The first issue of the scientific and technical journal “Voprosy Materialovedeniya” (Issues of Materials Science) was published on September 28, 1995. The past years have included important stages in the development of domestic materials science, which had a significant impact on the formation and development of the journal. Since then, our edition has become a popular communication platform for the exchange of theoretical and practical knowledge and scientific and technical achievements in many current areas of modern materials science.

The idea of creating a magazine in the context of the country’s transition to a market economy belongs to Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Igor Vasilievich Gorynin, director of the Central Research Institute of Structural Materials “Prometey”. The initiative was thoroughly thought out and justified, and at a meeting of the editorial board on June 16, 1993, it was unanimously approved. On that day, the prospects for the scientific and publishing activities of the institute were discussed in the conditions of the future inevitable restructuring of the organization of scientific research and production and technological developments. The scientific and methodological work carried out since then by the editorial board and editors is based on the scientific and technical policy of the founder of the journal (National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute” – CRISM “Prometey”). Its main principle is the complexity of the research – from the development of the scientific foundations to the creation of new materials and technologies. Their processing and organization of production, structural reliability and author’s support during operation are the important points of enterprise’s work.

An integrated approach characterizes the entire wide range of scientific developments and areas of activity of the institute – these include various metal, composite, polymer and functional structural materials, radiation-resistant steels and titanium alloys for nuclear energy, biologically compatible materials for medicine etc. Under the influence of many factors shaping the scientific and technical potential of the institute, as well as its publishing traditions, the journal “Voprosy Materialovedeniya” has developed as a multithematic periodical scientific publication of the all-Russian level.

The publication of the Institute Proceedings (then Central Research Institute No 48) began during the harsh war days, in 1941. Ultimately, 149 volumes were published (until 1972). In 1942–1944, the institute also printed express information (138 issues) with valuable advices about the most damageable components and parts of tank hulls and turrets, as well as instructions to our soldiers on the tactics of fighting enemy armoured vehicles, indicating clearly their most vulnerable spots.

After the war, from 1957 to 1992, the institute organized the publication of scientific and technical collections on the topics “Metals Science”, “Metallurgy”, “Welding”, “Titanium” (62 issues), “Issues of Shipbuilding” (105 issues), as well as “Shipbuilding Industry” (series “Metals Science. Metallurgy”, “Welding”, “Titanium”) (43 issues). These topics are the most important for our journal (in recent decades, functional materials also became very significant).

The journal аs already mentioned was founded in 1993, the first issue was published almost two years later, and in 1998, it began to be indexed in the bibliographic database of All-Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI RAS). In 2003, “Voprosy Materialovedeniya” was included in the List of peer-reviewed scientific periodicals for the publication of the main results of dissertations for the academic degrees of Doctor and Candidate of Sciences of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. The journal constantly confirms the high status; at the end of 2023, the journal entered the first quartile of the list within a subject area. In 2006, the journal entered the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) database system; since 2011, selected articles of the journal are published in English in the form of a separate collection as part of the joint scientific edition “Inorganic Materials: Applied Research”. 2015 is the year of the beginning of indexing in the Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory. In addition, it was included in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) on the Web of Science platform.

In 2016, Prometey established cooperation with Non-for-profit partnership “National Electronic Information Consortium” (NEICON) and connected the journal to the international system of bibliographic references CrossRef using DOI (digital object identifiers) and creating a journal’s homepage. During the pandemic, in 2020, the journal is included in the electronic database of EBSCO, the largest aggregator of scientific resources from the most famous publishing houses in the world.

The journal’s thematic embraces new areas of scientific research and technological developments aimed at practical problems of the national economy. Among the authors of our publications are well-known scientists and specialists from leading materials science centers, universities and industrial enterprises in various regions of the Russian Federation, as well as young promising scientists and graduate students. The publishing portfolio is growing steadily, 60% of the authors are doctors and candidates of science. Twenty-eight regions of the country, as well as the Republic of Belarus represent the readership of the journal, which has increased in recent years.

The establishment of the journal, the formation of theoretical and practical foundations for the development of various thematic areas of domestic materials science, were facilitated not only by scientific potential and professionalism, but also by the creative enthusiasm of the teams of authors represented on its pages.

The editorial board of the journal hopes that “Voprosy Materialovedeniya” will provide professional scientific communication between materials scientists for many years to come and promote the interpenetration of ideas and the implementation of the results of scientific research and development in various industries.