MRS Energy & Sustainability Manuscript Submission Requirements

Manuscripts must be:

• Written in English
• Saved as a .doc file
• Double-spaced
• Single column

Manuscript submissions must include the following:

• Cover letter providing an overview of the article. Authors must also confirm that the manuscript has not been published previously in any form and is not under consideration for publication in another journal at the time of submission.
• Title page with manuscript title, all authors’ names and affiliations (including mailing addresses and postal codes), 1-2 sentence summary, abstract, and name and institutional email address of the corresponding author. During submission, authors must enter all co-author names, addresses, and institutional email addresses into the submission system.
• One-two sentence summary and full abstract, outlining the key points of the review in 200 words or fewer. Avoid the use of jargon and other terminology that would render the abstract inaccessible to the non-specialist. Use past tense when referring to experiments but present tense when referring to scientific law. The summary and abstract should be included in the submitted manuscript file.
• Two-four discussion points relating to controversial, provocative, or as yet unsettled issues related to the topic. The discussion points should be included in the submitted manuscript.
• Please identify the figure or figure part that best represents your paper for display in the online abstract. A color figure that is visually interesting and tells the reader at a glance what the paper is about is recommended. Please be specific [i.e., Fig. 3(a) or Fig. 3(b)].
• Three preferred reviewers, including name, email, and institutions. Each reviewer must be from a different institution and not from the institution of the authors. Authors may also note non-preferred reviewers.
• Three keywords selected from the MRS Publications Keyword List. These keywords are used to facilitate topical searches in the online version of MRS Energy & Sustainability.
• High resolution figures. The preferred format for figure submission is .tif or .eps format. Please note that the system has a 60 MB upload limit. Submissions containing previously published figures must include permission to reprint from the copyright holder.
• A License to Publish agreement must be submitted at the time of manuscript submission. The agreement can be found and downloaded here. The corresponding author’s name must appear on all forms. The completed License to Publish form may be uploaded with the submitted manuscript or sent to the Editorial Office electronically at energy@mrs.org. Manuscripts cannot be accepted for publication until the completed form is received. NOTE: MRS participates under Read-and-Publish (R&P) agreements made by Cambridge University Press. European authors (and U.S. authors from the University of California system) should check the current list of organizations to determine if their work should be published Open Access under such an agreement.

Supplementary Material

MRS Energy & Sustainability allows the submission of supplemental material for online publication. Supplementary Material is defined as any content that supports, but is not key to, the understanding of a published item’s message. Given that Supplementary Material is exclusively published online, it may include file types (video, audio) that are incompatible with a print format.

Supplementary Material is subject to the same peer review process and copyright requirements as all primary content. It will not be copy-edited nor typeset, but will be published as approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Common types of Supplementary Material include audio and video files and large datasets or tables. Datasets, tables, and other textual material are commonly submitted as PDF, Excel, or Word files. The author should ensure that an in-text citation to each Supplementary file has been made in the article. Preferably, in-text cites will appear in a separate section at the end of the article, following the text and preceding the traditional “References” or “Notes” section. Supplementary figures and tables should be labeled as FIG. S1, FIG. S2, etc. and TABLE SI, TABLE SII, etc.

The author will be able to check in page proofs to be certain that the in-text citation appears properly; however, the Supplementary Material files themselves will not be circulated with the page proofs. When an article is published online, the Supplementary Material will be published online with the article.

Files should be in final, publishable format upon submission. MRS Energy & Sustainability will not edit or typeset Supplementary Material, nor will it modify audio or video files in any substantive way. The author will be notified if a submitted file does not meet quality and size requirements.

Some Supplementary Material may not be able to be submitted through our online peer review systems, due to file size or compatibility problems. In such cases, and for all other questions regarding supplementary material, contact the Editorial Office.

Important Notes about Electronic Manuscript Submission

Please carefully review the converted PDF file to verify that special characters and formatting have not been lost during conversion. The converted PDF proof that is approved and submitted is viewed by the Editorial Office, editor and reviewers.

You must click “Build PDF for Approval” and “Approve submission” to complete the manuscript submission process. 

After successful submission, all authors will receive a confirmation email containing the manuscript number.

To check manuscript status, the corresponding author may log on to the MRS Energy & Sustainability Editorial Manager site and proceed to the Author menu, where current status information is displayed for all of that author’s articles.

Please list energy@mrs.org as an allowable sender in your email system to ensure that all email notifications are delivered.

Authorship Declaration

MRS Energy & Sustainability does not require all authors of a paper to sign a letter of submission. The corresponding or submitting author is presumed to have sought the agreement of each named author for all content interpretation. The named corresponding author will be responsible for all communication with the Journal and author group.

After acceptance, the corresponding author shall take responsibility for taking delivery of proofs and circulating them to co-authors. The corresponding author is especially responsible for ensuring that the names and affiliations of co-authors are all present, correctly spelled and current.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

In the interests of full disclosure and transparency of any potential bias, MRS Energy & Sustainability requires authors to declare any financial interests relating to the work described in the submission. A short statement should be supplied and will be printed as part of the final article.

Competing interests are defined as any financial relationships that, through their potential influence, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a body of work. This may include: research funding, employment, consultation fees, or other personal financial interests.

Since it is impossible to define a specific threshold at which financial interests become significant, authors should refer to the policies of their own institution or consider whether undisclosed financial interests could be considered potentially embarrassing, should they become publicly known after publication.

Should no declaration be provided as part of the submission, it will be assumed that the authors have declared that they do not have any conflict of interest.