Advanced Materials 'Under Review': What Each Status Means and When to Expect a Decision

Before the paper reaches external reviewers, an Advanced Materials professional in-house editor evaluates whether the materials significance, novelty, and broad impact warrant one of the journal's selective editorial slots. A desk rejection most often means the editor concluded that the work is incremental, purely application-specific, confined to one subfield, or better suited to a sister Wiley Advanced Portfolio title.

Common sister-journal routes include Advanced Functional Materials for a functional-advance focus, Small for small-scale materials, Advanced Healthcare Materials for biomedical materials, Advanced Energy Materials for energy applications, and Advanced Materials Technologies for applied materials.

The Advanced Materials editorial office confirms files are complete: manuscript with figures embedded, Supporting Information with characterization data (XRD, TEM/SEM, XPS, spectroscopy), Wiley template formatting, cover letter directed to the editor naming materials novelty and broad impact, conflict-of-interest declarations, ethics-statement documentation, and data-availability statement.

The professional in-house editor reads the paper and evaluates materials-significance, novelty over the existing literature, broad impact across materials science, and Advanced Portfolio family routing. The editorial screen is fast and selective.

In parallel with the handling editor's primary read, ambiguous-fit papers are discussed across the Wiley Advanced Portfolio editorial team where peer professional in-house editors weigh in on whether the paper would fit better at Advanced Materials or at sister Advanced Portfolio titles. This editorial-team discussion runs alongside the desk-screen and adds 2 to 5 days to the timeline that is invisible to the author in the portal.

Advanced Materials handling editors typically invite 2 to 3 external reviewers, with reviewer recruitment typically taking 7 to 14 days. The recruitment window can take longer because reviewers with topic-matched materials science subspecialty expertise are scarce, and the single-anonymous model means reviewers know author identities while authors do not see reviewer identities.

Once reviewers agree to review, the typical Advanced Materials peer-review cycle lasts 2 to 6 weeks per reviewer. Reviewers are asked to evaluate materials-significance, novelty, broad impact, and reproducibility. Reviewer reports for Advanced Materials tend to be focused; 1500 to 3000 word reports are typical given the materials-significance focus.

After reports return, the handling editor synthesizes them. Papers that pass triage move rapidly through review, and total submission-to-acceptance commonly runs 3 to 6 months for successful papers.

• Rejection within 1 to 5 days: Administrative issue or immediate scope mismatch.

• Rejection within 5 to 14 days: Professional in-house editor desk rejection per the 65 to 75 percent figure.

• Still Under Review after 3 weeks: Strong signal. Paper passed the Advanced Materials editor filter.

• Still Under Review after 10 weeks: Reviewer-recruitment or reviewer-report delay. A polite inquiry via the Editorial Manager portal is appropriate.

• Status changes to "Decision Pending": Reports are in; expect a decision within 1 week.

This is the most common anxiety we hear from Advanced Materials authors during the active editorial window. The honest answer: no, 5 weeks at Under Review puts you in the normal middle of Advanced Materials's 4 to 8 week full peer-review distribution. Reports may already be in editorial synthesis with the handling editor preparing the recommendation.

Most reviewer-driven delays come from reviewer-recruitment timing for materials science subspecialty experts rather than slow reviews because Advanced Materials filters heavily for novelty and broad impact at desk, then moves rapidly through review. If the portal still says Under Review at the 8-week mark, the most likely explanation is that one of the assigned reviewers asked for an extension and the handling editor granted it.

This is normal practice at Advanced Materials.

What you should NOT do during the 5-to-8-week window is email the editorial office. Advanced Materials handling editors are managing 50+ active papers; an inquiry at 5 weeks adds friction without accelerating the timeline.

• Do not email the editorial office during the first 6 weeks unless an urgent ethics issue surfaces.

• Do not submit the paper anywhere else while it is Under Review at Advanced Materials. Wiley has explicit prohibitions on dual submission.

• Prepare a point-by-point response template for likely reviewer concerns: materials-significance, novelty, broad impact, characterization data adequacy.

• If you have related work submitted elsewhere or recently published, prepare disclosure language for when revisions are requested.

• Read recent Advanced Materials papers in your subfield to calibrate the current editorial bar.

If your Advanced Materials paper is rejected after review, the natural cascade depends on what the reviewers and handling editor cited:

Advanced Functional Materials is the natural Wiley Advanced Portfolio cascade for functional-advance focused papers. Wiley supports manuscript-transfer with reviewer reports preserved.

Small is the Wiley Advanced Portfolio cascade for small-scale materials and nanoscience papers.

Advanced Healthcare Materials is the Wiley cascade for biomedical materials.

Advanced Energy Materials is the Wiley cascade for energy-applications materials.

JACS / ACS Nano are the external ACS chemistry-materials cascades. JACS uses ACS Paragon Plus at ACS journal page; editorial contact jacs@acs.org.

Nature Materials is the external Springer Nature top-tier materials cascade. The Nature Materials Manuscript Tracking System at mts-nmat.nature.com handles submission; nmat@nature.com handles publisher-level inquiries.

Wiley asks reviewers at Advanced Materials to evaluate four things specifically. The table below maps each to actionable preparation.

Across materials manuscripts we review, three recurring Advanced Materials failure modes show up after the portal shows Under Review. These are not official Wiley criteria; they are anonymized Manusights observations used to help authors prepare a stronger revision package.

Source limitation: we rely on public Wiley guidance, journal-page facts, and our internal pre-submission review work. We do not have access to private Advanced Materials editorial records.

Incremental framing flagged at professional in-house editor screen. When an Advanced Materials manuscript presents incremental improvements over published methods without a step-change advance, early rejection or severe reviewer pushback is common. The strongest manuscripts frame the title, abstract, Figure 1, and cover letter around a field-level materials-science advance, not only a better property value.

Check whether your Advanced Materials significance claim is visible →

Application-specific framing flagged at desk screen. When an Advanced Materials manuscript is purely application-specific without broad materials-science significance, reviewers often ask why the paper belongs in Advanced Materials rather than AFM, Advanced Energy Materials, Small, or an ACS specialist title. The strongest manuscripts show how the application reveals a reusable materials principle.

Check if your Advanced Materials figure sequence is reviewer-ready →

Wiley Advanced Portfolio cascade offers from handling editor. When the handling editor concludes the work is rigorous but the materials-significance bar of Advanced Materials is not met, transfer offers to Advanced Functional Materials, Small, Advanced Healthcare Materials, or Advanced Energy Materials are common. The most useful transfer packages preserve reviewer reports, benchmark tables, and a revised cover-letter thesis tailored to the sister journal.

Check your Advanced Materials cascade response plan →

This section reflects Manusights pre-submission review work, not a claim of privileged access to Advanced Materials editors or reviewers. Manusights uses uploaded manuscripts only to produce the requested review; we do not train on private author files. Authors using Manusights also have a 60-day money-back guarantee if the review is not useful.

Check your Advanced Materials significance package

This page was created from Wiley's public Advanced Materials author guidelines at Wiley author instructions, Wiley Advanced Portfolio editorial policies (professional in-house editor model, single-anonymous peer review, fast and selective editorial screen filtering for novelty and broad impact, high desk rejection rate for incremental or purely application-specific work, papers passing triage moving rapidly through review), and Manusights pre-submission review experience with Advanced Materials-targeted manuscripts.

For the Wiley Advanced Portfolio materials landscape beyond Advanced Materials, compare Advanced Functional Materials, Small, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, and Advanced Materials Technologies. External alternatives include JACS, ACS Nano, and Nature Materials.

The choice depends on the central contribution: top-tier materials novelty, functional advance, small-scale nanoscience, biomedical materials, energy materials, applied materials, broader ACS chemistry-materials, or top-tier Nature Portfolio significance.

Reviewers at Advanced Materials typically draw from 2 to 3 materials-science subspecialty experts under a single-anonymous model. Editors screen and triage manuscripts before any reviewer sees them, and preparing a response template that addresses both materials-significance and broad-impact perspectives accelerates revision rounds substantially.

For a pre-upload check of your manuscript against the Advanced Materials materials-novelty-plus-broad-impact bar before submission, our Advanced Materials pre-submission diagnostic flags the framing and characterization weaknesses most likely to surface in reviewer reports.