Progress In Materials Science

Progress in Materials Science (progress-in-materials-science)

Journal positioning

Progress in Materials Science is an Elsevier review journal that publishes authoritative, comprehensive, and critical reviews spanning the breadth of materials science and engineering. Its defining product is the definitive critical review of an active, important field — a synthesis that maps the state of the art, reconciles conflicting evidence, exposes open problems, and sets a research agenda — not a report of new primary data. The journal rewards breadth of coverage, depth of critical judgment, and balance across competing schools of thought; a narrow mini-review, a literature roundup with no synthesis, or an unsolicited primary-research paper is a misfit. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official author guidelines. Before submitting or proposing, re-check the live Progress in Materials Science Guide for Authors and any proposal process.

When to trigger

• The author has a comprehensive, critical review of a materials field and is weighing Progress in Materials Science as the venue.
• A manuscript must be re-framed from "here are our new results" into a field-spanning critical synthesis, or the author is unsure their piece is a review at all.
• The author is deciding between this journal, a shorter review outlet, and a primary-research venue, and needs the comprehensiveness/balance bar.
• The author needs the proposal/invitation expectations and the review-specific desk-reject heuristics.

Scope & topic fit

• Comprehensive critical reviews across the full span of materials science: metals, ceramics, polymers, composites, semiconductors, and emerging classes.
• Reviews of processing–structure–property–performance understanding in a field, synthesizing how mechanism-level knowledge has matured over time.
• Cross-cutting methodological reviews (characterization, computation, design frameworks) when they critically appraise the field rather than tutorialize.
• Topics with a substantial, mature body of literature that genuinely needs a consolidating, evaluative synthesis — not nascent areas with thin evidence.
• Reviews that frame the unresolved controversies and chart credible future directions for the community, not just summarize what has been published.
• Authoritative coverage written by authors with demonstrable command of the field; the review is expected to be a reference work, often invited.

Method & evidence bar

• The contribution is critical synthesis: the review must weigh, compare, and judge the literature, not merely catalog it; uncritical summaries are rejected.
• Coverage must be comprehensive and balanced — major schools of thought, competing models, and contradictory results are represented and reconciled, not cherry-picked toward the authors' own work.
• Claims about the state of the field must be traceable to the primary literature with accurate, complete, and current citation; key foundational and recent works must both be present.
• The review should add value beyond existing reviews: state explicitly what gap in the existing review literature it fills and why now.
• Figures and tables must be evaluative tools (comparative property maps, mechanism schematics, taxonomies), with permissions secured for reproduced material; the synthesis, not the figure count, carries the article.
• Any original analysis (re-plotted data, meta-comparison) must be methodologically transparent and clearly distinguished from reproduced material.

Structure & house style

• Long-form review structure: a framing introduction, thematically organized critical sections, a synthesis/outlook, and an exhaustive reference list; Progress in Materials Science publishes comprehensive reviews, so route short-form reviews and primary papers elsewhere and re-check current article types on the live guide.
• The introduction defines the field, the scope boundaries, and why a critical review is needed now; it is not a primer.
• Sections build an argument about the state of knowledge — each ends with what is settled, what is contested, and what remains open.
• Figures are mostly curated/comparative; secure copyright permissions and credit sources for every reproduced figure per the current policy.
• A forward-looking outlook section identifying the most consequential open problems is expected of a definitive review.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the Elsevier anchors, then cite the current Progress in Materials Science Guide for Authors page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Progress in Materials Science guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier/Editorial Manager version.
• Check whether a review proposal / pre-submission inquiry or editor invitation is expected before a full manuscript, and follow the current process.
• Re-check expectations for review length, figure/table permissions, and copyright clearance for all reproduced material.
• Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution (CRediT), and AI-use disclosure requirements, plus any conflict-of-interest rules for reviews citing the authors' own work heavily.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• The piece is a comprehensive, critical review — not a primary-research paper or a thin mini-review.
• Coverage is balanced across competing models/schools, not skewed toward the authors' own contributions.
• Every state-of-the-field claim is traceable to accurate, current primary citations.
• The review states explicitly what gap in the existing review literature it fills.
• All reproduced figures/tables have secured permissions and proper attribution.
• A forward-looking outlook identifies the most consequential open problems.

Common desk-reject triggers

• An unsolicited primary-research manuscript submitted to a review-only venue.
• A narrow mini-review or a literature roundup with summary but no critical synthesis.
• Coverage biased toward the authors' own work, with major competing views omitted.
• A field too immature or too narrow to warrant a definitive comprehensive review.
• Outdated or incomplete referencing that misrepresents the current state of the art.
• Reproduced figures without permissions or with missing source attribution.

Re-routing decision

• Primary processing–structure–property research → acta-materialia.
• High-impact, shorter conceptual review/perspective → nature-reviews-materials or nature-materials.
• Concrete/cementitious-materials review or science → cement-and-concrete-research.
• Polymer/structural-composite focused review → composites-part-b-engineering.
• Additive-manufacturing-specific review or process study → additive-manufacturing.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Progress in Materials Science
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest materials subfields>
[Review type] comprehensive critical review / (misfit: primary paper / mini-review)
[Synthesis] <the central critical argument about the field in one line>
[Coverage/balance] <is coverage comprehensive and balanced across competing views?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <proposal route / length / figure permissions / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → Engineering-Technology-Journal-Skills/skills/progress-in-materials-science/SKILL.md