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Title page | Impact Statement | Abstract | Main text | Acknowledgements | Author Contribution statement | Inclusivity statement | Financial Support | Conflict of Interest statement | Ethics statements | Data Availability statement | Policy on prior publications | Author affiliations | Peer reviewing responses | Use of AI tools | English language editing services | Seeking permissions for copyrighted material | ORCID | Open Practice Badges | Supplementary Materials

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record. 

Title page

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation (including town or city and country) for each author (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address.

Author affiliations 

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated. 

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

Impact Statements

Impact statements are required for all articles submitted to the journal and should provide a short summary on the wider beneficial use of the research presented in your article. This statement should highlight the relevance of the research to addressing global challenges and the translational considerations required to enable successful scaling, integration or implementation of new materials and systems. Please note these statements may be used in promotional activities to increase the visibility of your published article. Impact statements should not exceed 300 words and be comprehensible to a broad, potentially non-academic audience.

Abstract

Abstracts (200 words max for a research article, and 350 words maximum for a review article) should summarize the background, findings, and implications of the work.

Second language abstracts

In full acknowledgement and celebration of the diversity of the field, we welcome inclusion of a translation of the original abstract into any second language.

Please note:

• The translated abstract should be included in the main abstract field on the submission system, underneath the English text. This is how the abstracts will appear in the published article.
• Authors are responsible for the content of their article, including any second language abstract, but we encourage appropriate transparency and crediting of any non-author contributions to the translation in the Acknowledgements of the article.
• Reviewer and editor assessment during peer review of second language abstracts is not expected. Language translation software may be used at Cambridge’s discretion.
• No typesetting or post acceptance editing will be conducted to the second language abstract. The translated abstract must be updated by the authors to always reflect any changes to the English language abstract.
• Further non-English abstracts (beyond one) may be provided as supplementary material, but will not be included in the text of the article.

Figures and tables

Tables should be supplied as editable files only.  Resolution: halftone images must be saved at 300 dpi at approximately the final size. Line drawings should be saved at 1000 dpi, or 1200 dpi if very fine line weights have been used. Combination figures must be saved at a minimum of 600 dpi. Cambridge recommends that only TIFF, EPS, or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. For more detailed guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Please note that once your paper is accepted, you will have the option to reinsert your figures before the accepted manuscript is posted online.

Main text

See article type specific requirements table.

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).

Author Contribution statement

Authorship should be based on the following principles, as outlined in the Cambridge University Publishing Ethics Guidelines:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
Final approval of the version to be published;
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
In the process of submitting the article through the ScholarOne system, the corresponding author is prompted to provide further details about contributions to the article using the CRediT taxonomy. People who have contributed to the article but do not meet the full criteria for authorship should be recognised in the acknowledgements section; their contribution can be described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy. 

Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process.

Inclusivity statement (if appropriate)

Cambridge Materials: Circularity values meaningful inclusion of local communities in the research process. We ask authors to demonstrate genuine engagement with (not on) local stakeholders/ communities throughout the planning, execution, and dissemination of their work.

To support transparency and accountability, we encourage authors to include an Inclusivity Statement within the main text of their article when relevant.

 If your research involved local communities or drew on their knowledge, beliefs, or experiences, please address the following questions in a maximum of 300 words:

• How was consent sought, and local communities engaged with in the co-production of knowledge - the design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination of the research?
• As far as you are aware, how do the strategies and solutions you present in your paper align with the cultures, beliefs and aspirations of the local community?
• How do you intend to report your findings, and the impact of your findings, back to the local community?

Financial Support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."

Conflict of Interest statement

Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their manuscript.

• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work.
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.

Ethics statements (if appropriate)

See Publishing Ethics(opens in a new tab) for more information.

Data Availability statement

See Data Availability Statements(opens in a new tab) for more information.

Graphical Abstracts

In addition to the standard abstract, submission of graphical abstracts is also encouraged for all articles to help promote their impact online. A Graphical Abstract is a single image that summarises the main findings of a paper, allowing readers to quickly gain an overview and understanding of your work.  Well-designed and prepared graphical abstracts are an important way to publicise your research, attracting readers, and helping to disseminate your work to a wider audience. Ideally, the graphical abstract should be created independently of the figures already in the paper, but it could include a (simplified version of) an existing figure or a combination thereof. 

Post-publication the graphical abstracts will be used for journal article social media promotion and will be displayed at article level and on the article landing page online.

The graphical abstract should be submitted separately from the main paper using the ‘Graphical Abstract’ file designation on ScholarOne. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read and should illustrate the main pointers of your manuscript. The Editors will decide if your Graphical Abstract is satisfactory or needs improvement, but this will not determine the result of the peer-review findings. 

Technical specifications for graphical abstracts

• We recommend that only TIFF, EPS or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. Other non-preferred but usable formats are JPG, PPT and GIF files and images created in Microsoft Word
• Single panel
• Landscape orientation
• Simple, clean design with minimal text (if it must be used, it should be legible in a small thumbnail (2.4cmx2cm))
• Aspect ratio 1.2:1 (e.g. 6cm x 5cm)
• GIF or high-resolution JPEG format (300 dpi) - unless very large, vector graphics are preferred to ensure image sharpness regardless of sizing
• Captions and titles are not required
• A graphical abstract does not need the text ‘graphical abstract’ on it!

The image may be scaled to fit the appropriate space on Cambridge Core, so please ensure that any font used is clear to read, and that any text is included as part of the image file (although text should ideally be kept to a minimum).

For further information about how to prepare your figures, including sizing and resolution requirements, please see our artwork guide. 

Peer Reviewing Responses

Author responses to peer reviewer comments should be added in the response to reviewers free text box upon article resubmission, not as an attached file or in an email to the editorial office. All author responses to peer reviewer comments will be published alongside their articles.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content. 

In particular, any use of an AI tool: 

• to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s) 
• to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements. 
• to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript 
• must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission 

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article. 

English language editing services 

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.  

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal. 

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Please see further guidance here.

ORCID

We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

• Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
• Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
• Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.

If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information. 

Open Practice Badges

During the submission process you will be asked to confirm whether or not you have met the criteria for Open Practice Badges, which are awarded for best practices in open research. For more information see this journal’s research transparency policies.

Supplementary Material

Additional material (e.g. data sets, large tables) relevant to the article can be submitted with your manuscript for publication online, where they are made available via a link from the article. The article should stand alone without these data. Supplementary material can be provided in any format, and must be cited in a relevant place in the text of the article.

Supplemental figures or tables with the prefix ‘S’, e.g. Supplementary Figure S1, Supplementary Table S1. Colour images for online publication as Supplementary Material must be saved in RGB format (not CMYK).

Supplementary materials will be published with the same metadata as your parent article, and are considered a formal part of the academic record, so cannot be retracted or modified other than via our article correction processes. Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please make sure you are familiar with our detailed guidance on supplementary materials prior to submission.