The Journal of the Royal Society Interface is an international scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 publishing reviews, research articles, and short reports from the interface between the physical sciences

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, including mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, and the life sciences

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

. It publishes research applying chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

, materials science

Materials science

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...

, mathematics, and physics to the biological and medical sciences

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

and highlights discoveries in the life sciences that allow advances in the physical sciences. Both sides of the interface are considered equally. Accepted articles are published immediately online and the hard copy version of the journal appears every month.

Free access is allowed to all review articles from the moment of online publication and to every article 12 months after publication in the journal.

Notable review articles

The following is a selection of notable review papers published in the journal:

• Biology by design: reduction and synthesis of cellular components and behaviour by Philippe Marguet, Frederick Balagadde, Cheemeng Tan and Lingchong You
• A geological history of reflecting optics by Andrew Parker
• Challenges in tissue engineering by Yoshito Ikada
• Systems interface biology by Francis J. Doyle and Jörg Stelling
• Networks and epidemic models by Matt J. Keeling and Ken T.D. Eames

Access

As of July 2008, issues from 2004-2006 are freely available online. Additionally, the most recent articles are available for free before formal publication, but not afterwards. The ones in between require a subscription, except for review articles.