Energy & Environmental Science

• 1. Introduction

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  Energy & Environmental Science, known widely as EES, carries a 2023 impact factor of 32.4 - a number that places it among the most cited journals in its field. That figure, reported by the Journal Citation Reports, is a signal of how urgently researchers and policymakers treat the questions EES exists to answer: how do we power civilization without destroying it? Jenny Nelson of Imperial College London serves as editor-in-chief, overseeing a publication that has become a focal point for interdisciplinary work on energy science. The journal is monthly, peer-reviewed, and published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. What kinds of work make it into those pages? And how did a single journal grow into a whole family of companion publications?

• 2. A Journal for Urgent Questions

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  EES publishes original research alongside review articles, and the range of formats it accepts reflects the variety of ways energy science moves forward. Research Papers present new scientific findings. Communications carry original work marked urgent in nature, allowing faster dissemination of time-sensitive discoveries. Beyond those, EES publishes Review Articles, Perspectives, and Minireviews - each aimed at broad interest across disciplines. Opinions offer personal, often speculative, viewpoints or hypotheses on current topics, giving scientists room to think out loud in print. Analysis Articles go further still, examining energy and environmental technologies, strategies, policies, and general conceptual frameworks of broad interest. That last category is notable: few journals explicitly invite analysis of policy and strategy alongside laboratory science.

• 3. How the World Finds It

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  The Thomson Reuters Master Journal List and the Chemical Abstracts Service registry known as CASSI both index EES, meaning the journal's articles are findable through several major discovery services. Science Citation Index Expanded is among them - one of the most widely consulted indexes for scientific literature. EES also appears in Current Contents across three distinct subject groupings: Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences; Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences; and Engineering, Computing & Technology. That spread across three Current Contents categories is itself a reflection of the journal's interdisciplinary scope. A paper on solar cell chemistry and a paper on energy policy can both legitimately belong in its pages.

• 4. The EES Family

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  In 2022, the Royal Society of Chemistry launched EES Catalysis, the first companion journal to EES. Two more followed in 2024: EES Batteries and EES Solar. With EES positioned as the flagship family journal, these four publications now constitute what the Royal Society of Chemistry calls the EES Family. Each companion concentrates on a specific subdomain - catalysis, battery science, solar energy - while the parent journal continues to publish agenda-setting, interdisciplinary work that cuts across those boundaries. The decision to build companion journals rather than simply expand EES reflects a recognition that each subfield has grown large enough to warrant its own dedicated venue.