This month Nature Reviews Physics turns 5. Our mission as laid out in 2019 — to explore new formats, reflecting the changing needs of the physics community — remains as timely as ever. We hope that the physics community appreciates the content we published and has come to recognize Nature Reviews Physics for its distinctive voice. We’re also proud of all the 626 articles we have published over 60 issues, coming to over 3,800 pages so far.

With the launch of Nature Reviews Physics, we introduced three new article types: Technical Review, Roadmap and Expert Recommendation. These, along with the more traditional Review, Perspective and Viewpoint articles, form the review and analysis component of the journal.

Credit: Susanne Harris/Springer Nature Limited

We have also experimented with our shorter news and comment article types, with 8 that we publish regularly. Tools of the Trade was launched in 2021 as a way for early career researchers to highlight the tools and methods they use. Q&As were new last year, and are a chance to learn about interesting projects by physicists and non-physicists alike.

With the amount of content we publish, we realized early on that thematic collections are a way to show off topics that feature repeatedly on our pages, from quantum computing to topological matter to sustainability in physics. So far, we have 15 collections that are driven by the journal, as well as having content featured in other Nature Portfolio collections.

This content is commissioned, sent for peer review and line-edited by our team of 3 Editors, along with invaluable support from our Production Editor, Art Editor, Proofreader and Editorial Assistant.

What we have achieved so far and what we are hoping to accomplish in the next 5–10 years is only possible with the support of our authors (over 1,200 so far!) and referees (645 to date), and is only meaningful through the engagement of our readers. Thank you all.