Call For Nominations: 2026 Rising Stars in Environmental Research

Nominations are open for the 2026 Rising Stars in Environmental Research Special Issue! To shine a light on the early-career researchers making significant contributions to the field, we invite you to submit a nomination for the 2026 Rising Stars.

This special issue will showcase original, cutting-edge, and impactful research from early-career researchers working in the field of environmental science and technology, both fundamental and applied. The scope of this special issue is intentionally broad and aims to highlight the researchers conducting work at the forefront of their field.

Those who are selected as Rising Stars will be invited to submit to ACS Environmental Au. These Rising Star publications will appear in issues throughout 2026 and then be collected in a Special Issue at the end of the year, which will be widely promoted. The work will be highlighted as a significant contribution from a researcher who is breaking new ground in their field. As a fully open access journal, ACS Environmental Au ensures that your research is freely available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world—maximizing visibility, accessibility, and impact.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Alternative energy
• Anthropogenic impacts on atmosphere, soil, or water
• Biogeochemical cycling
• Biomass or wastes as resources
• Contaminants in aquatic and terrestrial environments
• Environmental applications and implications of synthetic biology
• Environmental data science
• Environmental justice and equality
• Ecotoxicology and public health
• Energy and climate
• Environmental modeling, processes, and measurement methods and technologies
• Environmental nanotechnology and biotechnology
• Green chemistry
• Green manufacturing and engineering
• Risk assessment, regulatory frameworks, and life-cycle assessments
• Systems engineering and quantitative sustainability
• Treatment and resource recovery and waste management

Organizing Editors

Prof. Xiang-Dong Li, Deputy Editor, ACS Environmental Au
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Prof. Ian Cousins, Associate Editor, ACS Environmental Au
Stockholms Universitet, Sweden

Prof. Xing-Fang Li, Associate Editor, ACS Environmental Au
University of Alberta, Canada

How to Nominate

We welcome nominations (including self-nominations) to be featured in this Special Issue until October 20, 2025.

We are seeking early-career researchers who are within the first eight years of their initial independent appointment—Assistant Professor or equivalent. Allowances are made for those who took career breaks for any reason; please reach out if you have any questions regarding eligibility.

Please fill out and submit the nomination form below. If you have any questions regarding suitability, please contact Prof. Xiang-Dong Li at li-office@environau.acs.org.

Submitting to the Special Issue

Researchers who are selected as 2026 Rising Stars will be notified by email.

We welcome submissions for this Special Issue through June 1, 2026. For more information on submission requirements, please visit the journal's Author Guidelines page.

Papers accepted for the 2026 Rising Stars Special Issues will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online. After all submissions have been published, they will then be compiled online into a Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

Open Access

ACS Environmental Au is a fully open-access journal, which means your work will be immediately and freely available for anyone to read in perpetuity. We recognize that different authors have different levels of access to funding for Article Publication Charges (APCs). Therefore, evaluation of nominations will be entirely based on merit and not on financial resources.

We offer a range of options to support authors with open-access publishing, including through the ACS special country pricing policy, ACS institutional open access agreements, and a limited number of APC waivers, which can be offered at the discretion of the editor at the point of invitation.