Advanced Science

Last September, I submitted my paper to Advanced Materials. Three weeks later, I received an email suggesting that I transfer it to either Advanced Functional Materials or Advanced Science, as the content of my work leaned more towards biomedical applications of materials. On October 8th, I decided to transfer it to Advanced Science. After 42 days, I received the reviews, which required major and minor revisions. The editor rejected the paper but allowed resubmission. I spent over two months conducting additional experiments and submitted the revised paper on January 27th, 2021. Unfortunately, it took 56 days to receive the review comments, and the reviewer had changed. This time, the paper was accepted with minor and major revisions, with the major revision asking for clarification on the molecular mechanism. It was quite challenging as my experiments had a long cycle in vivo. So, I spent another two months working on it and resubmitted on May 22nd. On June 22nd, I received a reply from the editor, unexpectedly rejecting the paper. However, the reviewer's comments suggested minor revisions. I wrote an email appealing the decision the following day, and eventually, it was changed to minor revisions. On July 22nd, I submitted the third revised version, and on the afternoon of August 10th, I received an email accepting the paper. The entire submission process was tumultuous and lasted for 10 months. It seems that finding suitable reviewers for biomedical articles in this journal is not easy, and the review process is slow. However, fortunately, it had a satisfactory outcome in the end.

The submission process is a painful one, but after acceptance, everything becomes easy-going. Here, I share my experience of submitting to AS. The research I did was related to ion exchange membrane fuel cells and polymer adhesives.
On March 17th, I submitted my manuscript to AFM. After waiting for 27 days, I received a rejection letter on April 10th. It required minor revisions, but ultimately the boss asked me to respond and argue. I returned one week later.
On April 24th, I received a message stating that it would not be sent for review again, so I prepared to submit to AS.
On April 27th, I submitted.
On May 17th, I received a major revision request from three reviewers. Two required minor revisions, and one suggested transferring the paper. One of the reviewers even gave it a top 15% ranking. It seems that initially two reviewers were assigned, and after the suggestion to transfer, the editor found a third reviewer. In the end, the result was a major revision. Hoping for a smooth graduation, I spent one week collecting data and responding to questions and returned on May 25th.
On June 4th, at 7 PM, I received the final acceptance message. I made it just in time for graduation.
AS is quite efficient, but expensive (5000USD), which made the boss quite upset.
These past couple of days, I have been proofreading, and the online publication is also coming soon.