council’s journals!!! and makes materiales spain’s highest ranking periodical. The figure below depicts the trend in the journal’s IF. More on:

http://jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com/JCRJournalProfileAction.action?pg=JRNLPROF&journalImpactFactor=1.803&year=2017&journalTitle=MATERIALES%20DE%20CONSTRUCCION&edition=SCIE&journal=MATER%20CONSTRUCC

The CITES SCORE 2017 (SCOPUS) data, likewise recently released, are also very favourable for Materiales de Construcción: as 34^th (by number of citations) of 161 ‘Building and Construction’ journals, it holds a position in Q1 and is the highest ranking Spanish journal in that category. CITES SCORE is deemed by some very highly reputed journals such as Cement and Concrete Composites to be as or more meaningful than JCR-WoS. More on:

https://www.scopus.com/sources?sortField=&sortDirection=&isHiddenField=&field=issn&issn=04652746&issn=4652746&_openAccess=on&_countCheck=on&count=0&countField=documentsMin&_bestPercentile=on&_quartile=on&_quartile=on&_quartile=on&_quartile=on&_type=on&_type=on&_type=on&_type=on

Materiales de Construcción also attained a very high score in 2017 on the SCIMAGO JOURNAL RANK-2017. It is in Q1 in the three scientific areas under which it is classified and the highest ranking Spanish journal in all three. More on:

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=17135&tip=sid&clean=0

We take this cheerful opportunity to congratulate all involved for a job well done and very specifically to thank the members of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Council for their role in ensuring the scientific and technological quality of the journal’s content. Special thanks are also due to Eduardo Fernández at the Torroja Institute for his silent but very efficient work, so vital to the ­journal’s day-to-day.

And of course we are deeply grateful to our contributors for their excellence and our readership for their loyalty.

Prof. Francisca Puertas
Editor -In Chief

Dr. Mar Alonso
Secretary, Editorial Board