During the 2016 sol–gel Kyoto meeting, it was decided to appoint a few young and outstanding scientists working in new and promising sol–gel fields. A selection has been done by the JSST editors and all members of the International Editorial Board. Their names appear below as well as on the first page of the journal. Each one has agreed to invite every year at least three outstanding scientists working in attractive topics (see below) to submit an invited paper for JSST (either a review of such emerging fields or a typical R&D paper emphasizing outstanding results and promises). They also agreed to write an extended editorial summarizing the importance of these new fields or a perspective article about these R&D emerging fields.

We hope in this way that the JSST readers will get up-to-date information on the development of R&D directions.

The topics chosen by the young assistant editors are:

  • Sol–gel technology for future smart cities by Xiabo Chen, University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA

  • Sol–gel technology for the controlled localization of fundamental materials by Paolo Falcaro, Graz University of Technology, 8010 Graz, Austria

  • Characterization techniques by Andrei Jitianu, Lehman College, City University of New York, 10468 New York, USA

  • Advances materials in regenerative medicine by Julian Jones, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2BP London

  • Carbon-based nanophotonics in sol–gel materials by Luca Malfatti, Università di Sassari, 07041 Alghero,

  • New materials for 3D/2D printing-additive manufacturing by Alex Martucci, Università di Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy

  • Aqueous sol–gel for green process by Yasuaki Tokudome, Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka, Japan

Till now 13 outstanding scientists have accepted to participate in this project, and the JSST editors are really pleased to announce the publication of the first invited paper in the JSST April 2017 issue. The authors have been invited by the young assistant editor Yasuki Tokudome. The title of this invited contribution is “Transparent Polyvinylsilsesquioxane Aerogels: Investigations on Synthetic Parameters and Surface Modification”. It has been submitted by Taiyo Shimizu, Kazuyoshi Kanamori (corresponding author) and Kazuki Nakanishi from the Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Sciences, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.

The other invited papers as well as the extended editorials and/or perspective articles will appear in future issues.