Announcements

4 March 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #9 - Romania, Research Integrity, Viruses

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts


Reka Kovacs (Deputy Office Manager, MDPI), Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), and Sandra Ana Spatariu (Office Manager, MDPI) at the MDPI office in Cluj, Romania.

MDPI’s Impact on Romania

In February, I visited our office in Cluj, Romania. I worked closely with our senior office managers and various teams, including the departments of training, marketing and conferences, as well as our journal relationship specialists, reviewing our service to the local scholarly community. During the visit, I also met with representatives from Babes-Bolyai University and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. Our multifunctional Romanian office plays an important role in supporting our collaborations with the local market as well as helping to meet MDPI’s overall business needs.


Feedback and strategy meeting with a group of MDPI’s Journal Relationship Specialists at the MDPI office in Cluj, Romania.

With 22,436 articles, Romania ranks as a top 20 contributing country to MDPI’s total number of papers published as at 28 February 2024. This highlights the importance of our collaboration with Romanian-affiliated authors and the growing opportunity to support their publishing needs. MDPI is one of the few academic publishers with a significant presence in Romania, boasting over 360 colleagues across our offices in Bucharest and Cluj. We are also proud to hire colleagues from local institutions to launch their careers within publishing.

Romania ranks as a top 20 contributing country.

The Numbers: 2019–2023

MDPI has seen a healthy increase in submissions from Romanian authors over the past three years, from 8,439 in 2021 to 11,866 by end of 2023, with most submissions going to journals such as Sustainability, Medicina, Diagnostics, IJMS, Applied Sciences, and JCM. From 2019 to 2023, MDPI published articles from 32,145 authors affiliated with Romanian institutions. Over those years, we have worked with Romanian Guest Editors on nearly 3,000 occasions to support their Special Issue and Topical collections.

With more than 300 Editorial Board Members from Romania, 34 appear on the board of Mathematics, 27 on Materials, 19 on Polymers, 18 on Coatings, and 16 on Molecules, while three serve as Section Editors-in-Chief (SEiC) on our journals Coatings (3.4 IF, 4.6 Citescore), Magnetochemistry (2.7 IF, 3.5 Citescore), and Chemosensors (4.2 IF, 3.9 Citescore).

Institutional Open Access Programs

Our commitment to working with institutions is evident in Romania, where we have established eight Institutional Open Access Programs (IOAP) with esteemed institutions such as the University of Bucharest, the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca, and most recently the National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics.

Our growth and presence in Romania are a true testament.

We also have IOAP agreements with Babes-Bolyai University and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, where I had the opportunity to meet senior stakeholders during my visit. Below are a few photos capturing our meeting with Prof. Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu (Head of Faculty of Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University) at the MDPI office in Cluj, Romania, along with a photo from our meeting with Vice Deans Nicoleta Cobarzan, Nicoleta Ilies, and Hoda Gavril, from the faculty of Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Cluj, Romania.


Our growth and presence in Romania are a true testament to the service we provide to the scholarly community and the relationships we foster in that region. We look forward to continuing to support Romanian scholars and institutions by providing a valuable and trusted experience with MDPI, the leader in open access publishing.

Impactful Research

MDPI Joins the STM Integrity Hub

MDPI has long been a supporter and partner of STM, with our involvement ranging from sponsoring and attending events to helping organize event programs. By joining the STM Integrity Hub, we aim to further our commitment to STM initiatives aimed at safeguarding the integrity of science.

“We are pleased to welcome MDPI as the 35th organisation participating in the Hub. This expansion is critical, as every new member enhances our capacity to prevent fraudulent submissions from entering the academic record.”

Joris van Rossum, Director of Research Integrity, STM

MDPI operates in full alignment with STM Integrity Hub's values of shared data and experiences. We strongly believe in collaboration and open exchange for the purposes of creating a holistic approach to support research integrity at MDPI itself and across the entire academic publishing industry. The Integrity Hub is an excellent example of how publishers can come together to jointly address industry-wide challenges related to research integrity, such as manuscripts that breach research integrity standards and paper-mills.

I look forward to our Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team (RIPE) team immersing themselves in this initiative, exchanging information, best practices, and tools for the benefit of the entire scholarly ecosystem. We believe that ethical publishing standards should be implemented across the board, and we aim to be rigorous in our approach, addressing research integrity issues and improving the impact of published research.

Inside MDPI

MDPI Expands Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team (RIPE)

In addition to external collaborations and joint initiatives aimed at further strengthening our commitment to research integrity, we are also enhancing our internal efforts. This includes improving our processes and guidelines and expanding our teams and departments to ensure quality assurance throughout our publishing process.

We are pleased to announce the expansion of our Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team (RIPE) at MDPI. The RIPE team has recently welcomed new colleagues, each bringing unique skills and a personal commitment to prioritize ethical considerations in all our work.

The demand for research integrity and high ethical standards in academic publishing is steadily rising across our industry. Our expanded RIPE team will work to enhance and align our practices with industry best practices, ensuring excellence in research integrity and publication ethics.


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) introduces Dr. Tim Tait-Jamieson (Research Integrity Lead, MDPI) for his presentation on MDPI’s Retraction and Approval Process to a group of Journal Relationship Specialists at the MDPI office in Cluj, Romania: “The demand for research integrity and publication ethics is steadily rising across our industry.”

Introducing our Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team

Led by Dr. Tim Tait-Jamieson (Research Integrity Lead), the RIPE team comprises Dr. Ivana Resanovic (Research Integrity Manager), Dr. Lavinia Rogojina (Research Integrity Manager), Ms. Diana Apodaritei (Research Integrity Specialist), Dr. Zoltan Mihaly (Research Integrity Specialist), Mr. Aleksandar Đukić (Research Integrity Specialist), Ms. Ana Stankovic (Research Integrity Specialist), and Ms. Anna Pena (Publication Ethics Assistant).

Please click here to access everything that you need to know about MDPI’s Research and Publication Ethics.

With this span of complementary roles, the RIPE team collaborates directly with journal editorial teams and works closely with various departments, including our Scientific Office Board and our Journal Relationship Specialists. The team’s primary objectives are to help prevent issues regarding research integrity and publication ethics during peer review, uphold MDPI’s ethics policies, adhere to industry standards, and resolve publication ethics and research integrity issues and complaints.

Quality Updates to Special Issues Oversight

At MDPI, we are committed to reviewing policies pertaining to the quality of research. In this blog post, Shaheena Patel (Communications Associate, MDPI), outlines two recent updates to MDPI journal processes. These updates pertain to Special Issue (SI) quality guidelines, in line with criteria provided by COPE and DOAJ. Alongside the SI updates, details regarding the new minor corrections policy introduced in 2024 are provided in the blog.

The two updates we implemented include greater oversight and the verification of Guest Editor credentials. These guidelines require that Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) and Editorial Board Members (EBMs) take responsibility for overseeing SIs.

PS. Thank you, James Butcher, for featuring this up in your 67th issue of the Journalogy newsletter.

Read more:

Coming Together for Science

Viruses 2024 – A World of Viruses

I am pleased to share the success of our MDPI conference Viruses 2024 – A World of Viruses, held 14-16 February, in Barcelona. With 240 registrations, this event brought together top scientists, researchers, and industry experts from 40 countries to share their findings on the latest developments in viral pathogenesis and immune responses.

Attendees gathered for the 5th edition of the Viruses’ conference, where we hosted influential keynote speeches from Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Charles M. Rice and ‘Distinguished Senior Virologist’ Prof. Luis Enjuanes, along with 14 invited speakers, 47 selected speakers, and nine flash poster presenters, to discuss the most significant issues in virology today.

Recap on the #Viruses2024 Conference

Take a look at the key moments from MDPI’s Viruses event and please join us in commemorating a gathering for global knowledge and cooperation. A heartfelt thank-you to all attendees; their passion and engagement played a crucial role in making this event an engaging success!

Below are calls to action from the keynote speakers encouraging collaboration and communication:

“There’s never been a better time than now to really take the power that we have both in terms of basic research and also in biotech and pharma to develop antiviral agents.” - Dr. Charles M. Rice, The Rockefeller University, New York, USA

“The collaboration between labs is absolutely essential. Improving initial detection and improving communication is a must for all of us working in science.” - Prof. Dr. Luis Enjuanes, National Center of Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain

Our thanks go to our sponsors and partnering societies, our Viruses journal and editorial team, our Barcelona colleagues, and the social media, conference and other MDPI teams for making this event a memorable occasion. View the event gallery here.

Upcoming In-Person Event

24–26 April, 2024
4th MMCS – Harnessing the Power of New Drug Modalities
Location: Barcelona, Spain

Esteemed speakers at MMCS 2024 include Prof. Arun K. Ghosh, the mind behind the Darunavir molecule, and Prof. Paul Brennan, CSO of Alzheimer's Research UK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute.

Find more upcoming MDPI events here.


Organize Your Event with MDPI’s Sciforum

Sciforum is MDPI’s platform dedicated to the organization of scientific events. In line with our mission to promote science, Sciforum supports scholars, societies, research networks, and universities at all stages of organizing in-person events, virtual events and webinars. Our platforms are efficient, user-friendly, and cost-effective. We handle all steps related to event management. Contact us for details.

Closing Thoughts

Researcher to Reader (R2R) Conference

From 20–21 February 2024, I had the pleasure of attending the Researcher to Reader (R2R) conference in London, which MDPI has proudly sponsored over the years. The conference programme offered a variety of session formats, including workshops, panel discussions, debates, interviews, presentations, and lightning talks, with opportunities to discuss relevant topics.

We take pride in supporting the scientific community, bringing researchers across the world together to network, exchange ideas and share the latest in science and publishing. In 2023, MDPI invested close to 2 million CHF in sponsoring over 2,000 scientific and publishing-related conferences worldwide.

R2R Peer Review Innovations Workshop

I found the R2R conference to be engaging, with the workshops being particularly enjoyable. My colleague Giulia Stefenelli (Chair of Scientific Office Board) and I participated in the “Peer Review Innovations” workshop, which spanned four sessions over the two days. These sessions explored the future of peer review and how we can improve the peer review process for everyone involved. Notably, the large majority of attendees expressed their opinion that peer review, as currently practiced, requires significant improvement. Together, we collaborated on potential immediate and long-term improvements and innovative processes, aiming to create an ecosystem beneficial to all stakeholders by strengthening submission systems with the aim of reducing threats and making authors more responsible for their work. We also discussed the opportunity for academic institutions to better scrutinize the quality of the work produced and submitted to journals.

Our group comprised publishers, software providers, librarians, and more, bringing diverse perspectives to the discussions. These interactions were relevant to MDPI’s ongoing conversations, providing insights to our efforts. The session also made me appreciate that MDPI is doing well, as the group discussions included the subject of various quality checks that we have already embedded in our processes, ensuring that we keep abreast of industry standards.

The need for an optimized system to incentivize the activities of editors and reviewers was also a focus of discussion, as well as the support that reviewers need from publishers via the provision of strong reports through fixed forms, questionnaires and training.

At MDPI, we are currently auditing our reviewer program to improve reviewer recognition, guidelines, and methods for identifying suitable reviewers, while maintaining our commitment to quality and timeliness.

Congratulations to Mark Carden, Conference Director, and the R2R team for organizing a productive and successful event. PS: The break times were greatly appreciated as well!

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

31 January 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #8 - Altmetric and Flat Fee Agreement

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

MDPI and Digital Science Meeting

At MDPI, we are committed to providing our authors with the essential tools to publish, promote, and track their research. In line with this commitment, we have established a longstanding collaboration with Digital Science, a company specializing in research data and analytical insights for the research community. Our collaboration integrates their Altmetric tool, offering us and our authors the ability to track a variety of sources that monitor and report attention surrounding publications.

As part of our collaboration, we recently hosted Cathy Holland, Director of Global Publisher Business Development, and Helen Cooke, Managing Director of Publisher Sales, from Digital Science, at our MDPI headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.


Left to right: Facundo Santomé (Senior Marketing Manager, MDPI), Constanze Shelhorn (Indexing Manager, MDPI), Cathy Holland (Director of Global Publisher Business Development, Digital Science), Helen Cooke (Managing Director of Publisher Sales, Digital Science), and Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) in front of MDPI headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.

During our meeting, we discussed MDPI’s publishing philosophy and explored further avenues for collaboration. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Digital Science, aiming to improve our services yet further and meet the needs of our authors more closely than ever.

What is Altmetric?

You will notice that MDPI articles feature an Altmetric score, a colourful doughnut capturing the score in the upper right corner of the article page. This score represents ‘alternative metrics,’ as distinct from traditional metrics such as Impact Factor, CiteScore, and Scimago Journal Rank.

Altmetrics complement traditional citation-based metrics by capturing online discussions related to a specific research topic. By analyzing both sets of data, we can obtain a comprehensive understanding of the attention a particular research output receives and the sources in which it is mentioned.

“Almetric provides visual insights into where research is being discussed”

Sources Tracked by Altmetric


Altmetric badge showing the Altmetric score and colour-coded mention sources.

Altmetric monitors various sources, categorizing them into segments such as policy documents, peer reviews, Wikipedia, news and blogs, and social media, among other sources. Each category is identifiable by a specific colour.

The Altmetric badge provides visual insights into where the research is being discussed. A more colourful badge indicates broader mentions across multiple platforms. Such tracking enables us to gauge the extent of an article’s online dissemination, noting that increased visibility may correlate with higher citation rates.

Read more:

Impactful Research

Ten High-Altmetric Articles Published by MDPI

As at 30 January 2024, Altmetric has tracked 670,500 MDPI research outputs from MDPI, resulting in over 4.3 million mentions. This includes over 71,894 mentions in policy and patents and 294,714 mentions in news and blogs, with some achieving an Altmetric score as high as 28,754.

So, what is a good Altmetric score? There are various ways to put this score into context. You can find out more about the score in context and how to evaluate your work by this means.

Here are ten MDPI papers ranking in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric.

“Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort”

J. Pers. Med. 2017, 7(2), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/20477344

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 253 news stories from 209 outlets including Forbes, BBC, and Fox News.

“Daylight Saving Time and Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Meta-Analysis”

J. Clin. Med. 2019, 8(3), 404; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8030404

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/57654628

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 295 news stories from 207 outlets including Forbes, The Atlantic, and New York Times.

“The Preliminary Analysis of Cave Lion Cubs Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from the Permafrost of Siberia”

Quaternary 2021, 4(3), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/quat4030024

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/111086701

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 182 news stories from 134 outlets including CBC News, CNN, and National Geographic.

“Not the Cat’s Meow? The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability”

Animals 2020, 10(6), 1007; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10061007

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/83796184

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 124 news stories from 98 outlets including VICE, CNN and The Guardian.

“Behaviour and Welfare Impacts of Releasing Elephants from Overnight Tethers: A Zimbabwean Case Study”

Animals 2022, 12(15), 1933; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12151933

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/133463915

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 192 news stories from 186 outlets.

How do I use altmetrics?

Altmetric Explorer provides a detailed step-by-step guide and instruction video for first-time users of the tool. The guide includes useful diagrams that make it easy to get started.

Sharing Research Online

For research to be tracked across different sources, Altmetric needs a research output with a persistent identifier: a DOI, ISBN, PubMed ID, handle ID, etc. When sharing research, it is important to include a link to the original research output.

“An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost”

Viruses 2023, 15(2), 564; https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020564

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/142929875

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 250 news stories from 180 outlets including CTV, Fox News, and CNN.

“The Global Problem of Insufficient Sleep and Its Serious Public Health Implications”

Healthcare 2019, 7(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare7010001

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/53406248

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 252 news stories from 168 outlets including BBC, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes.

“A Detailed Review Study on Potential Effects of Microplastics and Additives of Concern on Human Health”

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(4), 1212; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17041212

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/86529137

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 197 news stories from 150 outlets including BBC, The Tribune, and World Economic Forum.

“An Empirical Study of Chronic Diseases in the United States: A Visual Analytics Approach to Public Health”

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(3), 431; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030431

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/34714141

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 232 news stories from 149 outlets including Forbes, New York Times, and Harvard Business Review.

“Garden Scraps: Agonistic Interactions between Hedgehogs and Sympatric Mammals in Urban Gardens”

Animals 2023, 13(4), 590; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13040590

Altmetric page: https://mdpi.altmetric.com/details/142934305

Altmetric shows that this article appeared in 172 news stories from 168 outlets including BBC.

Inside MDPI

MDPI Annual Meeting Celebrations in China

On Thursday 25 January, over 1,300 MDPI colleagues from our two offices in Beijing gathered to kick off MDPI’s traditional ‘Annual Meetings.’ These celebrations take place in MDPI’s offices across China, including Dalian, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Nanjing.

The evenings include performances, informative talks and presentations, awards, and entertainment, providing an ideal platform to recognize our colleagues, celebrate their achievements, and set our sights on the future.

“It is essential that we stay connected and share best practices”

I sent a video congratulating everyone on their work and sharing our vision of building MDPI into the most trusted OA publisher, highlighting the roles each of us has to play in achieving that goal.

Unfortunately I could not join in person, but you may recall my recent trip, when I visited our offices in Beijing and Wuhan, which I look forward to visiting again this year.

Although our headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland, and we are expanding throughout Europe and North America, the majority of MDPI’s workforce is in China and throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including offices in Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and newly opened office in South Korea. It is essential that as a global organization, we stay connected and share best practices in order to grow collectively and continue providing the exceptional service to our authors.

The Annual Meeting is a moment to reflect and enjoy the year’s hard work and dedication.

I extend our best wishes to all for the Chinese New Year (Xīnnián kuàilè)!

Coming Together for Science

MDPI and TU Delft Adopt Flat Fee Model in Extended Partnership

We are excited to announce a renewed three-year partnership with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. This collaboration introduces a fixed lump-sum fee, covering publishing costs from 2024 to 2026.

“This initiative reflects our dedication to transparent and inclusive publishing”

TU Delft-affiliated authors will enjoy cost-free publishing in any MDPI journal during this period, aligning with our commitment to removing barriers for open access publishing. The agreement supports Plan S compliance and facilitates a seamless publishing process for TU Delft corresponding authors. This initiative reflects our dedication to transparent and inclusive publishing, providing stability and predictability both for authors and for institutions.

For further details on our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP), please contact us.

Benefits to MDPI’s IOAP

At MDPI we have a long tradition of partnerships, including our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). IOAP supports institutions through simplification, access, transparency, APC discounts, and institutional repository deposits. The program simplifies administrative processes, offers central payment, and allows easy opting in and out. Participants gain free access to Susy, MDPI’s online submission system, with extensive article metadata and exportable data. APC discounts and Book Processing Charge discounts are available for affiliated authors. Automated deposits to institutional repositories and streamlined matching of papers to IOAP participants enhance the overall experience.

For further information, see our IOAP FAQ.

Closing Thoughts

Reflections on the 2024 APE Conference

MDPI was proud to co-sponsor the Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) 2024 Conference that took place in Berlin, Germany, from 9–10 January 2024.

The conference theme, ‘Keep the Conversation Going!’, explored the evolving landscape of scholarly communication. APE is one of the key conferences I make a point to attend each year. January offers a valuable opportunity to engage with new contacts, reconnect with familiar faces, and participate in impactful discussions and presentations among professionals, scholars, and practitioners in the field.

“It's fascinating to see how other publishers are leveraging AI”

Highlights

Some of the standout panels for me include: the role of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the publishing industry. It was encouraging to hear the current status quo, though I was eager also to learn about the exciting projects planned for 2024 and beyond. These will allow us to track progress in subsequent years. At MDPI, we remain committed to promoting Open–Access (OA) content on SDGs through scientific articles and books. Furthermore, we extend our commitment to sustainability by financially supporting researchers through initiatives such as the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award, as well as waiving the APC for feature papers on each SDG.

In recent years, discussions on AI have become increasingly prominent at such conferences. It’s fascinating to see how other publishers are leveraging AI to meet the evolving needs of their audiences while at the same time using it to safeguard the scientific process. Other engaging panels that I enjoyed included updates on transformation beyond transformative agreements, the principles of lean change, incentive structures related to research integrity, and the panel on reviewer incentives.

“We can share best practices and lessons learned”

Incorporating MDPI’s Insights into Conferences

I must confess that I sometimes feel overlooked when MDPI is not invited to participate in crucial industry discussions. As the leading open access publisher and the third-largest publisher overall, we possess extensive experience in many of these areas and can offer valuable contributions to these discussions. We can share best practices, lessons learned, and our thinking about future trajectories. For instance, in panels discussing reviewer incentives, at MDPI we offer a discount voucher to reviewers for future submissions, reflecting our commitment to fostering a robust peer review process. In 2022 alone, MDPI collected over 1.4 million peer review reports, informing the decision-making processes of our editors. Given our expertise in these areas, it would be natural to include MDPI in such discussions. I therefore extend an invitation to future conference organizers to consider MDPI for speaking engagements and collaborative opportunities.

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

24 January 2024
Acknowledgment of the Reviewers of Arthropoda in 2023

In recognizing the exceptional efforts of our reviewers in 2023, we express our sincere gratitude for upholding the high standards of Arthropoda. Their commitment ensured the rigorous peer review that is integral to quality academic publishing.

In 2023, Arthropoda received 76 review reports, from 69 reviewers. This past year, we worked with reviewers from 33 countries and regions, reflecting the diversity in our collaboration with research communities. Their dedication shapes scholarly discourse and advances global research. The editorial team expresses gratitude for the vital role played by each reviewer in the Arthropoda family throughout 2023, and we look forward to their continued support in 2024.

The following are the reviewers who have consented to show their names:

Ahmed Aioub Mario Schädel
Alexander Dvoretsky Sajjad Pourmozaffar
Danniella Sherwood Sara Remelli
Egor Zadereev Sharangouda Patil
El-Sayed A. El-Sheikh Tamás Szűts
Hang Wan Valentin Brice Ebodé
Hongyin Sun Vladimir Dvoretsky
K. M. Aarif Vladimir Razlutskij
Kuldeep Gupta Werner Klotz
Magdalini Christodoulou Yael Lubin
Marina Larionova Zhengfei Wang

2 January 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #7 - Nobel Laureates Entrust MDPI with Their Research

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

Nobel Prize Laureates Entrust MDPI with Their Research

The Nobel Prize stands as a hallmark of distinction, honouring ground-breaking research across disciplines. Annually, the Nobel Prizes are awarded in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences.

Through the years, renowned scholars have entrusted MDPI with their work. As at December 2023, 26 Nobel laureates have contributed to more than 75 articles across 25 MDPI journals, including: Antibiotics, Applied Sciences, Biology, Biomedicines, Cancers, Catalysts, Cells, Crystals, Entropy, Games, IJMS, Life, Materials, Micromachines, Molecules, Pharmaceuticals, PharmaceuticsPhotonics, Quantum Beam Science, Remote Sensing, Sensors, Solids, Universe, Vaccines, and Viruses.

The best of the best trust us with their work.

Nobel Prize Laureates Who Have Published with MDPI

We are proud to list the names of Pierre Agostini, Hiroshi Amano, Werner Arber, Aaron Ciechanover, Robert H. Grubbs, Oliver Hart, Gerard ‘t Hooft, Michael Houghton, Harald zur Hausen, Katalin Karikó, Jean-Marie Lehn, Gérard Mourou, Ferid Murad, Shuji Nakamura, William Nordhaus, Kostya S. Novoselov, Giorgio Parisi, Charles M. Rice, Alvin E. Roth, Donna Strickland, K. Barry Sharpless, George F. Smoot, Anne L’Huillier, Drew Weissman, Kurt Wüthrich, Ada Yonath.

The privilege of hosting such contributors resonates deeply with our editorial teams. For instance, in this interview, the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of Universe speaks on the significance of publishing a paper by Nobel laureate Gerard ’t Hooft within the journal.

2023 Nobel Prize Winners Published by MDPI

Nobel Prize Winners, 2023: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Anne L’Huillier (Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach)

Three laureates from the 2023 Nobel Prize cohort have trusted MDPI as their publishing platform. Notably, in a 2022 Pharmaceutics paper, molecular biologist Katalin Karikó and her team presented a methodology for evaluating mRNA capping efficiency, pivotal for therapeutic applications. Pharmaceutics had previously dedicated a Special Issue to “mRNA Therapeutics: A Themed Issue in Honor of Professor Katalin Karikó”, spotlighting ten articles from August 2021 to February 2022.

In the journal Vaccines, Professor Drew Weissman, collaborating with scholars from Pennsylvania University and George Mason University, contributed an influential review titled “Nanomaterial Delivery Systems for mRNA Vaccines”. His collaborative efforts spanned five papers across MDPI journals between 2021 and 2023.

Furthermore, Anne L'Huillier of Lund University, only the fifth female recipient of the Physics Prize, co-authored an article in Applied Sciences focusing on "Advanced EUV and X-Ray Optics". Similarly, Pierre Agostini, an Emeritus Professor from Ohio State University, co-authored an article featured in the special issue "Attosecond Science and Technology: Principles and Applications".

We extend heartfelt congratulations to all Nobel Prize laureates and express sincere gratitude for their confidence in MDPI as a platform for their scholarly contributions.

Read more:

Impactful Research

MDPI Journals Newly Indexed in 2023

The aim of indexing is to enhance the quality and credibility of published research, ensuring that researchers access the most credible resources available. While the principle behind citation indexing is straightforward, it remains one of the most dependable methods for tracking an idea's evolution across various scientific disciplines.

Throughout the year, MDPI works to expand the reach of our publications across premier multidisciplinary databases like Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCO, and ProQuest. This initiative is spearheaded by MDPI's Indexing team, under the leadership of Dr. Constanze Schelhorn.

In 2023, MDPI achieved 54 new acceptances in Scopus, 29 in Web of Science, 52 in EBSCO, and 83 in DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals.

The team prioritizes ensuring that our journals feature in numerous specialized databases, including PMC, PubMed, MEDLINE, Inspec, CAS, and FSTA, among others. Currently, MDPI collaborates with over 65 renowned international databases, consistently enhancing our database affiliations annually.

MDPI’s journals are indexed in all major global databases.

Furthermore, we collaborate with universities and government organizations to list our journals in country-specific ranking lists and relevant institutional repositories. This ensures compliance with requirements often set by funders or institutions for authors to publish in specific journals.

Web of Science Adds 24 MDPI Journals to Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)

Clarivate recently analysed MDPI’s new journals, resulting in 24 journals, mainly established in 2020, being added to the ESCI in November and December 2023. Additionally, five journals passed this assessment earlier in the year. For a complete list of our journals in Web of Science, refer here. Journals in the ESCI meet 24 quality criteria, ensuring editorial rigor. They may be considered for inclusion in broader indices like the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), based on four impact criteria.

Read more:

Inside MDPI

MDPI Appoints New Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Alistair Freeland returned to MDPI and assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer in November 2023, a position he previously held from 2013 to 2019. He succeeds Dr. Yu Lin, who will remain a member of MDPI’s Board of Directors, overseeing significant financial decisions for the company. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Yu Lin for his service as COO.

Alistair brings extensive experience not only in scholarly publishing but also in technology and business management. Prior to rejoining MDPI, he was associated with SIX Group, the entity responsible for Switzerland's financial market infrastructure. There, he played a pivotal role in developing the blockchain-based platform SDX (SIX Digital Exchange), which has gained traction among major Swiss banks and the Swiss National Bank.

As COO, Alistair will collaborate with the MDPI management team to improve the practices and services we offer to scholarly communities. I am pleased to welcome Alistair back to MDPI and look forward to his contributions going forward.

Coming Together for Science

MDPI’s 2024 In-Person Academic Events Schedule

MDPI's Conference Team is dedicated to organizing and hosting in-person academic events across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America. We recognize conferences as invaluable platforms for scientific collaboration, scholarly exchange, discussions on contemporary topics, networking, and forging collaborations.

Here's a glimpse of the notable events we currently have scheduled for 2024:

14–16 February, 2024
Viruses 2024 – A World of Viruses
Location: Barcelona, Spain
We are honoured to feature Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Charles M. Rice and ‘Distinguished Senior Virologist’ Prof. Luis Enjuanes as keynote speakers for this 5th edition.
Event details

24–26 April, 2024
4th MMCS – Harnessing the Power of New Drug Modalities 
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Esteemed speakers include Prof. Arun K. Ghosh, the mind behind the Darunavir molecule, and Prof. Paul Brennan, CSO of Alzheimer's Research UK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute.
Event details

28–31 May, 2024
Polymers 2024 – Polymers for a Safe and Sustainable Future
Location:
Athens, Greece
We look forward to welcoming renowned experts like Prof. Damià Barceló, Prof. Minna Hakkareinen, and Prof. Armando J. D. Silvestre to this event.
Event details

1–4 August, 2024
The 1st International Conference on AI Sensors & The 10th International Symposium on Sensor Science
Location: Singapore
The AI Sensors 2024 Conference will unite innovators and experts in the realms of sensors, sensing technology, and artificial intelligence.
Event details

Upcoming events with details to be announced:

  • September 2024, Materials 2024 – Basel, Switzerland
  • 1921 September 2024, International Conference on Nanomaterials Sciences 2024 – Beijing, China
  • October 2024, ncRNA 2024 – Basel, Switzerland
  • November 2024, Pharmaceuticals 2024 – Barcelona, Spain
  • 2226 November 2024, International Conference on Science of Electronics – Wuhan, China
  • Stay tuned for more details on the Sustainable Publishing Forum 2024.

Click here for all upcoming MDPI events.

Organize Your Event with MDPI’s Sciforum

Sciforum is MDPI’s platform dedicated to the organization of scientific events. In line with our mission to promote science, Sciforum supports scholars, societies, research networks, and universities at all stages of organizing in-person events, virtual events and webinars. Our platforms are efficient, user-friendly, and cost-effective. We handle all steps related to event management. Contact us for details.

Closing Thoughts

Reflecting on 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024

As we approach 2024, I reflect on the incredible journey we’ve had together at MDPI this year. The past 12 months have been marked by ambitious projects and initiatives to improve our internal processes, and a commitment to continue delivering top-notch services to our stakeholders. I’d like to thank each and every one of our staff members for contributing to the positive experiences our stakeholders have reported in our surveys. Your dedication to speed, efficiency, and effective communication with our stakeholders is very much recognized and appreciated.

Becoming a stronger organisation

While we have encountered challenges in 2023, it’s important to understand that these are a part of our growth process. Difficulties provide us with opportunities to reflect, address problems at their roots, and ultimately evolve into a stronger organization. Our stakeholders expect us to overcome tough times, and it’s an expectation that we have for ourselves.

I extend my sincere appreciation to every MDPI employee, from our editorial office and IT department to marketing, indexing, IOAP, societies, Scientific Office board, products, production, conferences, finance, operations, admin, and beyond. To our newest team members, a warm welcome; to our longstanding colleagues, your dedication is invaluable.

“I am committed to taking MDPI to a new level of excellence.”

Interacting with many of you during my visits to our offices and representing MDPI at external events has been a personal highlight. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Lin for entrusting me with the role of CEO of MDPI. Looking forward, I am committed to working closely with our management team to lead MDPI and take it to a new level of excellence, aiming to establish it as the most trusted publisher in open access worldwide. This is a collective endeavour, with each of us shaping MDPI’s reputation. I therefore encourage us to take pride in our work, as it represents not only our craft but also MDPI as a whole.

Accountability and communication

As we look forward to 2024, there’s a lot to be excited about. Together, we’ll navigate challenges, seize growth opportunities, and refine our practices. To solidify MDPI’s position as the premier open access publisher globally, we must bolster accountability, improve stakeholder communication, share MDPI’s best practices, champion the open access philosophy, and educate stakeholders about our mission, methodologies, and motivations.

Thank you for engaging with the CEO Letter over the past six months of 2023. I will continue to release this newsletter as a method of sharing the great work being done at MDPI. Please feel free to connect directly with any insights or questions.

Here’s to a joyous and prosperous 2024!

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

30 November 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #6 - MDPI Spain Summit and ResearchGate

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

MDPI Spain Summit


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) gives the opening speech at the MDPI Spain Summit.

On Friday 10 November 2023 I was in Barcelona, Spain, to deliver the opening presentation and participate in a panel at MDPI’s Spain Summit, a two-day event, inspired by our salon events in China.

With 16 Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) and 20 Editorial Board Members (EBMs) in attendance, the event, organized by our conference team and Barcelona office, featured presentations on open access (OA), MDPI, and publishing market trends in Spain.

The event provided a great opportunity to engage with stakeholders from various MDPI journals, including Nutrients, Vaccines, Buildings, IJMS, and others. We were able to gather feedback and have open conversations around manuscript quality, the peer-review process, and journal development, as well as accreditation agencies.

The main objective of this Summit was to bring together Editors representing MDPI journals across various disciplines within Spanish universities and research centers, primarily from the Barcelona area. The aim was to facilitate an open and fruitful discussion regarding the development of their journals, the future of OA in Spain, and to provide meaningful interactions and networking opportunities.

Connecting with Editorial Board Members


Stefan Tochev in conversation with Summit participants: "Our EBMs are passionate about the journals they serve."

Interacting with our EBMs in person provides a valuable opportunity to show how important it is to us to connect with them, hear their perspectives on their journals and learn more about their own experience collaborating with MDPI.

From my conversations, it was clear that our EBMs are passionate about the journals they serve. I know the advice they provide may sometimes involve just small tweaks, but these can lead to important improvements. As the saying goes, small hinges swing open big doors.

As at November 2023, MDPI has over 6,300 EBMs affiliated with Spanish institutions, with more than 30 of them serving as EiCs or section EiCs. Furthermore, over 68,000 Spanish scholars have contributed as reviewers in MDPI journals.

Open Access in Spain

In 2023, Spain implemented legislation mandating immediate OA for all publicly funded research, aligning with the EU’s Plan S initiative to expedite the transition to OA. The Spanish government also approved a four-year, €23.8 million annual budget for the first national OA strategy, aiming to make publicly funded research freely accessible upon publication. This strategy aims to strengthen the quality and transparency of research in Spain, and to help promote movement towards a digital, low-carbon economy.

For further details of Spain's OA policy and the history of government mandates, click here.

Spain has already seen a notable decline in subscription-only articles, decreasing by 62% over a 10-year period, while gold OA increased by 42%. Green OA slightly decreased, suggesting a shift towards publishing in gold OA journals rather than traditional subscription-based ones. Here are some statistics from Scopus. 

A big thank-you to the various MDPI teams, including our conference team and the Barcelona office, for organizing this very successful event!


MDPI colleagues from various offices gathered to host and support the first MDPI Spain Summit, in Barcelona, Spain.

I think this type of gathering has the potential to become an annual event in various locations. For example, Manchester could be an option, as we have over 30 EiCs and over 3,000 EBMs in the UK, a top market for MDPI that publishes high-quality research.

Impactful Research

769 Editorial Board Members of MDPI Journals Recognized as Highly Cited Researchers in 2023

Congratulations to our 769 Editorial Board Members from 40 countries/territories who have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher status for 2023 by Clarivate. This recognition is based on their outstanding scientific research contributions and significant influence in various fields, as evidenced by Web of Science data.

Click here to view the full list of 769 Editorial Board Members.

Clarivate's Highly Cited ResearchersTM list identifies individuals with exceptional impact in scientific and social science domains over the past decade. Their papers rank in the top 1% of citations in 21 fields analysed in ‘Essential Science Indicators,’ showcasing their substantial influence.

This year, 7,125 Highly Cited Researcher 2023 designations were issued to 6,849 individuals from 67 countries, representing just 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide.

These researchers demonstrate exceptional influence, representing a small fraction of contributors pushing the boundaries of knowledge, contributing to global well-being, sustainability, and security.

Congratulations to these scholars for their remarkable achievement: we are honoured to have them on board with our journals!

Inside MDPI

Corporate Marketing and Communications Strategy Session


Members of MDPI’s Corporate Marketing & Communications team.

For the past few years, I have led the Corporate Marketing & Communications department in our annual strategy session.

This typically involves 2–3 days of focused sessions covering key topics including budgeting, hiring targets, campaign reviews, and planning for the upcoming year, department strategy, and structure.

We are constantly exploring ways to optimize the Corporate Marketing & Communications department to support MDPI’s primary objectives and better convey the MDPI story while serving the scholarly community.

The strategy session also serves as a team-building activity, during which the team voted on bowling!

Strategy Session

In this strategy session, we looked at how to align our teams in order to better streamline our content with our campaigns, build a dedicated marketing team to strategically support our core MDPI products, expand our communications teams and functionalities to focus on company-critical campaigns and press releases, align our new brand design system with our marketing initiatives, set up a community and engagement team to support various teams with their outreach and communication efforts, and increase our use of data in the evaluation of campaign performance.

To grow in these areas, we will be hiring for various positions, including those of Public Relations Manager, Communications Manager, Internal Communications Manager, Campaign Manager, Marketing Associate, and Editorial Engagement Manager.

I am grateful for the way our Corporate Marketing & Communications department has grown and gelled over the years, and I look forward to supporting the department teams and their ideas for the future.

Coming Together for Science

ResearchGate and MDPI Partner to Boost the Visibility of Open Access Content through Journal Home


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) and Sören Hofmayer (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, ResearchGate) meet in Berlin, Germany to take their ongoing discussion further.

When I assumed the role of CEO at MDPI, my primary focus was to initiate the building of essential partnerships and collaborations within our industry. After all, I am a firm believer in achieving our goals by helping others achieve theirs and focusing on co-opetition wherever there is an opportunity. I first touched on the notion of co-opetition in MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #3, particularly when discussing collaborations with Elsevier.

In light of this, Sören Hofmayer (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate) and I connected recently to continue a discussion that had been ongoing for months. I was quickly brought up to speed and felt there was an opportunity for MDPI journals to pilot the Journal Home service that ResearchGate had launched. This would provide a new way for MDPI to engage with authors and readers and amplify the visibility of our journals.

While I receive many offers and opportunities for discussions with vendors, I am a firm believer that timing is everything, and in this case, the time for us is now. Sören and I met in person during my recent visit to Berlin and decided to proceed with piloting ten MDPI journals with the Journal Home service.

The press release below provides further details.

Press Release: Berlin (Germany) and Basel (Switzerland), 15 November 2023

ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and MDPI, the largest open access publisher in the world and a pioneer in open access publishing, today announced a partnership that will see ten of MDPI’s open access journals benefit from an enhanced presence on ResearchGate through its innovative Journal Home offering.  

This new partnership will expand the reach and visibility of MDPI’s participating flagship journals with ResearchGate’s highly relevant community of more than 25 million researchers globally.

Around 210,000 version-of-record articles from these 10 titles will be readily available on ResearchGate, including the full archive material and all new articles as they are published. These journals also benefit from enhanced brand visibility, with dedicated journal profiles, prominent representation on all associated article pages and all relevant touchpoints across the ResearchGate network – keeping the journals top-of-mind with their reader and author audiences. All articles covered by the new partnership will automatically be added to the authors’ publication records in ResearchGate. This not only reduces MDPI authors’ needs for direct management but also offers them valuable insights into the impact of their work, including data about readership and citations.

Closing Thoughts

November is Men’s Health Awareness Month


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) listening to music as he writes at a coffee shop in Basel, Switzerland.

November is dedicated to raising awareness of various men’s health issues. I have been fortunate to have positive male role models in my life, and I strive to share my experiences with others.

I used to take part in Movember, growing my moustache throughout November to raise awareness and funds and to help “change the face of men’s health.” With male family and friends impacted by physical and mental health issues, I have recently become more interested in men’s overall well-being.

Men often face stigma involving the perceived need always to be strong and have things figured out. Recently, I’ve had meaningful conversations with male friends and colleagues about issues we rarely discuss, and it was a positive experience.

Various factors impact men’s health and well-being, all too easily leading to risky health behaviours including a lack of health awareness, poor health education, and negative, culturally induced, behaviour patterns in our work and personal lives. I hope we can break down these barriers in our work environment.

Healthy men help build healthy families and a healthy society

Men are less likely than women to seek help with their physical and mental health struggles. This is a reminder to prioritize your overall well-being. I hope that as men, we will continue to open up to one another, becoming vulnerable in order to share what we are going through. By sharing and by supporting each other, we can learn and grow together. You are not alone, and when you fall, you can still get up and stand tall.

From one broski to another, you are loved and appreciated. I hope this mindset carries into December and beyond.

Mindfulness

Our content team recently released a handful of articles on mindfulness, a practice that I believe provides a good opportunity for stress release and self-reflection:

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

21 November 2023
769 Editorial Board Members of MDPI Journals Achieve Highly Cited Researcher Recognition in 2023


We extend our sincere congratulations to the 769 Editorial Board Members of our journals – from 40 different countries/territories – who have been recognized as Highly Cited Researchers for the year 2023 by Clarivate. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to their professional fields, as indicated by Web of Science data.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited ResearchersTM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade who stand out for their significant and broad influence in various scientific and social science domains. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 21 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

This year, 7,125 Highly Cited Researcher 2023 designations were issued to 6,849 individuals from 67 countries, representing just 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide.

This means that these researchers have demonstrated an incredible level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade. They represent a small fraction of the researcher population whose contributions disproportionately push the boundaries of knowledge, enhancing global well-being, sustainability, and security.

Congratulations to the scholars for their noteworthy achievement – we are honored to have them on board with our journals!


Abate, Antonio
Aguilera, Ruth V.
Ahmed, Warish
Ahn, Myung-Ju
An, Qiaoshi
Anasori, Babak
Andersson, Dan I.
Angeletti, Silvia
Annabi, Nasim
Antinori, Spinello
Ariga, Katsuhiko
Asa, Sylvia L.
Astruc, Didier
Atala, Anthony
Atanasov, Atanas G.
Balsamo, Gianpaolo
Bandodkar, Amay J.
Banks, William A.
Bao, Yan-Ping
Barba, Francisco J.
Barnes, Peter J.
Barnholtz-Sloan, Jill S.
Barrow, Colin J.
Bashir, Ali Kashif
Basit, Abdul W.
Bassetti, Matteo
Batley, Jacqueline
Battino, Maurizio
Behnood, Ali
Benediktsson, Jon Atli
Biondi, Antonio
Bjarnsholt, Thomas
Blaschke, Thomas
Blay, Jean-Yves
Blumwald, Eduardo
Blunt, John W.
Boczkaj, Grzegorz
Bogers, Marcel
Bonomo, Robert A.
Boyd, Robert W.
Boyer, Cyrille
Braeckmans, Kevin
Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Bu, Wenbo
Bursać Kovačević, Danijela
Bush, Ashley I.
Byrd, John C.
Cabeza, Luisa F.
Cai, Xingjuan
Cambria, Erik
Cao, Guozhong
Cao, Xingzhong
Capasso, Raffaele
Carvalho, Andre F.
Casper, Jonathan
Castellanos-Gomez, Andres
Cavalli, Giacomo
Chai, Siang-Piao
Chan, Jasper Fuk-Woo
Chan, Timothy A.
Chang, Chih-Hao
Chang, Guoqing
Chao, Dongliang
Chen, Bo
Chen, Chaoji
Chen, Fahu
Chen, Gang
Chen, Jianmin
Chen, Jun
Chen, Jun
Chen, Jun
Chen, Lidong
Chen, Lingxin
Chen, Min
Chen, Mou
Chen, Peng
Chen, Qian
Chen, Qianwang
Chen, Shaowei
Chen, Shuangming
Chen, Wei
Chen, Xiaobo
Chen, Yimin
Chen, Yu
Chen, Yulin
Chen, Zhong
Chen, Zonghai
Cheng, Gong
Cheng, Huanyu
Cheng, Laifei
Cheng, Qiang
Chew, Kit Wayne
Chiclana, Francisco
Choi, Wonyong
Choi, Young Hae
Chowdhary, Anuradha
Cichocki, Andrzej
Clevers, Hans
Coops, Nicholas C.
Cortes, Javier
Cortes, Jorge
Costanza, Robert
Creutzig, Felix
Crommie, Michael F.
Cuadrado, Antonio
Cui, Haiying
Cui, Yi
Curigliano, Giuseppe
Dai, Sheng
Dai, Shifeng
Daiber, Andreas
Davies, Michael J.
Davis, Thomas P.
Dawson, Ted M.
de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar
Delord, Jean-Pierre
Demaria, Marco
Deng, Xiangzheng
Desneux, Nicolas
Dikic, Ivan
Dimopoulos, Meletios-Athanasios
Ding, Aijun
Ding, Jianxun
Dokmeci, Mehmet Remzi
Dolgui, Alexandre
Dong, Chung-Li
Dou, Shi Xue
Dragicevic, Tomislav
Du, Bo
Du, Qian
Du, Yonghua
Duan, Xidong
Dufresne, Alain
Dummer, Reinhard
Edwards, David
Elaissari, Abdelhamid
ElMasry, Gamal
Enjuanes, Luis
Fabbro, Doriano
Facchetti, Antonio
Fan, Junliang
Fan, Kelong
Fan, Xiulin
Fan, Zhanxi
Fang, Baizeng
Fang, Chuanglin
Fang, Yongjin
Fasano, Alessio
Feng, Liangzhu
Feng, Xuning
Fensholt, Rasmus
Ferdinandy, Péter
Fernandez-Lafuente, Roberto
Filippi, Massimo
Flavian, Carlos
Fortino, Giancarlo
Fowler, Michael
Franceschi, Claudio
Frattini, Federico
Friston, Karl J.
Fu, Gengtao
Gai, Francesco
Gaisford, Simon
Galanakis, Charis M.
Galluzzi, Lorenzo
Galvano, Fabio
Gan, Ren-You
Gao, Feng
Gao, Huijun
Gao, Huile
Gao, Peng
Gao, Wei
Garbe, Claus
Garg, Abhishek D.
Gasbarrini, Antonio
Gastaldelli, Amalia
Gautier, Emmanuel L.
Genevet, Patrice
Geng, Yong
Gerdts, Gunnar
Geschwind, Daniel H.
Ghaffari, Roozbeh
Ghamisi, Pedram
Giacobbe, Daniele Roberto
Giampieri, Francesca
Gillies, Robert J.
Godos, Justyna
Gogotsi, Yury
Golding, Nick
Gong, Jinlong
Gong, Peng
Gong, Yongji
Govindan, Kannan
Gozal, David
Grancini, Giulia
Grant, William B.
Graus, Francesc
Green, Douglas R.
Grosso, Giuseppe
Gu, Meng
Gu, Zhanjun
Guan, Cao
Gueimonde, Miguel
Gui, Guan
Guigo, Roderic
Guo, Hengyu
Guo, Jianping
Guo, Lin
Guo, Song
Guo, Yan
Guo, Zaiping
Gupta, Rangan
Gutzmer, Ralf
Haase, Dagmar
Hagger, Martin S.
Hall, C. Michael
Han, Fudong
Han, Heesup
Hanes, Justin
Hartung, Hans-Peter
He, Bao-Jie  
He, Debiao
He, Hongwen
He, Jiaqing
He, Jie
He, Jr-Hau
He, Qiong
He, Xiangming
He, Xijun
He, Zhili
Heneka, Michael T.
Herrera, Francisco
Herrera-Estrella, Luis
Herrera-Viedma, Enrique
Hetz, Claudio
Holick, Michael F.
Hong, Danfeng
Hong, Xuechuan
Hsueh, Po-Ren
Hu, Bin
Hu, Enyuan
Hu, Jin-Song
Hu, Weida
Hu, Wenbin
Hu, Xiaosong
Huang, Baibiao
Huang, Hongwei
Huang, Jianliang
Huang, Jianping
Huang, Peng
Huang, Xin
Hubacek, Klaus
Hussain, Saddam
Italiano, Antoine
Iwata, Hiroji
Jaeschke, Hartmut
Jain, Atul

Jaiswal, Amit K.
Jankovic, Joseph
Janssens, Ivan A.
Jelezko, Fedor
Jeon, Byong-Hun
Ji, Guangbin
Ji, Qiang
Ji, Wei
Ji, Xiaobo
Ji, Xiaoyuan
Jiang, Bin
Jiang, Hong
Jiang, Junjun
Jiang, Lianzhou
Jiang, Qing
Jiang, Shibo
Jiang, Yuyan
Jiang, Zhongyi
Jiao, Licheng
Jin, Shi
Jin, Zhong
Kalantar-zadeh, Kourosh
Kamal, Mohammad Amjad
Kaner, Richard B.
Kaneti, Yusuf Valentino
Kang, Zhenhui
Karagiannidis, George K.
Karniadakis, George Em
Karp, Peter D.
Kataoka, Kazunori
Katritch, Vsevolod
Kawi, Sibudjing
Kepp, Oliver
Khademhosseini, Ali
Khan, Nafees A.
Kiessling, Fabian
Kildishev, Alexander V.
Kim, Haegyeom
Kim, Jeonghun
Kim, Jin-Hoi
Kim, Jong Seung
Kim, Ki-Hyun
Kirkwood, John M.
Kivshar, Yuri
Klenk, Hans-Peter
Ko, Wen-Chien
Kong, Baohua
Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P.
Koonin, Eugene V.
Kroemer, Guido
Kuang, Dai-Bin
Kudo, Masatoshi
Kuhn, Jens H.
Kumar, Prashant
Kumar, Sudhir
Kurths, Juergen
Kurzrock, Razelle
Kuzyakov, Yakov
Kyrpides, Nikos C.
La Vecchia, Carlo
Lai, Yuekun
Lan, Ke
Lancellotti, Patrizio
Landi, Francesco
Lavie, Carl J.
Laxminarayan, Ramanan
Lee, Chengkuo
Lee, Jechan
Lee, Jin-Wook
Lee, Pooi See
Lee, Sang Soo
Lehmann, Johannes
Lei, Yaguo
Li, Bin
Li, Chunzhong
Li, Dongsheng
Li, Feng
Li, Hai
Li, Heng
Li, Hongyi
Li, Hui
Li, Jinghong
Li, Jun
Li, Li
Li, Linlin
Li, Neng
Li, Ning
Li, Shuai
Li, Shutao
Li, Wei
Li, Wentao
Li, Xiang
Li, Xuecao
Li, Xuelong
Li, Yat
Li, Yurui
Li, Zhijun
Liang, Chao
Liang, Shuquan
Liaw, Peter K.
Lin, Jun
Lin, Yuehe
Lippi, Giuseppe
Lister, Ryan
Liu, Chengmei
Liu, Gang
Liu, Hong
Liu, Hui
Liu, Jian
Liu, Jinyan
Liu, Jun
Liu, Meilin
Liu, Pan
Liu, Wei
Liu, Xianhu
Liu, Xiaoping
Liu, Xuejun
Liu, Yang
Liu, Yu
Liu, Yuan
Lonardo, Amedeo
Long, Hualou
Long, Ying
Lu, Bingan
Lu, Junling
Lu, Lu
Lu, Nanshu
Lu, Rongxing
Lucey, Brian
Lucieer, Arko
Lugato, Emanuele
Lund, Henrik
Luo, Yangchao
Luo, Yi
Luo, Zisheng
Lv, Wei
Lyons, Timothy W.
Ma, Haile
Ma, Jianmin
Ma, Jun
Ma, Tianyi
Ma, Wei
Ma, Yanming
Madabhushi, Anant
Mahmoudi, Morteza
Mai, Liqiang
Mai, Wenjie
Makridakis, Spyros
Mandala, Mario
Mantovani, Alberto
Mao, Jianfeng
Mao, Like
Mardani, Abbas
Mathivanan, Suresh
Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof
McCabe, Matthew F.
McCauley, Darren
McClements, David Julian
Mei, Lin
Melenhorst, Jan Joseph
Melero, Ignacio
Meyerholz, David K.
Mierlo, Joeri Van
Miroshnichenko, Andrey E.
Mittler, Ron
Mu, Shichun
Mubarak, Mohammad S.
Mueller, Lukas A.
Muhammad, Khan
Mumtaz, Shahid
Munekata, Paulo Eduardo Sichetti
Nakagawa, Shinichi
Nauen, Ralf
Newman, David J.
Niaura, Raymond S.
Nidheesh, P. V.
Niu, Ben
Nussinov, Ruth
O'Connor, David
Odintsov, Sergei D.
Omri, Anis
Orsini, Nicola
Ostrikov, Kostya (Ken)
Oswald, Isabelle P.
Oudard, Stephane
Ouyang, Minggao
Ozcan, Aydogan
Pan, Anlian
Pan, Anqiang
Pan, Caofeng
Pan, Genxing
Pan, Likun
Pan, Quan-Ke
Pan, Xiaoqing
Pandolfi, Pier Paolo
Parati, Gianfranco
Pateiro, Mirian
Peng, Qiang
Peng, Qing
Peng, Shushi
Perc, Matjaz
Perlin, David S.
Perlman, Stanley
Petruzzelli, Antonio Messeni
Pitt, Bertram
Pöhlmann, Stefan
Polasky, Stephen
Pommier, Yves
Poor, H. Vincent
Potenza, Marc N.
Preat, Veronique
Prinsep, Michele R.
Pu, Kanyi
Putnik, Predrag
Qin, Yuanwei
Qiu, Jieshan
Qu, Xiaogang
Ragauskas, Arthur J.
Ramakrishna, Seeram
Ramkissoon, Haywantee
Ran, Jingrun
Rao, Zhonghao
Recio, Isidra
Ren, Jinsong
Rengel, Zed
Rho, Junsuk
Riahi, Keywan
Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo
Richardson, Paul G.
Robert, Caroline
Rocca, Maria A.
Rodriguez-Manas, Leocadio
Rojas, Orlando J.
Rojo, Teofilo
Roubaud, David
Saad, Fred
Saad, Walid
Sadorsky, Perry
Saliba, Michael
Sander, Chris
Sangaiah, Arun Kumar
Santamouris, Mattheos
Santoro, Gabriele
Scaldaferri, Franco
Schatzberg, Alan F.
Schwab, Matthias
Schweizer, Frank
Scolyer, Richard A.
Scott, Daniel
Serruys, Patrick W.
Setzer, William N.
Shahzad, Babar
Shao, Shuai
Shao, Zongping
Shen, Guozhen
Shen, Liyin

Shen, Zexiang
Shi, Peng
Shi, Yi
Siano, Pierluigi
Simões, Manuel
Sing, Swee Leong
Singh, Vijay P.
Smagghe, Guy
Smith, Lee
Soffietti, Riccardo
Song, Houbing
Song, Jibin
Song, Yu
Sood, Anil K.
Souto, Eliana B.
Stadler, Marc
Stanley, H. Eugene
Stephanopoulos, Gregory
Sternberg, Cora N.
Stoumpos, Constantinos C.
Stunnenberg, Hendrik G.
Su, Shiliang
Sun, Baoguo
Sun, Cuixia
Sun, Fengchun
Sun, Hongqi
Sun, Jie
Sun, Lijun
Sun, Litao
Sun, Runcang
Sun, Yanjuan
Sun, Zaicheng
Sun, Zhipei
Sureda, Antoni
Svenning, Jens-Christian
Tan, Chaoliang
Tan, Weihong
Tang, Chuan-He
Tang, Chuyang
Tang, Dianping
Tang, Yongbing
Tanzi, Rudolph E.
Terpos, Evangelos
Teschendorff, Andrew E.
Tian, He
Timsit, Jean-Francois
Tiwari, Aviral Kumar
Tohge, Takayuki
Tousoulis, Dimitris
Tran, Lam-Son Phan
Tress, Wolfgang
Trivedi, Pankaj
Tsao, Rong
Tully, Mark A.
Tung, Chen-Ho
Van der Bruggen, Bart
Vandenbroucke, Roosmarijn E.
Vangronsveld, Jaco
Varsani, Arvind
Vatanen, Tommi
Verbeke, Kristin
Vermote, Eric
Verpoorte, Robert
Vieta, Eduard
Vincent, Jean-Louis
Vita, Antonio
Wan, Jiafu
Wan, Shaohua
Wanek, Wolfgang
Wang, Bin
Wang, Bo
Wang, Chao
Wang, Chuanyi
Wang, Chunsheng
Wang, Dan
Wang, Feng
Wang, Gongming
Wang, Guoxiu
Wang, Haihui
Wang, Hao
Wang, Huanqing
Wang, Huanting
Wang, Hui
Wang, Jian
Wang, Jie
Wang, Jing
Wang, John
Wang, Joseph
Wang, Lianzhou
Wang, Lihui
Wang, Meng
Wang, Peng
Wang, Pengfei
Wang, Qi
Wang, Qi
Wang, Qiang
Wang, Qilin
Wang, Qin
Wang, Qing
Wang, Shaojian
Wang, Sibo
Wang, Tao
Wang, Ying
Wang, Yong
Wang, Zhen
Wang, Zhong Lin
Wang, Zhongrui
Wang, Zifa
Wang, Zuankai
Wei, Haotong
Wei, Leyi
Wei, Zhixiang
Wei, Zhongbao
Weissleder, Ralph
Weitschies, Werner
Wen, Guanghui
Wesemael, Bas van
Willerslev, Eske
Witlox, Frank
Wu, Haijun
Wu, Hao Bin
Wu, Hui
Wu, Jun
Wu, Qinglin
Wu, Shuilin
Wu, Xiaojun
Wu, Yongzhen
Wu, Yuping
Wu, Zheng-Guang
Wu, Zhong-Shuai
Xia, Jianguo (Jeff)
Xia, Meimei
Xia, Xinhui
Xia, Yongyao
Xia, Zhiguo
Xiang, Quanjun
Xiao, Fuyuan
Xiao, Jie
Xin, Sen
Xing, Baoshan
Xing, Wei
Xiong, Rui
Xu, Hui
Xu, Li Da
Xu, Ping
Xu, Yi-Jun
Xu, Zhenjiang Zech
Yan, Chong
Yan, He
Yan, Huaicheng
Yan, Kai
Yan, Ruqiang
Yang, Bing
Yang, Chenguang
Yang, Hongshun
Yang, Hui
Yang, Jian
Yang, Jianping
Yang, Jie
Yang, Jun
Yang, Kai
Yang, Shihe
Yang, Xiaofeng
Yang, Xinsong
Yang, Yun-Gui
Yao, Yonggang
Yigitcanlar, Tan
Yin, Shen
Yin, Shou-Wei
Yin, Yulong
Yin, Zongyou
Yokoya, Naoto
Young, Allan H.
Yu, Guihua
Yu, Jun
Yu, Le
Yu, Minghao
Yu, Shu-Hong
Yu, Wei
Yu, Wenwu
Yuan, Qiangqiang
Yuan, Yifei
Yuan, Yuan
Yuen, Chau
Zeadally, Sherali
Zhai, Tianyou
Zhang, Bing
Zhang, Dengsong
Zhang, Fan
Zhang, Fusuo
Zhang, Guangyu
Zhang, Guowen
Zhang, Hengjie
Zhang, Hongjie
Zhang, Hui
Zhang, Lai-Chang
Zhang, Lefei
Zhang, Lei
Zhang, Liangpei
Zhang, Lijun
Zhang, Min
Zhang, Peng
Zhang, Qiang
Zhang, Qiaobao
Zhang, Qichun
Zhang, Shicheng
Zhang, Shujun
Zhang, Tierui
Zhang, Wei
Zhang, Weili
Zhang, Xian-Ming
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhang, Xiaogang
Zhang, Xiaoling
Zhang, Yang
Zhang, Yaobin
Zhang, Yi
Zhang, Yi-Zhou
Zhang, Yong
Zhang, Yu Shrike
Zhang, Yue-Jun
Zhang, Yuelin
Zhang, Zheng
Zhang, Zhicheng
Zhang, Zhien
Zhao, Guochun
Zhao, Jie
Zhao, Li-Dong
Zhao, Qing
Zhao, Yi
Zheng, Hao
Zheng, Weitao
Zheng, Yufeng
Zhong, Cheng
Zhou, Jie
Zhou, Jizhong
Zhou, Kun
Zhou, Liang
Zhou, Peng
Zhou, Qi
Zhou, Wei
Zhou, Weiqi
Zhu, Chengzhou
Zhu, Hongwei
Zhu, Junfa
Zhu, Jun-Jie
Zhu, Lei
Zhu, Mingshan
Zhu, Quanxin
Zhu, Yi
Zhu, Yongfa
Zhu, Zhe
Zhuang, Xiaodong
Zou, Quan
Zou, Ruqiang
Zuo, Chao

1 November 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #5 - OA Week, UK, and Strategy

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

Open Access Week 2023 – the Global Drive to Open Continues

As the world's largest open-access (OA) publisher, we believe that unrestricted access to research findings is the cornerstone of transparency, efficiency, and quality control across scientific disciplines. At MDPI, we provide free, immediate access to scientific papers, empowering scientists to examine, validate, replicate, and build upon existing results. This minimizes redundancy, optimizes resources, and fosters innovative approaches.

International OA Week, held from 23 to 29 October 2023, provided a unique opportunity to link the global movement toward open sharing and open science with the progress of policy changes at the local level. Our mission, during OA Week and all the year round, is to offer educational resources highlighting the benefits of open-access publishing. The MDPI Blog is a valuable resource for information on open access and open science.

Core principles of OA publishing

Accessibility, transparency, and collaboration are core principles of OA publishing. OA aims to break down barriers that have traditionally restricted research access, ensuring that knowledge is available to all, regardless of financial situation or institutional affiliations. Our commitment to diverse pathways for OA publishing worldwide includes discounts for researchers. You can learn more about how MDPI supports scientific communities here.

One of the key strengths of OA publishing is its ability to facilitate interdisciplinary research. By removing paywalls and promoting knowledge-sharing across disciplines, OA encourages collaboration and innovation. Researchers from various fields can access and build upon each others’ work, fostering a holistic approach to addressing complex global challenges.

OA holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change.

Policy driving change

Governments, institutions, and funding agencies have recognized the transformative potential of OA and have implemented policies to promote it. These policies often require publicly funded research to be made openly accessible, accelerating the growth of OA repositories and journals. Check out our spotlights on OA policies in the USEU and China

OA publishing is continuously evolving, with community-driven models and technologies shaping its future. Initiatives such as “Plan S” and “cOAlition S” promote OA publishing from the perspective of national funders, requiring grantees to publish their research openly. A new policy announced by the US administration last year mandates that, with effect from January 2026, all US federally funded research should be freely and immediately available after publication.

Additionally, preprint servers such as MDPI's Preprints.org, which allow researchers to share their findings before formal peer review, have gained popularity, enhancing the speed at which new knowledge is disseminated. The rise of blockchain technology is also being explored to ensure transparency and authenticity in scholarly publishing.

For more than two decades, OA publishing has been revolutionizing academic publishing by promoting accessibility, transparency, and collaboration. Its support for interdisciplinary research, evolving policies, and innovative practices all contribute to its growing influence in the global research community. As OA continues to expand, it holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change.

MDPI is proud to lead the transition to open access.

Read more:

Impactful Research

Spotlight on Smart Cities

Smart cities will serve as a cornerstone for future human development. Their implementation will help us tackle many of the significant challenges we are facing – climate change, ageing populations, waste management, public safety, travel, and so on. Recognising the importance of this multifaceted field, MDPI launched the inaugural issue of Smart Cities in 2018 to provide an advanced forum for research into smart technology and society. Here we take a look at how this journal has developed, and its impact in this exciting field.

As at 30 October, 2023, Smart Cities has published 421 papers and has an Impact Factor of 6.4. It also has a CiteScore of 8.5, and more than one quarter of its published papers – 124 – have been cited 10 times or more.

Highly cited papers in Smart Cities

Below are several highly cited papers recently published in Smart Cities. Citation metrics are current as at 31 October 2023.

1. “Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities
Authors: Carlos Moreno, Zaheer Allam, Didier Chabaud, Catherine Gall and Florent Pratlong
Smart Cities 2021, 4(1), 93-111; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010006
Citations: Crossref (338), Scopus (366), Web of Science (270), Google Scholar (710)
The paper discusses the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 on cities, including increasing inequalities and rising unemployment. It introduces the concept of the "15-Minute City," a form of "chrono-urbanism," as a response to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

2. “A Review on Electric Vehicles: Technologies and Challenges
Authors: Julio A. Sanguesa, Vicente Torres-Sanz, Piedad Garrido, Francisco J. Martinez and Johann M. Marquez-Barja
Smart Cities 2021, 4(1), 372-404; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010022
Citations: Crossref (359), Scopus (363), Web of Science (268), Google Scholar (558)
This paper provides an overview of the progress in Electric Vehicles (EVs), focusing on battery technology, charging methods, and emerging research challenges. It also analyzes the global EV market and its future outlook.

3. “IoT in Smart Cities: A Survey of Technologies, Practices and Challenges
Authors: Abbas Shah Syed, Daniel Sierra-Sosa, Anup Kumar and Adel Elmaghraby
Smart Cities 2021, 4(2), 429-475; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4020024
Citations: Crossref (121), Scopus (151), Web of Science (91), Google Scholar (215)
This paper gives an overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the context of Smart Cities, discussing the fundamental components, technologies, architectures, networking technologies, and artificial algorithms that underpin IoT-based Smart City systems.

4. “Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Smart Grid: A Survey
Authors: Olufemi A. Omitaomu and Haoran Niu
Smart Cities 2021, 4(2), 548-568; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4020029
Citations: Crossref (76), Scopus (94), Web of Science (57), Google Scholar (120)
This survey paper reviews the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in the context of the smart grid. It covers various applications of AI in load forecasting, power grid stability assessment, fault detection, and security issues in the smart grid and power systems.

5. “The Metaverse as a Virtual Form of Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability in Urban Futures
Authors: Zaheer Allam, Ayyoob Sharifi, Simon Elias Bibri, David Sydney Jones and John Krogstie
Smart Cities 2022, 5(3), 771-801; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities5030040
Citations: Crossref (72), Scopus (75), Web of Science (43), Google Scholar (176)
This paper discusses the concept of the Metaverse, a virtual world introduced by Meta (formerly Facebook), and its potential impact on urban life. It explores how emerging technologies such as AI, Big Data, IoT, and Digital Twins could reshape urban design and services in the context of the Metaverse.

Testimonial

“It was indeed a great and pleasant experience with MDPI regarding our recent publication. The submission process was very straightforward and less time-consuming than the norm. The review process was very fast compared to many other open access journals, which is praiseworthy. The support from the Editorial Office during the revision process was highly useful as well. We look forward to publishing with MDPI in the future, and I will most definitely recommend MDPI to my colleagues and collaborators. – Dr. Luís Rosa, University of Minho

Article in Smart Cities: Mobile Networks and Internet of Things Infrastructures to Characterize Smart Human Mobility

Inside MDPI

MDPI Manchester office, UK Visit


Allie Shi (Editorial Director, MDPI), Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Jamie Anderson (Manchester Office Manager, MDPI), Michael O’Sullivan (Senior Scientific Officer, MDPI), Hushneara Akhtar, and Becky Castellon (IOAP Team Lead, MDPI), dining out in Manchester, UK.

In October, I visited MDPI’s new office in Manchester. During the visit, I connected with our English Editing (EE) managers, Scientific Officer, members of the Editorial team, the Marketing team, and IOAP Team Lead.

Our Manchester office focuses primarily on EE services and provides local support for the UK market. Additionally, we regularly visit Editorial Board members and participate in local conferences.

I would like to thank Jamie Anderson, Manchester Office Manager, and her team, for their deep commitment to our Manchester staff and to MDPI’s impact on the UK market.

The UK by numbers

The UK is a hub for the world’s top universities, making it a key market for MDPI and the publishing world in general. It is home to two of the top-five-ranked universities globally, 11 in the top 100, and 15 in the top 200.

As a result, the UK plays a key role in MDPI’s global market. As at October 2023, it ranks as the seventh-largest contributor to the total number of papers published by MDPI. We have 3,500 Editorial Board members affiliated with UK institutions, including 34 serving as Editors-in-Chief (EiCs). Our commitment to collaboration with institutions is evident in the UK, where we have successfully established some 60 Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreements with esteemed institutions, such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh, and more.

According to InCites Dataset + ESCI for the period 2018–2022, as at October 2023, nearly 65% of UK papers are now published as OA. Just over 10% of total OA publications are by UK authors. UK papers are known for their high quality, with an average of 11 citations per paper. Furthermore, 2.16% of UK papers are in the top 1% of cited papers, and 14.61% are in the top 10% of cited papers, showcasing their impact.

We are currently hiring EEs in various locations worldwide.

English Editing at MDPI

Our English Editing (EE) department consists of two main branches, Quality Control and Learning and Development, reflecting our priorities. We are continuously enhancing the quality of our English Editing services and have raised the relevant standards, which now extend to company-wide communications. English editors participate in international interviews, conduct English assessments, and provide colleagues with presentations on ways to improve their use of written and spoken English.

While expanding, the EE department has proactively refocused its efforts on the quality of our work and how the English Editing department can benefit the company more broadly. We currently have approximately 140 full-time English Editors based across five offices worldwide, supplemented by over 700 freelance English editors.

Our Manchester office serves as the hub for the EE Department, with EE Managers situated there, except for Kurtis Jackson, who serves as the Head of EE and is located in our Basel office. Manchester EEs play a critical role in establishing and developing EE teams in our other offices, overseeing management and recruitment. The EE department plays a vital role in MDPI’s operations, as it is the department that touches every published paper. If this work interests you, I encourage you to explore our available EE positions, whether you are seeking full-time or freelance opportunities.

Testimonials

“MDPI provides an excellent service compared to any other previously used services. It delivers fast and high-quality results but at an affordable price.” – Ardha Apriyanto, University of Potsdam

“In my role as a professor, I consider that MDPI Author Services offer an excellent quality in the editing of Western academic writing while maintaining the required standards of clarity, precision and rigor. Additionally, delivery times are fast compared to other available services.” – Jesus Insuasti, University of Nariño

Read more:

Coming Together for Science

STM and Frankfurt Book Fair

Attending STM

MDPI has been a proud sponsor of the STM Conference for several years. The STM Conference is a dynamic event featuring interactive sessions, expert panellists, idea-sharing, and ample networking opportunities. On 16 October, the event kicked off with arrival drinks, sponsored by MDPI, followed by a welcoming dinner, providing a great chance to connect and network with industry professionals. The following day was filled with speakers, sessions, and further opportunities to connect. STM exemplifies the collaborative spirit of the scientific community, with session topics including achieving open, visible, and impactful research at scale; maintaining research integrity in a rapidly changing world; and exploring the impact of ever-evolving technology in the scholarly community.

Meeting with Web of Science

On a personal note, one of the highlights of STM was a candid and productive conversation with Nandita Quaderi, Editor-in-Chief and SVP at Web of Science. During our discussion, we talked about MDPI, Web of Science, the IJERPH delisting, and ways of moving forward. This open conversation aimed at fostering better collaboration for the future.

“We discussed ways to improve our communication and collaboration.”

I appreciated our frank discussion and felt that Nandita wholeheartedly supports open access. She also expressed her appreciation for the monthly CEO Letter, which she sees as a way to add personality to the MDPI brand and provide insight into the great work we do at MDPI. While we highlighted the positives, we also discussed ways to improve our communication and collaboration moving forward. This meeting alone made the trip worthwhile, and I hope Nandita doesn’t mind my sharing that she found our chat to be “the most honest and constructive discussion” she’s had with someone from MDPI in recent years.

75th Frankfurt Book Fair


Jelena Milojevic (Book Editor, MDPI), Jovana Dubajic (Book Editor, MDPI), Evan Escamilla (Project Manager, MDPI), Laura Wagner (Head of Books, MDPI), and Jenny Knowles (Commissioning Editor, MDPI), at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

For the 75th time, the Frankfurter Buchmesse opened its doors in October to celebrate exciting stories and their authors. If you haven’t yet had the chance to visit the Frankfurt Book Fair, I highly recommend it. It’s the largest book fair in the world, attracting thousands of visitors from around the globe. This is the place to gain valuable industry insights from top-class publishing professionals, connect with publishers directly, and learn about the latest trends in publishing.

MDPI Books

Our Books team was also present at the Frankfurt Book Fair, networking and learning from various panels. Did you know that our MDPI Books department publishes OA Books?

The book publishing program includes monographs, book series, edited books and reprints of special issues and topical collections, among other book types.

If you have a book proposal you would like to discuss, please feel free to contact our Books team to understand the benefits and methods of publishing your next book with the OA model.

Closing Thoughts

MDPI Strategy Meeting

As the newly appointed CEO, this is my first year leading the MDPI Senior Management Strategy session. I saw it as an opportunity to explore what MDPI has the potential to become in the next five years. Guided by the vision of its founder and President, Dr. Shu-kun Lin, the company has accomplished remarkable feats over the past 27 years and currently holds the position as the world’s third-largest academic publisher, following Springer Nature and Elsevier.

Our primary objective is to build upon the milestones of the past decades and consolidate MDPI’s position as well-established publishing brand. The two-day meeting emphasized the importance of communicating MDPI’s values more actively via its brand and adopting a straightforward yet impactful approach to managing MDPI as a mature academic publisher.

“Our primary objective is to consolidate MDPI’s position as well-established publishing brand”

As the world’s number one open-access publisher, MDPI has long been a game-changer in the scholarly community, serving millions of authors. The challenge in being a trailblazer is the need to continuously improve and at the same time explore the next blue-ocean strategy, while also maintaining the smooth operation of the business. Our collection model, featuring guest-curated thematic topics in the form of Special Issues, has disrupted the industry. Other publishers closely study us and attempt to replicate our models. The future of this collection model is something we are actively addressing – while, of course, looking ahead to what comes next!

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

19 October 2023
Open Access Week 2023 – the Global Drive to Open Continues


MDPI has been a strong proponent of the open access publishing model right from the beginning. As one of the pioneering fully open access publishers, we firmly believe that unrestricted access to research findings forms the foundation for better transparency, efficiency, and quality control across all scientific disciplines.

In December 2022, we reached a significant milestone by surpassing one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon!

Offering free and immediate access to scientific papers empowers scientists to examine, validate, replicate, and expand upon existing results. This not only helps prevent redundancy and optimizes how resources are used but also paves the way for innovative new approaches.

The International Open Access Week takes place from 23 to 29 October 2023, providing a unique opportunity to connect the global movement towards open sharing and open science with the progress of policy transformations at the local level.

Our goal, during Open Access Week as well as throughout the year, is to offer resources for educating people about the benefits of open access publishing. The MDPI Blog offers a wealth of information around open access and open science.

Promoting the values of accessibility, transparency, and collaboration

Open access publishing embodies the fundamental values of democratizing knowledge and fostering global accessibility. It aims to break down barriers that have traditionally limited access to scholarly work, ensuring that knowledge is available to all, regardless of their financial or institutional affiliations. 

Discounts are part of our commitment to ensuring there are diverse pathways to Open Access publishing for researchers worldwide. MDPI supports scientific communities in several different ways. 

One of the key strengths of open access publishing lies in its ability to facilitate interdisciplinary research. By removing paywalls and promoting the sharing of knowledge across disciplines, OA encourages collaboration and innovation. Researchers from diverse fields can access and build upon each other's work, fostering a holistic approach to addressing complex global challenges. 

Funders' policies are getting aligned with open science

Governments, institutions, and funding agencies have recognized the transformative potential of open access and have implemented policies to promote it. These policies often mandate that publicly funded research should be made openly accessible. Such initiatives have accelerated the growth of open access repositories and journals, reinforcing the commitment to open access principles. Check our spotlights on OA policies in the USEU and China

Open access publishing is continually evolving, with innovative and community-driven models and technologies shaping its future. Initiatives like "Plan S" and "cOAlition S" promote the adoption of OA publishing from the national funders’ perspective by requiring grantees to publish their research openly. A new policy announced by the US administration last year requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. 

Additionally, preprint servers such as MDPI's Preprints.org, which allow researchers to share their findings before formal peer review, have gained popularity, enhancing the speed at which new knowledge is disseminated. The rise of blockchain technology is also being explored to ensure transparency and authenticity in scholarly publishing. 

For more than twenty years, open access scholarly publishing has been revolutionizing academia by promoting the values of accessibility, transparency, and collaboration. Its support for interdisciplinary research, evolving policies, and innovative practices all contribute to its growing influence in the global research community. As open access continues to expand, it holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change. 

MDPI is proud to be a leader in the transition to open access.

2 October 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #4 - MDPI Presence in China

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

Open Access in China

It is Saturday, 23 September, and I have just returned from an unforgettable 12-day trip to China, visiting our main offices in Beijing and Wuhan. In the wake of a packed and very enjoyable agenda of internal and external meetings, I would like to use this edition of the CEO Letter to showcase how MDPI supports the scholarly community in China.

Coincidentally, Jack McKenna, Communications Associate from MDPI’s corporate content team, has just released a blog article discussing China’s open access (OA) policy. It is a timely read, providing a concise overview of the development of the OA movement in China and reflecting on its future. I shall draw some content from Jack’s piece and use this edition of the CEO Letter to highlight the various ways in which MDPI is involved in this market. And it would be remiss of me not to include some pictures and highlights from my travels!

Open Access Policy in China

As per Jack’s post, in 2020, China became the world’s leading producer of research articles. Today, China is experiencing a “substantial growth rate in OA [Open Access] publication”. This growth is supported by the State’s commitment to research & development and its policy “requiring the promotion of open science”.

Over the past two decades, there have been gradual developments in China’s OA framework, with repositories and platforms being developed in a consistent manner. Currently, key institutions across China – including the National Science Library, the National Science and Technology Library, and the Natural Science Foundation of China – support OA. The State aims to establish consistent policies across government agencies – a framework for a more encompassing embrace of OA across institutions.

In China, the number of subscription-only articles decreased by nearly 30% over the 10-year period of 2011–2021, while gold OA increased by 22%. Between 2017 and 2020 alone, China published 800,921 academic papers in an OA format.

In 2023, as the leading publisher of academic research, China is pursuing “self-reliance”. Therefore, the State will be establishing consistent policies across government agencies, including those related to OA. Additionally, it will want to ensure that Chinese people can access the research that is supported by Chinese funding and produced by Chinese academics. For this reason, “Open Access is a matter of priority in China”.

MDPI Offices in China

 While the history of MDPI begins in Basel, Switzerland, the story of MDPI’s founder is very much rooted in China. Dr. Shu-kun Lin, Founder and President of MDPI, graduated with a BSc from Wuhan University in 1982. He also studied physical chemistry at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (1982–1986; MSc in 1985), and at the University of Louisville, USA (1987–1989). Dr. Lin completed his doctorate in organic chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zürich) in 1992.


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) at MDPI’s Wuhan office.

In 2002, MDPI’s Basel headquarters moved to Matthäusstrasse 11, 4052 Basel, and Dr. Lin opened an editorial office in Qingdao, China, which launched the journal Marine Drugs in the following year. Below is a list of MDPI’s current offices in China and their respective dates of inauguration:

  • 2008: Beijing (Tongzhou, Haidian)
  • 2013: Wuhan (Hankou, Guanggu)
  • 2019: Tianjin
  • 2021: Dalian
  • 2021: Nanjing

Our Strength is in Our People

With over 6,000 MDPI staff, across 20 offices in 11 countries, MDPI is able to offer authors responsive and efficient round-the-clock support, enabling a rapid publication process.

In my experience, stakeholders are genuinely surprised when they realize the extent of our global operations. My response is to reiterate that our people are our strength. This is why we have fast and efficient processes and top-notch responsiveness. Our global presence ensures that your manuscript is constantly attended to, rather than sitting on someone’s desk. We prioritize our authors’ needs and act quickly to move things through the various stages of publication. MDPI is built on speed, convenience, and competence, which I believe are core pillars for success in any industry. We continually strive to improve our systems and processes on the basis of these core strengths. We literally have over 6,000 staff worldwide dedicated to serving your needs. It’s not magic: it’s people; it’s real.

Impactful Research

MDPI Awards

To support the academic community, and especially young researchers, and also to enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals offer various awards in specific fields. We serve the scientific community by funding research to facilitate the development of sustainable global solutions through our annual World Sustainability Award and Emerging Sustainability Leader Award.

In 2022, MDPI made awards totalling over US$1 million in recognition and support of researchers worldwide.

Across our journal catalogue, we have granted over 2,000 awards to recognize and support researchers from all disciplines. Since 2016, these awards have served as a source of recognition, acknowledging the impact of research by heightening the influence of talented individuals. The award types mainly include the Young Investigator Award, the Best PhD Thesis Award, the Best Paper Award, and the Outstanding Reviewer Award.

To learn more about MDPI Awards and to find out which are currently available, please click here.

MDPI Awards to Scholars from China

Since 2021, there have been 23 Best Paper Awards granted to authors affiliated with Chinese institutions, identifying their papers as having high-quality scientific impact. A total of 45 Chinese scholars have received awards such as the Young Investigator Award, the Best PhD Thesis Award, the Outstanding Reviewer Award, and the Tu Youyou Award, among others. Prizes for these awards include MDPI grants for paid publications, totalling over CHF 70,000 for scholars affiliated with Chinese institutions.

MDPI’s Tu Youyou Award


Prof. Tu Youyou (left), Dr. Shu-Kun Lin (President, MDPI).

In 2015, Professor Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.” In order to commemorate Professor Tu’s contributions to human health and to promote the passion and spirit conveyed by her experiences, MDPI in 2016 established the ‘Tu Youyou Award’, which runs biennially to recognize outstanding scholars dedicated to the research of natural products and medicinal chemistry.

The 2022 Tu Youyou Award was granted to Prof. Dr. Xiaoguang Lei of Peking University. Click here to access the interview with the winner.

2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine Awarded to Professor Youyou Tu

Professor Tu’s work was celebrated in a Special Issue from Molecules on the occasion of her 80th birthday. The Special Issue: 'Artemisinin (Qinghaosu): Commemorative Issue in Honor of Professor Youyou Tu on the Occasion of her 80th Anniversary” was created five years before she won the Nobel Prize, highlighting the visibility MDPI provides researchers and their work.

Highly Cited Articles by Chinese Scholars Published in MDPI

Click here to access the most cited MDPI papers published by scholars affiliated with Chinese institutions. This list presents the most influential research from the more than 287,000 MDPI papers published by Chinese scholars. With over 9 million total citations, I encourage you to maximize your visibility and impact by publishing with MDPI, the number one most cited open access publisher.

Read more:

Inside MDPI

Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) with the Beijing Marketing team.

Marketing Department in China

During my visit to our offices in Beijing and Wuhan, I had the opportunity to meet with, and to present to, our local marketing teams. These teams are responsible for various journal-related and corporate promotional activities, including newsletters, conferences, seminars, author training, journal awards, content creation, digital marketing, and social media.

I was pleased by the ambition and curiosity of our marketing colleagues. They showed a strong desire to collaborate and acquire knowledge and tactics to effectively market and promote MDPI-journal-related activities. I presented some of the principles and objectives that we apply in the Corporate Marketing and Communications department, and used the opportunity to strengthen our collaborative communications across offices.

Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) with the Wuhan Marketing team.

Coming Together for Science

Collaborations, Scholarships and Meetings

MDPI maintains partnerships with nearly 190 learned societies and over 800 institutions and consortia, helping to facilitate the transition to OA publishing. Our commitment to working with institutions is evident in China, where we have successfully established over 35 Institutional Open Access Programs (IOAP) with esteemed institutions such as the Tsinghua University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Our institutional partnerships, waiver programs, and article processing cost discounts create diverse pathways to OA publishing for researchers worldwide.

Scholarships in China

Since 2021, several MDPI journals (Sensors, Photonics, Coatings, Materials, Energies, and Journal of Fungi) have funded full scholarships for four Master’s and five Ph.D. projects in China. These scholarships align with Tianjin University, Wuhan University of Technology, Central South University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the China University of Petroleum (Beijing).

Meeting with the Society of Chinese University Journals (CUJS)


Prof. Tieming Zhang (President of CUJS, centre) and MDPI colleagues at CUJS office.

I am pleased to have participated in some highly productive meetings during my visit to China, including one with the Society of Chinese University Journals (CUJS). The meeting involved Prof. Tieming Zhang (President of CUJS), Assoc. Prof. Xin Zhang (Vice President and Secretary General), and Dr. Fei Gao (Executive Member of CUJS). Alongside my colleagues Dr. Guoshi Liu, Dr. Giulia Stefenelli, and Anita Sun, I represented MDPI and held an open discussion to address any questions regarding OA and MDPI.

We discussed several methods for collaboration, including a workshop on the future of peer review, MDPI sponsoring a funding grant for early-career researchers, and transitioning journals from diamond to gold OA. I am thankful for the opportunity to have met our colleagues at CUJS in person and feel very confident about our future collaborations in support of OA publishing in China.

MDPI hosts free academic seminars, author training sessions, and academic conferences as part of its commitment to enrich and support the scholarly community. CUJS often stages academic events (e.g., conferences, editor training, and editor competitions), and I believe there are great opportunities for CUJS and MDPI to collaborate accordingly.

Meeting with National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSLC)


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Dr. Giulia Stefenelli (Chair of Scientific Officers, MDPI), Anita Sun (PR Manager, MDPI) and Dr. Guoshi Liu (Managing Director, MDPI) at the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

We also visited the NSLC Director, Xiwen Liu, and colleagues Ying Jin, Zhesi Shen, and Sichao Tong. Following our introductions, we gave a presentation on the history and editorial process at MDPI, discussing specific details related to MDPI’s business and data. We highlighted the status of our  IOAP collaborations in China and the makeup of our author base, specifically in China, and drew attention to the fact that MDPI has published research by authors from every country in the world. We then discussed the design indicators, calculation methods and implementation purposes of the ‘Early Warning Journal List’ and how we can have open communication to provide any data regarding MDPI journals. I am pleased to report that we reached a consensus on future communications, and am grateful to NSLC for hosting us in their offices.

In-person meetings with stakeholders provide an invaluable opportunity to communicate what MDPI is about and the various ways in which we serve the scholarly community. While digital marketing and online communication are essential, they are no replacement for the understanding and trust that come about through in-person interactions.

The Numbers

As at September 2023, China holds the largest position in MDPI’s global market, ranking as the largest contributor to the total number of papers published by MDPI.

At this point in time, there were more than 847,000 China mainland scholars who have published with MDPI, 51 of whom are Section-Editors-in-Chief (SEiC) of MDPI journals, with seven serving as Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) for journals such as Air, Big Data and Cognitive Computing, Blockchains, Future, Nanoenergy Advances, and Targets.

Our growth and presence in China are a true testament to the service we provide to the scholarly community, and to the relationships we foster through collaborative activities. We look forward to continuing to support the growth of the scholarly community in China, providing a valuable and trusted experience with MDPI.

Closing Thoughts

Final Reflections on our MDPI Offices in Beijing and Wuhan


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Dr. Constanze Schelhorn (Indexing Manager, MDPI), Jiale Shang (Admin, Tongzhou, MDPI) at Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing.

I spent approximately two weeks visiting some of our offices in China, and the first word that comes to mind when describing my experience is ‘hospitality.’ My colleagues and I were met with enthusiasm and delight at the airport by the Tongzhou Admin team (thank you, Jiale Shang, and thank you, Eric Wang, for keeping us organized on this trip!) and were taken care of with great attention. From hotels to transportation, dinners, and meetings, our stay was catered for perfectly.

Perhaps this is where MDPI’s focus on customers and service originates. At our core, we are a service company that provides a publishing platform for its authors. It’s therefore no surprise that authors consistently rate their experience with MDPI very highly.

95% of submitting authors rate their overall experience with the MDPI publication process as Excellent or Good (Springer Nature report 90%).

91% of submitting authors rate their overall experience with the MDPI peer review process as Excellent or Good.

Speed/Efficiency and Editorial Relationship are two key reasons underlying this high satisfaction score. ‘Editorial Relationship’ can be further explored, but in the past month, the most commonly noted aspects were the professionalism, kindness, availability, communicativeness, and personalized assistance provided by our editorial staff throughout the process. These attributes are at the core of our work across all our offices and continents.

Hospitality and Service

Just as our Chinese colleagues strove to keep us engaged by showing us the city sights (thank you, Thea Pan, and Jason Wu from the Wuhan Marketing team!) and sharing a variety of wonderful meals, our editorial staff are committed to serving our authors throughout their publishing journey. Our aim is to place the author at the centre of everything we do, eager to welcome our ‘guests’ and provide them with a pleasant publishing experience.

I asked my colleague Francis Wu (Senior Publisher, Wuhan office) where this hospitality originates. He responded that it is part of Chinese culture. I reflected long and deep on this answer. China is a vast country, and when visitors arrive, hosts want to ensure they feel welcomed and taken care of in order to maximize their time and visit. I can’t think of a better analogy for how I would want our authors to feel when they visit MDPI for their publishing needs. A company culture that prioritizes service, something that goes beyond products and productivity, and focuses on the overall experience. Over 6,000 people, across all MDPI offices, are ready, willing and able to go the extra mile for their colleagues and their customers. This is something I am truly proud of.

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

6 September 2023
Recap of Awards Granted to Scholars in 2022


MDPI is committed to supporting the academic community, nurturing talent and advancing science. Awards are an important part of the research landscape and play a vital role in helping academics gain recognition, especially young researchers as they embark on new research avenues.

In 2022, our journals presented a total number of 394 Awards, including Travel Awards, Young Investigator Awards, Best PhD Thesis Awards, Best Paper Awards, and Outstanding Reviewer Awards, with several winners announced for some of the awards. The total prize sum amounted to just under 580,000 Swiss francs (CHF), or approximately 650,000 US dollars. Overall, more than 720 scholars were awarded.

The majority of the awards were dedicated to young researchers in relatively early stages of their careers. This encompassed 66 of the afore-mentioned Travel Awards, 60 Young Investigator Awards, supporting research projects and conference attendance, as well as 51 Best PhD Thesis Awards. Additionally, 113 Best Paper Awards were given by our journals. The selection committees were entrusted with identifying the most impactful and novel research and review articles published in their journal within a given year.

MDPI will continue its support and recognition for the academic community moving forward, sponsoring new awards across disciplines. To learn more about all the awardees and their research projects in your field of study, please visit the following pages:

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

30 August 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #3 - Sustainability and Co-opetition

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

Our Commitment to Sustainability

As a pioneer in academic open access publishing since 1996, MDPI has always been dedicated to facilitating scientific exchange across all disciplines. Our approach to open science is guided by principles such as Open Access (OA), Timeliness and Efficiency, Simplicity, High-Quality Service, Flexibility, and a commitment to Sustainability. This commitment involves preserving published papers for the long term and supporting the future of science through partnerships, sponsorships, and awards.

In this edition of the CEO Letter, I will delve into MDPI’s various sustainability initiatives. As a leader in OA publishing, we are able to provide the public with a significant amount of environment-related content at no cost.

MDPI and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

In 2020, the SDG Publishers Compact was launched to accelerate implementation of the SDGs by promoting content that informs, develops, and inspires action. MDPI joined this initiative in 2021 and subsequently launched the MDPI SDG Hub in 2022, offering free access to recent research within the scope of each of the 17 SDGs. We also support authors from underrepresented communities by waiving publication charges for selected SDG-related papers. Detailed sustainability practices and supported publications are available in the report under each Goal page.

“More than 80% of MDPI articles and reviews published in 2022 relate to the Sustainable Development Goals.” [source: InCites, Accessed on 21.08.2023]

As at August 2023, MDPI boasts 14 journals dedicated to sustainability-related topics. Our first journal in this area, Sustainability, has published over 29,000 articles on the SDGs, accumulating over 240,000 citations (source: InCites, as at 1 January 2023). These journals serve as vital platforms for researchers to share insights and address environmental challenges. In addition:

MDPI journals specializing in sustainability-related topics:

  • 2009: Sustainability
  • 2012: Resources
  • 2013: Climate
  • 2014: Environments
  • 2016: Recycling
  • 2019: Clean Technologies
  • 2020: Sustainable Chemistry
  • 2021: Wind, Biomass, Conservation, Pollutants, Solar
  • 2022: Waste, Microplastics

Read more:

Impactful Research

Highly Cited Articles in Sustainability

In 2022, content published in Sustainability and indexed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) received nearly 190,000 citations. This highlights the fact that Sustainability publishes highly cited research articles related to environmental sciences and SDG-related topics such as climate action.

We are pleased to share that Sustainability received a 2022 CiteScore of 5.8, marking a 16% increase from the 2021 metric. Specifically, the CiteScore positions Sustainability as follows: Q1 (27 out of 163) in the “Environmental Science (miscellaneous)” category, and Q1 (101 out of 779) in the “Geography Planning and Development” category. For additional journal statistics, please visit here.

“Sustainability received a 2022 CiteScore of 5.8”

While MDPI journals such as Climate and Atmosphere have a distinct focus on atmosphere pollution and its impact on climate processes, journals like Sustainability, Environments, Water, Remote Sensing, and IJERPH publish content related to climate change. These journals have published over 32,300 articles related to SDG 13: Climate Action.

Highly Cited Papers in Sustainability

Below are several highly cited papers published in Sustainability over the past three years. Citation metrics are current as at 15 August 2023.

1. “A Global Assessment: Can Renewable Energy Replace Fossil Fuels by 2050?
Authors: Jerry L. Holechek, Hatim M. E. Geli, Mohammed N. Sawalhah, and Raul Valdez
Sustainability 2022, 14(8), 4792; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084792
Citations: Crossref (97), Scopus (91), Web of Science (82), Google Scholar (125)

This paper addresses one of the most significant challenges of climate change – achieving Net Zero Carbon by 2050. The meta-analysis suggests that while difficult, this transition is possible through the concerted application of pathways, lifestyle changes, and global cooperation.

2. “Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety
Author: Panu Pihkala
Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 7836; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197836
Citations: Crossref (144), Scopus (121), Web of Science (159), Google Scholar (382)

This paper has received substantial media attention, including coverage by The Guardian, BBC, Vice, and CNBC. An interview with Dr. Panu Pihkala, a leading interdisciplinary researcher on the topic, can be found on MDPI’s podcast: Insight Faster, Episode 1.

3. “Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture and Its Mitigation Strategies: A Review
Authors: Gurdeep Singh Malhi, Manpreet Kaur, and Prashant Kaushik
Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1318; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031318
Citations: Crossref (207), Scopus (221), Web of Science (186), Google Scholar (355)

This paper reviews literature on climate change, addressing its causes, future projections, impact on agriculture, including plant physiology, growth, productivity, pest infestation, and the economic implications of mitigation strategies.

4. Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions
Authors: Rakesh Kumar, Anurag Verma, Arkajyoti Shome, Rama Sinha, Srishti Sinha, Prakash Kumar Jha, Ritesh Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Shubham, Shreyas Das, Prabhakar Sharma, and P. V. Vara Prasad
Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9963; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179963
Citations: Crossref (134), Scopus (136), Web of Science (113), Google Scholar (184)

This review aims to assess the adverse effects of plastic pollution on ecosystems, link the management of plastic with the SDGs, and propose policy measures using transdisciplinary approaches. Empowering communities to reduce plastic use is crucial. Addressing global plastic pollution is a priority.

Sustainability is an international, cross-disciplinary, open access journal that explores environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings. It provides a forward-looking platform for research on sustainability and sustainable development, and is published semi-monthly online by MDPI. Sustainability is affiliated with The Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) and The International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB).

Read more:

Inside MDPI

President of Ireland Authors Editorial in MDPI Journal Sustainability

It’s a very special occasion when the president of a country takes the initiative to write an editorial for a journal. Michael D. Higgins, President of the Republic of Ireland, has contributed his insights to a forthcoming Special Issue in Sustainability:

This Special Issue, focusing on “making sustainable development happen” at grassroots levels, allows for perspectives from, and on, the major world faiths, exploring how challenges have been conceptualised and addressed, in addition to case studies of faith-based sustainability initiatives in practice.

The experience of faith institutions and communities in translating theological and moral commitments to sustainable development into action is now a topic we must examine with urgency; one on which I am so glad this Special Issue focuses.

As President of Ireland, I very much support this Special Issue of Sustainability. It is my great hope that the contents of the papers contained herein will assist in making sustainable development happen at grassroots levels across the world so that we can cooperate together, people of faith and of none, to ensure a just, inclusive and sustainable future for all on our fragile planet.

Read the completed editorial here:

Special Issue “Faith and Sustainable Development: Exploring Practice, Progress and Challenges among Faith Communities and Institutions”: Foreword by the President of Ireland
Author: Michael D. Higgins
Sustainability 2023, 15(12), 9683; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129683

Coming Together for Science

The World Sustainability Forum 2023

The World Sustainability Forum (WSF) is a biennial MDPI event focused on sustainability. WSF 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of the conference series, taking place on 14 September. For the first time, the event will be hosted as a 24-hour conference across three locations – Singapore, Basel in Switzerland, and Toronto in Canada – alongside virtual streaming.

This unique format allows us to span three time zones, providing live coverage of critical sustainability-related topics throughout the day:

  • The Singapore Hub, chaired by Professor Horn Mun Cheah and Associate Professor Renee Tan, will explore “Sustainability for Social and Community Impact”.
  • The Basel Hub, chaired by Prof. Dr. Anet Režek Jambrak and Dr. Lela Mélon, will delve into “Sustainability in the industry, and at university and corporate settings”.
  • The Toronto Hub, led by Dr. Umberto Berardi, will discuss “The Sustainable Built Environment”.

MDPI Sustainability Foundation: Recognizing Excellence in Sustainability Research

The MDPI Sustainability Foundation supports researchers through two sustainability-focused awards:

  1. The World Sustainability Award, amounting to USD 100,000, is given to senior researchers.
  2. The Emerging Sustainability Leader Award, valued at USD 20,000, sponsored by the journal Sustainability, is presented to early-career researchers.

The winners of the Sustainability Foundation will be formally awarded during the WSF2023 on 14 September. Interviews with the award winners and finalists are available below.

2023 World Sustainability Award Winners

  1. Professor Michael R. Templeton
  2. Professor Tom Lyon
  3. Dr Krithi K. Karanth

Interviews with 2023 Emerging Sustainability Leader Award Finalists

  • Dr. Bahareh Kamranzad
  • Dr. Youjin Kim
  • Dr. Julia Lohmann

As a hybrid event, WSF23 provides scholars with the option to attend in person at one of the conference sites or, for a more sustainable approach, virtually. All sessions will be recorded and archived for future access. Registration is open until 3 September 2023, with in-person and virtual tickets available here.

Read more:

Closing Thoughts

“Co-opetition”: Collaboration Plus Healthy Competition – A Visit to Elsevier

I firmly believe in fostering collaboration and at the same time promoting healthy competition within the academic publishing industry. The market offers ample room for publishers and related companies to provide valuable services and products that enrich the academic community. While MDPI is recognized for its efficient and streamlined processes –thanks to our over 6,000 colleagues, in-house tools, and initiatives that support the author journey – our ethos has always involved learning from and collaborating with other organizations.

MDPI’s Interaction with Elsevier

In January 2023, I had a brief conversation with Judy Verses, President of Global Academic and Government Markets at Elsevier, following her participation in a panel discussion at the Academic Publishers Europe event in Berlin. One of the highlights for me was Judy’s insight into the impact of research, particularly her emphasis on the role of collaboration, including policy and showing the impact of research to influence on funding decisions.

“Such collaborations drive forward-looking strategies to elevate our support for the scholarly community”

Judy and I resumed our discussion in August, when I visited Elsevier's office to review current projects, such as our recent agreement with Science Direct and the continued indexing of MDPI journals in Scopus (indexing database owned by Elsevier). We also explored possible opportunities for the future, including a potential collaboration to expand MDPI’s Scilit data infrastructure. This endeavour aims to aggregate and provide access to scholarly metadata encompassing journal articles, conference papers, books, preprints, and more. While these discussions are ongoing, the underlying principle remains that such collaborations drive forward-looking strategies to elevate our services and support for the scholarly community.

It was great that Judy and I acknowledged the merits of 'co-opetition,' a concept based of the belief that fostering cooperation alongside healthy competition can lead to shared advancements for both individual companies and the industry at large.

‘Fully OA’ Organizations Dedicated to Open Access

MDPI proudly aligns with the ‘Fully OA’ group, a collaborative initiative comprising nine organizations dedicated to Open Access. Our monthly meetings, including an OASPA representative, serve as platforms to share non-confidential information, resources, and projects. These gatherings also facilitate discussions on topics relevant to fully OA organizations. Occasionally, joint actions spring from these interactions, such as collaborative blog posts on pertinent subjects and joint statements, such as a recent response to the House Appropriations Committee.

This display of cooperation among competing entities forms a strategic alliance focused on nurturing the best interests of the OA publishing model.

As I wrap up this third edition of the CEO Letter, I encourage you to seize opportunities for collaboration and contribute to advancing our shared academic culture. As the African proverb has it, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

14 August 2023
MDPI’s 2022 Young Investigator Awards in Biology and Life Sciences—Winners Announced


MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2022 in biology and life sciences. The winners were selected by the journals’ Award Evaluation Committee.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Agriculture:

  • Thomas Hartinger, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria

Agronomy:

  • Leontina Lipan, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain

Animals:

  • Daniel Stec, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

Brain Sciences:

  • Dibyadeep Datta, Yale Medical School, USA
  • Giacomo Valle, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  • Morgan H. James, Rutgers University, USA

Foods:

  • Xiaonan Lu, McGill University, Canada

Genes:

  • Alfredo Iacoangeli, King's College London, UK
  • Elisa De Franco, University of Exeter, UK
  • Riccardo Pecori, German Cancer Research Center, Germany
  • Vanessa Silva, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal

Horticulturae:

  • Massimiliano Renna, University of Bari Aldo Moro at Bari, Italy

Insects:

  • Adam G. Dolezal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States

Microorganisms:

  • Carla Rodrigues, Institut Pasteur, France
  • Lorena Rodriguez-Rubio, University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Kevin Solomon, University of Delaware, USA

Nutrients:

  • Colleen Deane, University of Southampton, UK

Toxins:

  • Paz Otero Fuertes, University of Vigo, Spain

Pathogens:

  • Marta Giovanetti, National Reference Laboratory of Flavivirus in the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
  • Carrie M. Long, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), USA

Vaccines:

  • Carina Joe, University of Oxford, UK

About MDPI Awards:

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields. These awards, serving as a source of inspiration and recognition, help raise the influence of talented individuals who have been credited with outstanding achievements and are making a significant contribution to the advancement of their fields.

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

14 August 2023
MDPI’s 2022 Travel Awards in Biology and Life Sciences—Winners Announced


We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2022 Travel Awards in biology and life sciences for their outstanding presentations.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of the 2022 Travel Awards and wish them the greatest success in their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Brain Sciences:

  • Liloia Donato, University of Turin, Italy
  • Roberta Bettoni, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy

Diversity:

  • Vanessa Silva, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal

IJMS:

  • Carlo Matera, University of Milan, Italy
  • Elisabetta Coppi, University of Florence, Italy
  • Ilaria Tonazzini, Nanoscience Institute—National Research Council (CNR) @ NEST in Pisa, Italy

MPs:

  • Pere Catala, University Eye Clinic Maastricht, Maastricht University Medical Center, the Netherlands

Sports:

  • Angela Blasimann, University of Antwerp, Belgium
  • Angelo Sabag, Western Sydney University, Australia

About MDPI Awards:

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields. These awards, serving as a source of inspiration and recognition, help raise the influence of talented individuals who have been credited with outstanding achievements and are making a significant contribution to the advancement of their fields.

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

14 August 2023
MDPI’s 2022 Outstanding Reviewer Awards in Biology and Life Sciences—Winners Announced


In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when generously dedicating their time to reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer review process.

We are proud to recognize the winners for the year 2022 in biology and life sciences for their outstanding contributions, among extensive competition, by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners on their achievements. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Agronomy:

  • Ewa Ropelewska, The National Institute of Horticultural Research, Poland
  • Marek Rašovský, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Slovakia
  • Prakash Jha, Kansas State University, USA
  • Vasileios Greveniotis, Institute of Industrial and Forage Crops, Greece

Biology:

  • Alberto Collareta, University of Pisa, Italy
  • Francisco Curate, University of Coimbra, Portugal
  • Gianpiero Greco, University of Study of Bari, Italy
  • Luca Poli, University of Study of Bari, Italy
  • Shaohua Chen, South China Agricultural University, China

Brain Sciences:

  • Chong Chen, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan

Children:

  • Marco Sapienza, University of Catania, Italy
  • Sabina Barrios-Fernández, University of Extremadura, Spain

Diversity:

  • Corrado Battisti, Torre Flavia LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) Station, Italy
  • Daniel Stec, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
  • Emilia Grzędzicka, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
  • Igor Zelnik, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Endocrines:

  • Eva S. Liu, 1Harvard Medical School, USA 2Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA

Fermentation:

  • Aleksandra Szydlowska, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS), Poland
  • Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, Al-Azhar University, Egypt

Fishes:

  • Andrew G. Jeffs, University of Auckland, New Zealand
  • Mohamed Samy-Kamal, Universitat d'Alacant, Spain

Foods:

  • Baskaran Stephen Inbaraj, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan
  • Marzena Włodarczyk-Stasiak, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland
  • Minaxi Sharma, Haute Ecole Provinciale de Hainaut-Condorcet, Belgium
  • Viviani Ruffo de Oliveira, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil

Genes:

  • Federico Manuel Giorgi, University of Bologna, Italy
  • Jan Bocianowski, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland
  • Magdalena Mroczek, Center for Cardiovascular Genetics and Gene Diagnostics, Switzerland

IJMS:

  • Keigi Fujiwara, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA
  • Tomasz W. Kaminski, University of Pittsburgh, USA
  • Takujiro Homma, Yamagata University, Japan
  • William Bryan Terzaghi, Wilkes University, United States
  • Zong-jie Cui, Beijing Normal University, China

Insects:

  • Abraão Almeida Santos, University of Florida, USA
  • Agata Kaczmarek, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
  • Miguel A. García-Martínez, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

Life:

  • Andrei S. Rodin, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Institute, USA
  • Kazuhiko Kotani, Jichi Medical University, Japan

Metabolites:

  • Jianing Mi, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
  • Nguyen Phuoc Long, Inje University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea
  • Xian Luo, University of Alberta, Canada

Pathogens:

  • Guillaume Fiches, Ohio State University, USA
  • Jianxuan Wu, Gilead Sciences, USA
  • Tomasz M. Karpiński, Poznań University of Medical Sciences, Poland

Plants:

  • Alicia Ayerdi Gotor, Institut Polytechnique UniLaSalle, France
  • Andrea Mastinu, University of Brescia, Italy
  • Edyta Paczos-Grzeda, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland
  • Narayan Bhusal, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea
  • Mohsen Hesami, University of Guelph, Canada

Toxins:

  • Christian Müller, University of Greifswald, Germany
  • Margarita Fernández-Tejedor, IRTA, Spain

Vaccines:

  • Christian Napoli, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy
  • Federico Marchesi, University of Parma, Italy
  • Roger E. Thomas, University of Calgary, Canada

Veterinary Sciences:

  • Fun-In Wang, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
  • Valeria Grieco, University of Milan, Italy

About MDPI Awards:

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields. These awards, serving as a source of inspiration and recognition, help raise the influence of talented individuals who have been credited with outstanding achievements and are making a significant contribution to the advancement of their fields.

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

14 August 2023
MDPI’s 2022 Best PhD Thesis Awards in Biology and Life Sciences—Winners Announced


MDPI’s Best PhD Thesis Awards are presented to recognize the young scholars who are judged to have completed the most outstanding PhD thesis in their field of research and to encourage them to continue their outstanding work and further contributions to their field.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of the 2022 Best PhD Thesis Awards and wish them success in their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Brain Sciences:

  • “CYP2D in the Brain Alters Response to Drugs and Neurotoxins”
    by Marlaina R. Stocco, University of California, USA
  • “Neural Encoding of Prior Experience in Sensorimotor Behavior”
    by Nicolas Meirhaeghe, Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, France
  • “Perinatal Stem Cell: Epigenetic, Biological and Differentiative Characteristics”
    by Giulia Gaggi, University "G.D'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara, Italy

Genes:

  • “Uncovering the Genetic Variation Involved in Asthma Exacerbations through Multiple Genomic Approaches”
    by Esther Herrera Luis, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain

Veterinary Sciences:

  • “Development of Novel Tools for Monitoring Antimicrobial Resistance in Complex Microbial Communities and Their Application to Improving Our Stewardship of Antimicrobials in Livestock”
    by Ashenafi Feyisa Beyi, Iowa State University, United States

About MDPI Awards:

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields. These awards, serving as a source of inspiration and recognition, help raise the of talented individuals who have been credited with outstanding achievements and are making a significant contribution to the advancement of their fields.

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

14 August 2023
MDPI’s Best Paper Awards in Biology and Life Sciences—Winners Announced in 2022


The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation.

We are honored to present the winners for the year 2022 in biology and life sciences, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Agronomy:

Biology:

Brain Sciences:

Diversity:

Genes:    

IJMS:     

Insects:  

Life:

Metabolites:          

MPs:

Pathogens:

Plants:

Toxins:

Vaccines:               

Veterinary Sciences:

About MDPI Awards:

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields. These awards, serving as a source of inspiration and recognition, help raise the influence of talented individuals who have been credited with outstanding achievements and are making a significant contribution to the advancement of their fields.

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

27 July 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #2 - Open Peer-Review and IJERPH

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

Open Peer Review Reports

Continuing the topic of openness from my inaugural monthly CEO letter, in these Opening Thoughts, I highlight the growth and importance of open peer-review reports at MDPI. Open peer reports align with the principles of open science, making the publishing process more transparent and facilitating rigorous peer review.

MDPI journals operate an open peer-review option by default, allowing authors to publish review reports and author responses (often referred to as open reports) together with the published paper. Publishing the reviewer reports and author responses together with the article provides greater transparency and trust for readers, as this allows them to track the editorial decision-making process. Open peer-review also encourages reviewers and editors to provide high-quality comments, as these will be made public if the article is accepted for publication.

Start and Growth of Open Peer Review at MDPI

The MDPI journal Life was a pioneer in offering this opportunity to its authors in 2014. The first MDPI article with peer-review reports openly published was a review by the Nobel Laureate Werner Arber, in which the review reports were published as supplementary material. By 2018, open peer-review was available across all MDPI journals. As such, MDPI authors have embraced the open peer-review model, providing a steady increase in the number of MDPI articles. As of 2023, approximately one-third (34.0%) of MDPI articles were published with open review reports.

As at July 2023, the percentage of MDPI articles published with open peer review has increased to 36.2% of the total papers published in 2023 so far, indicating ongoing growth in adoption.

Open peer review continues to play a critical role in the assessment of the peer-review process in Life. For further insights, please see the recent editorial by Dr. Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto, the former Editor-in-Chief of Life, who spearheaded the implementation of the open peer-review process.

Benefits of Open Peer Review

The benefits of open peer review include increased transparency, trust and constructive feedback. To promote open communication further and increase the robustness of the peer-review process, we encourage reviewers to sign their reports so that their name appears on the review report (this process is referred to as open identity). The default option is for reviewers to remain anonymous; however, by signing the reports, reviewers receive direct credit for their contribution to the peer-review process and show their commitment towards open science.

As the leading open access publisher, MDPI remains committed to promoting open peer-review and encourages authors to choose this approach. Our goal is to provide a rigorous and transparent peer-review process that benefits the scientific community, and we believe that open peer-review is a vital step in fostering openness and collaboration in scientific communication.

Impactful Research

MDPI Papers Cited in the News – IJERPH edition

Every month, our corporate marketing team compiles data from Altmetrics to create a list of MDPI papers that have been cited in the news. This list continues to grow as renowned news outlets regularly reference research published by MDPI in their articles.

During 2022, a total of 111,965 MDPI research papers were mentioned in prominent news outlets such as National Geographic, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, the BBC, CNN, Time, and Harvard Business Review.

Highly Cited Journal Publications

IJERPH, known for publishing impactful research, received the most news mentions among all MDPI journals in 2022, based on Altmetrics data:

  • International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: 3509 mentions
  • Nutrients: 2698 mentions
  • International Journal of Molecular Sciences: 1701 mentions
  • Journal of Clinical Medicine: 1131 mentions
  • Viruses: 1111 mentions

These numbers show the recognition and impact of the articles published in IJERPH. For a more detailed view of the journal’s most cited and viewed papers, you can visit here. In total, IJERPH has garnered over 28,000 mentions in prominent news outlets, and as at July 2023, an impressive count of over 17,000 papers cited 10 times or more. These figures highlight the impactful contribution of IJERPH publications to the scientific community.

Example of Recent Mentions

During May and June 2023, a noteworthy selection of articles from IJERPH was cited in news articles, including:

The Washington Post: “Bringing nature inside can improve your health. Here’s how to do it.”
IJERPH paper:Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature: A Systematic Review of Indoor Experiments

Harvard Business Review: “How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research
IJERPH paper:Canine-Assisted Therapy Improves Well-Being in Nurses

National Geographic: “Lyme disease is spreading fast—but a vaccine may be on the way
IJERPH paper:Range Expansion of Tick Disease Vectors in North America: Implications for Spread of Tick-Borne Disease

Inside MDPI

MDPI Develops an Artificial Intelligence Tool to Enhance the Peer-Review Process

At MDPI, we believe that rigorous peer-review is the corner-stone of high-quality academic publishing. We are grateful to the scholars who generously dedicate their time to peer-review articles submitted to MDPI journals. Their contributions are invaluable to the advancement of science.

Peer-review is a critical part of the publication process, ensuring that MDPI upholds the highest quality standards for the papers we publish. Every manuscript submitted to our journals undergoes a comprehensive peer-review process conducted by subject-matter experts.

To further enhance our peer-review process, our Data Analytics team has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool designed to support the selection of reviewers. This proprietary tool utilizes Natural Language Processing (NLP), a specially designed AI language model, to extract information from the title and abstract of submitted papers. It then searches our database for similar manuscripts and suggests potential reviewers based on this analysis. Integrated with MDPI's submission system (SuSy), the AI tool cross-references the suggested candidates with our reviewer database to verify their invitation status and availability.

The goal of this tool is to provide better targeted peer-review invitations, reducing the number of emails sent for each paper and increasing the efficiency of our editorial staff.

In the near future, our Data Analytics team plans to deploy similar AI projects to improve other critical aspects of our services, offering an enhanced experience to our authors and readers.

Click here to learn about MDPI’s review process, including procedures, responsibilities, and benefits.

Read more:

Coming Together for Science

The Future of IJERPH

On 5 July 2023, Prof. Dr. Paul B. Tchounwou, the founding Editor-in-Chief of IJERPH, along with five Section Editors in Chief (Prof. Dr. Germán Vicente-Rodríguez, Prof. Dr. Karl Goodkin, Prof. Dr. William A. Toscano, Prof. Dr. Jimmy T. Efird, and Prof. Dr. William Douglas Evans), gathered in Basel to discuss the future of the journal. The meeting provided an opportunity to address the recent decision by The Web of Science to delist IJERPH due to the journal failing the Content Relevance criterion, and propose best strategies that will ensure high scientific rigor as well as a clear scope and aim of IJERPH, going forward.

While the delisting is disappointing for IJERPH, as well as for our authors, academic editors, and the entire scientific community supporting our journal, we see it as an opportunity to reflect and prepare for the future direction of the journal.

Since its launch in 2004, IJERPH’s vision and mission have evolved to be more complete and comprehensive in engaging scientific communities. In light of this, we will refresh the journal’s aims and scope, ensuring they align with the organic expansion of IJERPH. Additionally, we will restructure the journal sections into broader categories, encouraging collaborative research and transdisciplinary approaches for authors. This is designed to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among diverse fields, contributing to a holistic understanding of health promotion and disease prevention. We are confident that these next steps will enhance the scientific strength and societal impact of our journal.

Journal Achievements

In addition to the productive discussions, we took the time to celebrate some of the remarkable achievements of IJERPH, which I highlight below:

  • Founded by Prof. Dr. Paul B. Tchounwou in 2004
  • Indexed in PubMed in 2008
  • Received its first Impact Factor in 2012
  • Published its 5000th paper in 2017
  • Over 60,000 papers published as at June 30, 2023
  • 131,628,173 paper views in 2018–2022
  • Over 28,000 mentions in prominent news outlets
  • 17,000 papers cited 10 times or more as at June 30, 2023
  • No.1 journal in the 2022 Google Scholar Metrics in the category of Public Health
  • Awarded several editions of Young Investigator Awards, Travel Awards, and Outstanding Reviewer Awards since 2018.

These achievements showcase the journal’s significant contributions to the field and its impact on global health. We are proud of the exceptional work accomplished by the IJERPH team and look forward to building upon this success in the years to come.

Closing Thoughts

MDPI’s Impact in Spain

During the past month, I had the opportunity to visit our new office building in Barcelona, where I met with our local colleagues to discuss the ways we serve the scholarly community, particularly in Spain. The multi-functional office plays a vital role in supporting various business needs, including editorial, design, conference management, data analytics, journal relationship management, publishing partnerships, and collaborations with societies.

Spain holds a significant position in MDPI’s global market, ranking as the fourth-largest contributor to the total number of papers published by MDPI as at July 2023, ranking next to Italy, the USA, and China, with Germany completing the top five.

The Numbers

Out of the 1,680,000 total MDPI articles published as at 25 July, almost 80,000 articles are contributed by Spanish authors, representing nearly 40,000 unique authors affiliated with Spanish institutions. Remarkably, over 6,300 of these authors hold editorial board member (EBM) positions within MDPI journals, with 30 of them serving as Editors-in-Chief (EiCs).

Our commitment to working with institutions is very evident in Spain, where we have successfully established over 40 Institutional Open Access Programs (IOAP) with esteemed institutions such as the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University, the University of Navarre, and Complutense University of Madrid.

Over the past five years, we have successfully organized eight in-person conferences in Barcelona, attracting over 1,150 registrations, with two forthcoming events scheduled for 2024. Barcelona's excellent connectivity to international airports makes it easily accessible to participants from around the world. Its welcoming atmosphere provides us with the perfect environment for knowledge-sharing, networking, and contributing to the local economy.

Our growth and presence in Spain are a true testament to the incredible service we provide to the scholarly community and the relationships we foster through responsive and collaborative communication. We look forward to continuing to support Spanish scholars, providing them a valuable and trusted experience with MDPI, the leader in open access publishing.

Testimonials

I close this letter as I did in the first edition, by sharing testimonials from our stakeholders. Here are a few IJERPH testimonials from a Spanish guest editor and an author:

Guest Editor
“I want to thank the kindness, attention and professionalism of the MDPI team throughout the editorial process of the Special Issue. I believe that it is a very professional and quality editorial process.”
- Professor Víctor Arufe-Giráldez, University of A Coruña
Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Physical Activity in Childhood and Adolescence
Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Physical Education: Present and Future
__
Author
“I want to thank the rigor of the revisions made to the manuscripts to improve their quality, the support to the authors for the editor assignment system they have and the follow-up they carry out, for the speed in answering and in carrying out the entire process of the revision, and for doing all this at an affordable price.”
- Dr. María Paz García-Caro, University of Granada
Article in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Factors Associated with Suicide Attempts and Suicides in the General Population of Andalusia (Spain)

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

11 July 2023
MDPI’s Newly Launched Journals in June 2023

With the first issue released in June 2023, five new MDPI journals disseminating multi-disciplinary science are due to launch, which will cover the subjects of medicine & pharmacology, biology and physical sciences.

The newly launched journals will be overseen by professional Editorial Board Members and Editors to ensure an accurate and rapid publication, rigorous peer review and broad visibility.

Please feel free to browse and discover more about the new journals below.

Journal Founding Editor-in-Chief Journal topics (selected)
Prof. Dr. Jun Ma, Peking University, China| Editorial | view inaugural issue growth and development;
diet and nutrients; school health promotion policies and practices; child health and care; adolescent health and wellbeing | view journal scope | submit an article
Prof. Dr. Bernd Rehm, Griffith University, Australia | Editorial | view inaugural issue DNA and gene synthesis; synthetic transcription factors; protein engineering; viral engineering; metabolic engineering | view journal scope | submit an article
Prof. Dr. Varsha Gandhi, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA | Editorial | view inaugural issue lymphatics; cancers associated with lymphocytes and lymphoblasts; lymphatic tissues; lymphoma; lymphoid leukemia | view journal scope | submit an article
Dr. Bradley Turner, University of Melbourne, Australia | Editorial | view inaugural issue multiple sclerosis; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; primary lateral sclerosis; atherosclerosis; systemic sclerosis | view journal scope | submit an article
Prof. Dr. Clemens Burda, Case Western Reserve University, USA | Editorial | view inaugural issue Gamma ray, X-ray, and UV–Vis spectroscopies; NIR/mid-infrared/Raman spectroscopy; microwave and THz spectroscopy; high-resolution gas-phase atomic, molecular, and cluster spectroscopy; MS, NMR, and EPR spectroscopy | view journal scope | submit an article

We wish to thank everyone who has supported the development of open access publishing. You are welcome to submit an application to the New Journal Committee (newjournal-committee@mdpi.com) if you would like to create more new journals.

3 July 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #1 - Open Access and Impactful Research

Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.

In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.


Opening Thoughts

The Future is Open, and MDPI is Leading the Way

I strongly believe in a future that embraces openness, where open source, open information, and open access (OA) take center stage. This belief that led me to join MDPI in 2020, and I am honored to have recently been appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In this capacity, and operating in close liaison with Dr. Lin and MDPI’s senior management, I shall work to build on Dr. Lin’s achievements of the past quarter-century. In this role, I will focus on communication initiatives to promote MDPI's remarkable work and continue to build our company as a trusted leader in OA publishing. For over two decades, MDPI has been at the forefront of reshaping the academic publishing landscape, with OA surpassing subscription-based publishing in 2020. This trajectory is deeply rooted in our history and reflects our unwavering commitment and vision for an open future.

1 Million Published Articles

2023 began with a remarkable achievement for MDPI, as we became the first OA publisher to reach the milestone of 1 million published articles. This represents 2.7 million unique authors who have trusted us with their work, or about a third of all researchers worldwide. As the world's most cited OA publisher, we are proud in sharing these significant milestones.

Our mission remains unchanged: to make science open and accessible to all. We understand the importance of knowledge access, empowering researchers to stay at the forefront of a rapidly changing world. Our diverse range of journals covers a wide spectrum of disciplines, offering cutting-edge insights, trusted tools, and crucial knowledge to address global challenges.

Liberating Science

As the world’s leading OA publisher, MDPI is actively liberating science. We are committed to eliminating the frustrations researchers and the general public face when accessing information, ensuring it is not locked behind paywalls. We firmly believe that everyone has a right to information, and our commitment to open access publishing drives our work.

In this inaugural edition of Insights: The CEO's Letter, I draw inspiration from the upcoming 20th anniversary of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. Its stated mission reminds us that true impact is achieved when knowledge is widely and readily available to society:

"Our mission of disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society”

Impactful Research

MDPI Publishes Impactful Research: Recognized by Leading Indexing Databases

MDPI journals are indexed in every single top database in the world.

As of June 2023, we have 214 journals indexed within Web of Science, 223 indexed within Scopus, 87 indexed within PubMed and PMC, and 17 indexed within MEDLINE, and these numbers increase every month. We constantly strive to expand the coverage of our journals within leading multi-disciplinary and scope-specific databases, resulting in an incredibly broad range of journals that are indexed within a variety of databases. MDPI has active relationships with approximately 65 well-known databases around the world, and we continue to expand our portfolio every year so that your work can be found, cited, and referenced with ease.

Continued Growth of MDPI Journals

The 2022 Scopus and Web of Science journal citation metrics were officially released in June, and I am pleased to report that 31 MDPI journals received their first CiteScore, taking the total number of journals with a CiteScore to 216. The number of MDPI journals receiving an Impact Factor (IF) also continues to grow with 111 receiving their first, by being covered in the ESCI, bringing our total number of journals with an IF to 208 of which 41 journals received an IF above 4.0. Looking at 2022 CiteScores in the Scopus database, 80% of MDPI journals have a score that ranks them in Q1 or Q2 in at least one subject category.

Publishing impactful science would not be possible without all of our authors, editors and reviewers. Thank you for your contribution and continued support! Together we share the latest scientific insights faster and ensure that your work is accessible to all.

Read more

Interview with Indexing Manager—Constanze Shelhorn

Inside MDPI

Preprints.org: Clarivate adds the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science

At MDPI, we are dedicated to driving the advancement of science. Through our initiative, Preprints.org, researchers can publish their work and gain valuable feedback from the broader research community, ensuring rapid progress in their respective fields. This is particularly crucial during times of health and climate challenges, where timely dissemination of findings is essential.

Increased Visibility for Preprints

I am pleased to share that Clarivate recognizes the significance of preprints and has taken a crucial step to enhance their visibility. Clarivate has added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science, encompassing preprints published not only on Preprints.org but also on other reputable repositories.

Looking ahead, the future of preprints appears promising, bolstered by the recent indexing announcement from the Web of Science. As a result, preprints will receive increased visibility, serving as a valuable resource for staying informed about the latest research developments.

Read more

What are Preprints?
The Pros and Cons of Preprints
Preprints and COVID-19
Preprints—The Future of Open Access Publishing?

Coming Together for Science

The First International Conference on Antioxidants: Sources, Methods, Health Benefits and Industrial Applications

In this edition of ‘Coming Together for Science,’ I am pleased to highlight the First International Conference on Antioxidants organized by our conference team in the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. The conference attracted over 130 attendees, who engaged in 42 talks, and 89 poster presentations spread across several sessions.

Working Together

Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Alessandra Napolitano (Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples ‘Federico II’, Naples, Italy) and Prof. Dr. Rosa M. Lamuela Raventos (Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences and Gastronomy, University of Barcelona, Spain) as chairs, and supported by the committee members, 10 invited keynote speakers, poster presenters, and all the attendees, this dedicated group of academics came together to discuss the natural sources, methodologies, health benefits, and industrial applications of antioxidants.

Especially noteworthy is the positive feedback received from attendees, with 94% rating the overall organization of the conference as good or excellent. I particularly love the picture above, capturing the gathering of some of the participants. You can browse through more photos in the event gallery located here.

Managing Events With Sciforum

If you are considering hosting your own academic event, I highly recommend checking out Sciforum, MDPI's event management platform. Sciforum simplifies the entire process, making it easy to host your own event by allowing you to focus on what really matters: Science!

Read more

Sciforum: forthcoming events
Spotlight on Antioxidants

Closing Thoughts

Stefan Tochev, Dr. Shu-Kun Lin, Dr. Eric O. Freed, Peter Roth, Wynne Wang, Allison Yang

Viruses and Editorial Quality: Acknowledging the Dedication of our Viruses Journal Team

During a June meeting with Dr. Eric O. Freed, the founding and current Editor-in-Chief of our journal Viruses, I was reminded of the exceptional dedication of our editorial board. Meeting with Eric is a pleasure, as he has a strong commitment and clear vision for the journal. Over the course of two days, we gained a deep understanding of the journal’s expectations and focus on strategic growth, editorial board representation, and engagement.

I am pleased to share that Viruses holds a CiteScore of 7.1 (an increase of 7.57% versus the 2021 metric) and an Impact Factor of 4.7. You can view the journal statistics here. Viruses publishes highly cited papers, and is indexed in renowned databases such as Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), PubMed, and others, and maintains affiliations with prestigious societies. Moreover, the Viruses team has recently announced an exciting upcoming event titled ‘Viruses 2024 – A World of Viruses,’ scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain, from 14–16 February 2024.

Testimonials

If you notice my enthusiasm regarding our editorial service, it’s because the surveys and testimonials we receive speak volumes about the experiences of our authors, reviewers, and guest editors who collaborate with MDPI. The purpose of these letters is to highlight the exceptional work that we do and the experiences we create for the scholars – thus, let me end with this testimonial from an author:

“It was a great pleasure to publish in Viruses Special Issue [Emerging Viruses in Aquaculture]. The submission process was easy. Guest editors were very helpful and provided all the guidance and support as needed. The handling of the manuscript by the Editorial Team was very fast, efficient, and professional. The reviewer’s comments were insightful, and the publication processes were remarkably rapid.”
Ms. Magdalena Stachnik, Państwowy Instytut Weterynaryjny | PIWet

Article in Viruses: Emerging Viral Pathogens in Sturgeon Aquaculture in Poland: Focus on Herpesviruses and Mimivirus Detection

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

28 June 2023
2022 Impact Factors for MDPI Journals

The 2022 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

We are thrilled to announce that 90% of our ranked MDPI journals, specifically 86 out of 96 (captured in the table below), are performing above average in Q1 or Q2. This year, Clarivate has expanded its Impact Factor (IF) awards to include journals in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), providing greater transparency for the full set of journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. As a result, 111 of MDPI journals have received their first IF in 2023, with 37 journals surpassing an IF of 3.0. In total, 208 MDPI journals have been honored with an IF.

Clarivate explains that by "expanding the coverage but holding to highly selective standards, the [Impact Factor] is now a reliable indicator of trustworthiness, as well as a measure of scholarly impact, at the journal level."

Please visit our blog post where we discuss the release of the latest citation metrics with our Indexing Manager, Dr. Constanze Schelhorn, to find out what's different this time around and how to make use of different metrics available.

Journal Impact Factor Rank Quartile Category
Vaccines 7.8 Q1 Immunology
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Antioxidants 7.0 Q1 Food Science & Technology
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Chemistry, Medicinal
Cells 6.0 Q2 Cell Biology
Nutrients 5.9 Q1 Nutrition & Dietetics
International Journal of Molecular Sciences 5.6 Q1 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Q2 Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research 5.6 Q2 Business
Biomolecules 5.5 Q1 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Biosensors 5.4 Q1 Chemistry, Analytical
Instruments & Instrumentation
Q2 Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Fractal and Fractional 5.4 Q1 Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Marine Drugs 5.4 Q1 Chemistry, Medicinal
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Pharmaceutics 5.4 Q1 Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Nanomaterials 5.3 Q1 Physics, Applied
Q2 Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Cancers 5.2 Q2 Oncology
Foods 5.2 Q1 Food Science & Technology
Polymers 5.0 Q1 Polymer Science
Remote Sensing 5.0 Q1 Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Q2 Remote Sensing
Imaging Science & Photographic Technology
Environmental Sciences
Antibiotics 4.8 Q1 Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Q2 Infectious Diseases
Drones 4.8 Q2 Remote Sensing
Journal of Functional Biomaterials 4.8 Q2 Engineering, Biomedical
Materials Science, Biomaterials
Biomedicines 4.7 Q1 Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Q2 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Journal of Fungi 4.7 Q2 Mycology
Microbiology
Viruses 4.7 Q2 Virology
Bioengineering 4.6 Q2 Engineering, Biomedical
Gels 4.6 Q1 Polymer Science
Molecules 4.6 Q2 Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Pharmaceuticals 4.6 Q2 Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Chemistry, Medicinal
Toxics 4.6 Q1 Toxicology
Q2 Environmental Sciences
Biomimetics 4.5 Q1 Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Q2 Materials Science, Biomaterials
Microorganisms 4.5 Q2 Microbiology
Plants 4.5 Q1 Plant Sciences
Biology 4.2 Q2 Biology
Chemosensors 4.2 Q2 Instruments & Instrumentation
Chemistry, Analytical
Electrochemistry
Membranes 4.2 Q2 Engineering, Chemical
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry, Physical
Polymer Science
Toxins 4.2 Q1 Toxicology
Q2 Food Science & Technology
Metabolites 4.2 Q2 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Batteries 4.0 Q2 Electrochemistry
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Q3 Energy & Fuels
Catalysts 3.9 Q2 Chemistry, Physical
Journal of Clinical Medicine 3.9 Q2 Medicine, General & Internal
Land 3.9 Q2 Environmental Studies
Sensors 3.9 Q2 Instruments & Instrumentation
Chemistry, Analytical
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Sustainability 3.9 Q2 Environmental Sciences (SCIE)
Environmental Studies (SSCI)
Q3 Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SCIE)
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SSCI)
Buildings 3.8 Q2 Construction & Building Technology
Engineering, Civil
Agronomy 3.7 Q1 Agronomy
Q2 Plant Sciences
Fermentation 3.7 Q2 Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Pathogens 3.7 Q2 Microbiology
Agriculture 3.6 Q1 Agronomy
Diagnostics 3.6 Q2 Medicine, General & Internal
Genes 3.5 Q2 Genetics & Heredity
Journal of Intelligence 3.5 Q2 Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Lubricants 3.5 Q2 Engineering, Mechanical
Processes 3.5 Q2 Engineering, Chemical
Coatings 3.4 Q2 Materials Science, Coatings & Films
Physics, Applied
Q3 Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 3.4 Q2 Geography, Physical
Q3 Computer Science, Information Systems
Remote Sensing
Materials 3.4 Q2 Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Physics, Applied
Physics, Condensed Matter
Q3 Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry, Physical
Micromachines 3.4 Q2 Instruments & Instrumentation
Physics, Applied
Chemistry, Analytical
Q3 Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Water 3.4 Q2 Water Resources
Environmental Sciences
Brain Sciences 3.3 Q3 Neurosciences
Energies 3.2 Q3 Energy & Fuels
Fire 3.2 Q1 Forestry
Q2 Ecology
Life 3.2 Q2 Biology
Current Issues in Molecular Biology 3.1 Q3 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Horticulturae 3.1 Q1 Horticulture
Animals 3.0 Q1 Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Veterinary Sciences
Insects 3.0 Q1 Entomology
Atmosphere 2.9 Q3 Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Electronics 2.9 Q2 Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Physics, Applied
Q3 Computer Science, Information Systems
Forests 2.9 Q1 Forestry
Inorganics 2.9 Q2 Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 2.9 Q1 Engineering, Marine
Q2 Oceanography
Engineering, Ocean
Metals 2.9 Q2 Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
Q3 Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease 2.9 Q2 Tropical Medicine
Parasitology
Q3 Infectious Diseases
Universe 2.9 Q2 Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics, Particles & Fields
Healthcare 2.8 Q2 Health Policy & Services (SSCI)
Q3 Health Care Sciences & Services (SCIE)
Applied Sciences 2.7 Q2 Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Physics, Applied
Q3 Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Crystals 2.7 Q2 Crystallography
Q3 Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Entropy 2.7 Q2 Physics, Multidisciplinary
Magnetochemistry 2.7 Q2 Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear
Q3 Chemistry, Physical
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Symmetry 2.7 Q2 Multidisciplinary Sciences
Actuators 2.6 Q2 Instruments & Instrumentation
Engineering, Mechanical
Aerospace 2.6 Q1 Engineering, Aerospace
Behavioral Sciences 2.6 Q2 Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Current Oncology 2.6 Q3 Oncology
Machines 2.6 Q2 Engineering, Mechanical
Q3 Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Medicina 2.6 Q3 Medicine, General & Internal
Separations 2.6 Q3 Chemistry, Analytical
Minerals 2.5 Q2 Mining & Mineral Processing
Mineralogy
Geochemistry & Geophysics
Children 2.4 Q2 Pediatrics
Diversity 2.4 Q2 Biodiversity Conservation
Q3 Ecology
Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease 2.4 Q3 Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Mathematics 2.4 Q1 Mathematics
Photonics 2.4 Q3 Optics
Veterinary Sciences 2.4 Q1 Veterinary Sciences
Fishes 2.3 Q2 Marine & Freshwater Biology
Fisheries
Axioms 2.0 Q2 Mathematics, Applied
Systems 1.9 Q2 Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Tomography 1.9 Q3 Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging


Note: The Journal of Personalized Medicine's Impact Factor was omitted in the original release and will be assigned separately. Please find the data on the journal webpage in due course.

Source: 2022 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports TM (Clarivate, 2023)

 

13 March 2023
MDPI’s Newly Launched Journals in December 2022

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

Journal

Founding Editor-in-Chief

Journal Topics (Selected)

Prof. Dr. Fabio Gresta, University of Messina, Italy| Editorial | view inaugural issue

grass/forage/turf production; grassland management; pasture monitoring; grazing and livestock; grass agro-ecosystems| view journal scope | submit an article

Prof. Dr. Christos G. Athanassiou, University of Thessaly, Greece| Editorial | view inaugural issue

pesticides; fungicides; herbicides; fertilizers; soil conditioners| view journal scope | submit an article

Prof. Dr. Stephen H. Safe, Texas A&M University, USA| Editorial | view inaugural issue

receptor structure; receptor function; receptor signaling; receptor expression and regulation; receptor interactions with drugs| view journal scope | submit an article

Dr. Jean Jacques Vanden Eynde, University of Mons-UMONS, Belgium| Editorial | view inaugural issue

drug discovery; medicinal chemistry; preclinical and clinical research; marketed drugs; intellectual property and regulatory affairs| view journal scope | submit an article

Prof. Dr. Heather Kanuka, University of Alberta, Canada| Editorial | view inaugural issue

higher education; tertiary education; policy and practice in higher education; educational leadership in higher education; educational administration and management in higher education| view journal scope | submit an article

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

7 March 2023
Displaying Co-Authors’ Email Addresses on the Webpage of Published Papers

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

16 February 2023
Increasing Visibility for Preprints.org – Clarivate adds the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

22 December 2022
Special Issue Mentor Program

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

  • Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
  • Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
  • Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
  • Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

  • Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
  • Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
  • Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
  • Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
  • Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

14 December 2022
"Thanks a Million!" – One Million Articles Published in MDPI Journals

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

1 Million Infographic

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

8 December 2022
MDPI Sustainability Foundation: New Look and Nominations for the 2023 Sustainability Awards Now Open

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

28 September 2022
Peer Review Week 2022 – Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

9 June 2022
2021 CiteScores - Released


The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Journal

CiteScore

Quartile

Category

Non-coding RNA

10.1

Q1

Genetics

Journal of Functional Biomaterials

10.0

Q1

Biomedical Engineering

Marine Drugs

8.1

Q1

Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (miscellaneous)

Batteries

7.9

Q1

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Nutrients

7.9

Q1

Nutrition and Dietetics

Remote Sensing

7.4

Q1

General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Drones

7.2

Q1

Computer Science Applications

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

6.9

Q1

Inorganic Chemistry

Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks

6.9

Q1

Computer Networks and Communications

Cells

6.7

Q1

General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Nanomaterials

6.6

Q1

General Chemical Engineering

Toxins

6.6

Q1

Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

Viruses

6.6

Q1

Infectious Diseases

Antioxidants

6.5

Q1

Food Science

Fibers

6.5

Q1

Civil and Structural Engineering

Resources

6.4

Q1

Nature and Landscape Conservation

Sensors

6.4

Q1

Instrumentation

Big Data and Cognitive Computing

6.1

Q1

Management Information Systems

Molecules

5.9

Q1

Chemistry (miscellaneous)

Polymers

5.7

Q1

Polymers and Plastics

Biosensors

5.6

Q1

Engineering (miscellaneous)

Catalysts

5.5

Q1

General Environmental Science

Smart Cities

5.5

Q1

Urban Studies

Future Internet

5.4

Q2

Computer Networks and Communications

Beverages

5.3

Q1

Food Science

Fermentation

5.3

Q1

Plant Science

Environments

5.2

Q1

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Inventions

5.2

Q1

General Engineering

Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity

5.1

Q1

Development

Colloids and Interfaces

5.0

Q1

Chemistry (miscellaneous)

Energies

5.0

Q1

Control and Optimization

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information

5.0

Q1

Geography, Planning and Development

Sustainability

5.0

Q1

Geography, Planning and Development

Fire

4.9

Q1

Forestry

Robotics

4.9

Q1

Control and Optimization

Soil Systems

4.9

Q1

Soil Science

Geosciences

4.8

Q1

General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing

4.8

Q1

Mechanical Engineering

Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

4.8

Q1

Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Water

4.8

Q1

Geography, Planning and Development

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

4.5

Q1

Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Sports

4.5

Q1

Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation

Entropy

4.4

Q1

Mathematical Physics

Journal of Clinical Medicine

4.4

Q1

General Medicine

Symmetry

4.3

Q1

General Mathematics

Cosmetics

4.2

Q1

Surgery

Foods

4.1

Q1

Health Professions (miscellaneous)

Journal of Fungi

4.1

Q1

Plant Science

ChemEngineering

4.0

Q1

General Engineering

Forests

4.0

Q1

Forestry

Journal of Intelligence

4.0

Q1

Education

Antibiotics

3.9

Q1

General Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

Cryptography

3.9

Q1

Applied Mathematics

Behavioral Sciences

3.8

Q1

Development

Buildings

3.8

Q1

Architecture

Metals

3.8

Q1

Metals and Alloys

Publications

3.5

Q1

Communication

Social Sciences

3.4

Q1

General Social Sciences

Mathematics

2.9

Q1

General Mathematics

Fractal and Fractional

2.8

Q1

Analysis

Animals

2.7

Q1

General Veterinary

Axioms

2.6

Q1

Algebra and Number Theory

Heritage

1.8

Q1

Conservation

Religions

1.0

Q1

Religious Studies

Philosophies

0.9

Q1

Philosophy

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

22 November 2021
722 MDPI Editorial Board Members Receiving "2021 Highly Cited Researchers" Distinction

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited ResearchersTM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

Abate, Antonio
Abatzoglou, John T.
Abbaszadeh, Mostafa
Acharya, U. Rajendra
Acharya, Viral V.
Agarwal, Ravi P.
Ahn, Myung-Ju
Airoldi, Laura
Ali, Imran
Allakhverdiev, Suleyman I.
Aluko, Rotimi E.
Anasori, Babak
Andersson, Dan I.
Andes, David
Anker, Stefan D.
Apergis, Nicholas
Ariga, Katsuhiko
Arqub, Omar Abu
Aschner, Michael
Assaraf, Yehuda G.
Astruc, Didier
Atala, Anthony
Atanasov, Atanas G.
Atangana, Abdon
Bahram, Mohammad
Bakris, George L.
Balandin, Alexander A.
Baleanu, Dumitru
Balsamo, Gianpaolo
Bando, Yoshio
Banks, William A.
Bansal-Travers, Maansi
Barba, Francisco J.
Barros, Lillian
Basit, Abdul W.
Baskonus, Haci Mehmet
Bassetti, Matteo
Battino, Maurizio
Bell, Jordana T.
Bellomo, Nicola
Benediktsson, Jon Atli
Benelli, Giovanni
Benjakul, Soottawat
Bhatnagar, Amit
Biddle, Stuart J. H.
Biondi, Antonio
Biondi-Zoccai, Giuseppe
Bjarnsholt, Thomas
Blaabjerg, Frede
Blaschke, Thomas
Blay, Jean-Yves
Blumwald, Eduardo
Blunt, John W.
Boffetta, Paolo
Bogers, Marcel
Bonomo, Robert A.
Bowman, David M.J.S.
Boyer, Cyrille
Brestic, Marian
Brevik, Eric C.
Buhalis, Dimitrios
Burdick, Jason A.
Byrd, John C.
Cabeza, Luisa F.
Cai, Xingjuan
Cai, Jianchao
Calhoun, Vince D.
Calin, George
Cao, Jinde
Cao, Guozhong
Carvalho, Andre F.
Castellanos-Gomez, Andres
Cerqueira, Miguel Ângelo Parente Ribeiro
Chang, Jo-Shu
Chang, Chih-Hao
Chastin, Sebastien
Chau, Kwok-wing
Chemat, Farid
Chen, Xiaobo
Chen, YangQuan
Chen, Jianmin
Chen, Chaoji
Chen, Min
Chen, Qi
Chen, Jun
Chen, Xi
Chen, Peng
Chen, Yulin
Chen, Bo
Chen, Chen
Chen, Zhi-Gang
Chen, Wei-Hsin
Chen, Gang
Chen, Yongsheng
Chen, Xiang
Chen, Yimin
Chen, Runsheng
Chen, Lidong
Chen, Shaowei
Chen, Qian
Chen, Yu
Chen, Shuangming
Chiclana, Francisco
Cho, Sun Young
Choi, Wonyong
Chowdhary, Anuradha
Choyke, Peter L.
Cichocki, Andrzej
Corella, Dolores
Corma, Avelino
Cortes, Javier
Cortes, Jorge
Costanza, Robert
Crommie, Michael F.
Cui, Yi
Cui, Haiying
Cui, Qinghua
Cummings, Kenneth Michael
Dai, Shifeng
Dai, Sheng
Daiber, Andreas
Davis, Steven J.
Dawson, Ted M.
de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar
Decker, Eric Andrew
Dekel, Avishai
Demaria, Marco
Deng, Yong
Deng, Xiangzheng
DePinho, Ronald A.
Desneux, Nicolas
Dimopoulos, Meletios-Athanasios
Ding, Aijun
Dionysiou, Dionysios D.
Dokmeci, Mehmet Remzi
Dolgui, Alexandre
Dong, Fan
Dou, Shi Xue
Dou, Letian
Du, Qian
Du, Bo
Dube, Shanta Rishi
Dufresne, Alain
Dummer, Reinhard
Dupont, Didier
Edwards, David
Elaissari, Abdelhamid
Elhoseny, Mohamed
Ellahi, Rahmat
Ellis, Erle C.
ElMasry, Gamal
Esteller, Manel
Estévez, Mario
Fabbro, Doriano
Facchetti, Antonio
Fan, Zhanxi
Fang, Chuanglin
Fasano, Alessio
Fečkan, Michal
Felser, Claudia
Feng, Liangzhu
Fensholt, Rasmus
Ferdinandy, Péter
Fernandez-Lafuente, Roberto
Ferreira, Isabel C. F. R.
Filippi, Massimo
Fisher, Helen
Fortino, Giancarlo
Fosso Wamba, Samuel
Franceschi, Claudio
Fujita, Hamido
Fujita, Masayuki
Gai, Francesco
Gaisford, Simon
Galanakis, Charis M.
Galluzzi, Lorenzo
Galvano, Fabio
Gan, Ren-You
Gan, Lihua
Gandomi, Amir H.
Gao, Bin
Gao, Feng
Gao, Minrui
Gao, Huijun
Gao, Wei
Gao, Huile
Garbe, Claus
Garcia, Hermenegildo
Gasbarrini, Antonio
Gasco, Laura
Gautret, Philippe
Geng, Yong
Gerdts, Gunnar
Geschwind, Daniel H.
Ghadimi, Noradin
Ghaffari, Roozbeh
Ghamisi, Pedram
Giampieri, Francesca
Glick, Bernard R.
Gnant, Michael
Goel, Ajay
Gogotsi, Yury
Goldewijk, Kees Klein
Gong, Jinlong
Gong, Yongji
Govindan, Kannan
Granato, Daniel
Grancini, Giulia
Green, Douglas R.
Grosso, Giuseppe
Gu, Ke
Guan, Cao
Guastella, Adam J.
Guerrero, Josep M.
Gui, Guan
Guizani, Mohsen
Guo, Zaiping
Gupta, Rangan
Gutzmer, Ralf
Haase, Dagmar
Habibi-Yangjeh, Aziz
Hagemann, Stefan
Hagger, Martin
Hamblin, Michael R.
Hammoudeh, Shawkat
Han, Heesup
Hanes, Justin
Harrison, Roy M.
Hartung, Hans-Peter
Hasanuzzaman, Mirza
He, Jr-Hau
He, Hongwen
He, Jiaqing
He, Debiao
Henseler, Jörg
Herrera, Francisco
Herrera-Viedma, Enrique
Hetz, Claudio
Ho Kim, Jung
Holmes, Elaine
Hossain, Ekram
Hsueh, Po-Ren
Hu, Xiaosong
Hu, Wenbin
Huang, Jianping
Huang, Hongwei
Huang, Yu
Huang, Jianying
Huang, Peng
Huang, Baibiao
Huang, Shaoming
Hubacek, Klaus

Iqbal, Hafiz M. N.
Ismail, Ahmad Fauzi
Izzo, Angelo A.
Jacobson, Kenneth A.
Jain, Atul
Jankovic, Joseph
Jelezko, Fedor
Ji, Xiaobo
Ji, Guangbin
Jiang, Hai-Long
Jiang, Lei
Jiang, Junjun
Jiang, Qing
Jiang, Shibo
Jin, Shi
Jones, Peter A.
Kalantar-zadeh, Kourosh
Kaner, Richard B.
Kannan, Kurunthachalam
Kappos, Ludwig
Karagiannidis, George K.
Karimi, Hamid Reza
Karimi-Maleh, Hassan
Karp, Peter D.
Kataoka, Kazunori
Katritch, Vsevolod
Kawi, Sibudjing
Keesstra, Saskia
Kepp, Oliver
Keyzers, Robert A.
Khademhosseini, Ali
Khan, Nafees A.
Kiessling, Fabian
Kim, Ki-Hyun
Kim, Haegyeom
Kim, Jeonghun
Kim, Jong Seung
Kirkwood, John M.
Kisi, Ozgur
Kivshar, Yuri
Klenk, Hans-Peter
Ko, Wen-Chien
Konopleva, Marina Y.
Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P.
Koonin, Eugene V.
Kou, Gang
Krausmann, Fridolin
Krebs, Frederik C.
Kroemer, Guido
Kuca, Kamil
Kudo, Masatoshi
Kuhn, Jens H.
Kumar, Devendra
Kumar, Alan Prem
Kumar, Sudhir
Kumar Sangaiah, Arun
Kurths, Juergen
Kuznetsov, Nikolay V.
Kuzyakov, Yakov
Kwan, Mei-Po
Kyrpides, Nikos C.
La Vecchia, Carlo
Lai, Yuekun
Lam, James
Lammers, Twan
Lamuela-Raventos, Rosa M.
Lancellotti, Patrizio
Landi, Francesco
Laurent, Sophie
Lavie, Carl J.
Laxminarayan, Ramanan
Lee, Sang Soo
Lee, Jin-Wook
Lee, Pooi See
Lehmann, Johannes
Lei, Yaguo
Lei, Ting
Leng, Lijian
Leung, Dennis Y. C.
Leung, Victor C. M.
Levine, Ross
Li, Wei
Li, Jie
Li, Jinghong
Li, Jun
Li, Heng
Li, Gang
Li, Yat
Li, Peng
Li, Hailong
Li, Changpin
Li, Yan
Li, Yurui
Li, Xiaodi
Li, Hong
Li, Shutao
Li, Hongyi
Li, Zhijun
Li, Peiyue
Lin, Yuehe
Lin, Hongjun
Lin, Lin
Lip, Gregory Y. H.
Liu, Jian
Liu, Meng
Liu, Hong
Liu, Tao
Liu, Lei
Liu, Jianxing
Liu, Wei
Liu, Gang
Liu, Yang
Liu, Peide
Lockhart, Shawn R.
Long, Hualou
Löscher, Wolfgang
Lu, Jun
Lu, Jianquan
Lu, Nanshu
Lucey, Brian
Lund, Henrik
Luo, Jun
Luo, Yi
Luo, Jingshan
Luo, Yangchao
Lupton, Deborah
Luque, Rafael
Lv, Wei
Lvov, Yuri M.
Lyons, Timothy W.
Ma, Tianyi
Ma, Jun
Ma, Jiayi
Ma, Wen-Xiu
Ma, Yanming
Maggioni, Aldo Pietro
Mahmood, Nasir
Mahmoudi, Morteza
Mai, Liqiang
Mallavarapu, Megharaj
Mandala, Mario
Mardani, Abbas
Marengo, Jose
Maria Rossolini, Gian
Martinoia, Enrico
Mathiesen, Brian Vad
Mathivanan, Suresh
Mattick, John S.
Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof
McCabe, Matthew E.
McCauley, Darren
McClements, David Julian
Melcher, Karsten
Melenhorst, Jan Joseph
Melero, Ignacio
Mezzetti, Bruno
Mirjalili, Seyedali
Mishchenko, Artem
Mittler, Ron
Moreau, Philippe
Motohashi, Hozumi
Mousavi Khaneghah, Amin
Mu, Shichun
Mueller, Lukas A.
Mueller-Roeber, Bernd
Muenzel, Thomas
Muhammad, Khan
Munger, J. William
Nauen, Ralf
Naushad, Mu.
Negri, Eva
Nemeroff, Charles B.
Newman, David J.
Niaura, Raymond S.
Nie, Feiping
Nieto, Juan J.
Novara, Agata
Nunkoo, Robin
Ogino, Shuji
Olabi, Abdul-Ghani
Ong, Hwai Chyuan
O'Regan, Donal
Orsini, Nicola
Ouyang, Minggao
Ozcan, Aydogan
Pacher, Pal
Pan, Xiaoqing
Pan, Likun
Pan, Quan-Ke
Pang, Huan
Pavela, Roman
Pedrycz, Witold
Pei, Yanzhong
Peng, Shushi
Peng, Qing
Peng, Mugen
Perc, Matjaz
Perez-Alvarez, Jose Angel
Perlin, David S.
Piquero, Alex R.
Polasky, Stephen
Pommier, Yves
Poor, H. Vincent
Postolache, Mihai
Potenza, Marc N.
Poulter, Benjamin
Preat, Veronique
Prinsep, Michele R.
Pu, Hong-Bin
Putnik, Predrag
Qiu, Jieshan
Qu, Xiaogang
Quiles, José L.
Rabczuk, Timon
Ramakrishna, Seeram
Ramkissoon, Haywantee
Ran, Jingrun
Recio, Isidra
Reiter, Russel J.
Remuzzi, Giuseppe
Ren, Jinsong
Ren, Jun
Riahi, Keywan
Richardson, Paul G.
Rignot, Eric
Rimm, David
Rinn, John L.
Robert, Caroline
Rodriguez, Rosa M.
Rojo, Teofilo
Ros, Emilio
Rosen, Marc A.
Roubaud, David
Russo, Alessandro
Russo, Gian Luigi

Saad, Fred
Saad, Walid
Sadorsky, Perry
Sander, Chris
Santamouris, Mattheos
Santoro, Gabriele
Saraiva, Jorge A.
Sarchiapone, Marco
Scalbert, Augustin
Schloter, Michael
Schneider, Gisbert
Schubert, Ulrich S.
Schulz, Rainer
Schwab, Matthias
Schweizer, Frank
Scolyer, Richard A.
Scorrano, Luca
Scott, David
Scott, Stuart A.
Scott, Daniel
Serra-Majem, Lluis
Sethi, Gautam
Shabala, Sergey
Shaheen, Sabry M.
Shao, Zongping
Sharma, Gaurav
Shen, Guozhen
Shen, Hao
Sheremet, Mikhail A.
Shi, Peng
Shi, Yumeng
Shoenfeld, Yehuda
Siano, Pierluigi
Sillanpaa, Mika
Simões, Manuel
Simpson, Richard J.
Singh, Bhupinder Pal
Singh, Vijay P.
Smagghe, Guy
Song, Yu
Song, Houbing
Sood, Anil K.
Srivastava, Hari M.
Stadler, Marc
Stadler, Peter F.
Stanley, H. Eugene
Stoumpos, Constantinos C.
Strano, Michael S.
Stunnenberg, Hendrik G.
Su, shiliangsu@whu.edu.cn
Su, Chun-Yi
Subramanian, S. V.
Sun, Zhipei
Sun, Fengchun
Sun, Hongqi
Sunderland, Elsie M.
Suzuki, Nobuhiro
Svenning, Jens-Christian
Szabo, Csaba
Szallasi, Arpad
Szolnoki, Attila
Tacke, Frank
Tan, Weihong
Tan, Chaoliang
Tang, Hua
Tang, Chuyang
Tang, Chuan-He
Tanzi, Rudolph E.
Teichmann, Sarah
Telenti, Amalio
Thakur, Vijay Kumar
Thiele, Holger
Tian, Jie
Tohge, Takayuki
Tran, Lam-Son Phan
Truhlar, Donald G.
Tsao, Rong
Tsuda, Kenichi
Tukker, Arnold
Tung, Chen-Ho
Turskis, Zenonas
Urquhart, Andrew
Valko, Marian
Van Breusegem, Frank
Van de Wiele, Tom
van der Werf, Guido
van Wesemael, Bas
Vangronsveld, Jaco
Varma, Rajender S.
Varsani, Arvind
Varshney, Rajeev K.
Vasilakis, Nikos
Vasilakos, Athanasios V.
Vasquez, Juan C.
Vatanen, Tommi
Ventura, Marco
Vermote, Eric
Veronese, Nicola
Verpoorte, Robert
Vethaak, A. Dick
Vieta, Eduard
Vincent, Jean-Louis
Wagner, Wolfgang
Walton, Vaughn M.
Wan, Jiafu
Wan, Shaohua
Wang, Qi
Wang, Joseph
Wang, Meng
Wang, Tao
Wang, Yuan
Wang, Xin
Wang, Chao
Wang, Yong
Wang, Jun
Wang, Erkang
Wang, Sibo
Wang, Jian
Wang, Ning
Wang, John
Wang, Qin
Wang, Shaojian
Wang, Guoxiu
Wang, Huanting
Wang, Chunsheng
Wang, Gongming
Wang, Zhong Lin
Wang, Lianzhou
Wang, Shaobin
Wang, Yang
Wang, Zifa
Wei, Zhixiang
Wei, Leyi
Weissleder, Ralph
Wen, Guanghui
Wiens, John J.
Wigneron, Jean-Pierre
Willerslev, Eske
Wishart, David S.
Witlox, Frank
Wu, Jun
Wu, Tom
Wu, Hao Bin
Wu, Hui
Wu, Haijun
Wu, Zhongbiao
Wu, Zhong-Shuai
Wu, Zheng-Guang
Xia, Meimei
Xia, Xinhui
Xiang, Quanjun
Xiao, Jianbo
Xiao, Jie
Xie, Jian-Hua
Xin, Sen
Xing, Baoshan
Xiong, Rui
Xu, Bin
Xu, Li Da
Xu, Yi-Jun
Xu, Hui
Xu, Zeshui
Yamauchi, Yusuke
Yan, Huaicheng
Yan, Kai
Yang, Chenguang
Yang, Xiao-Jun
Yang, Bing
Yang, Yun-Gui
Yang, Jie
Yang, Jian
Yang, Xinsong
Yang, Shihe
Yang, Yi
Yang, Yang
Yao, Jen-Chih
Yao, Yonggang
Yazyev, Oleg
Yin, Yulong
Yin, Zongyou
Yin, Shen
Yin, Ya-xia
Yin, Shou-Wei
Ying, Guang-Guo
Young, Allan H.
Yu, Shu-Hong
Yu, Jun
Yu, Guihua
Yu, Wenwu
Yu, Guocan
Yu, Minghao
Zarco-Tejada, Pablo J.
Zavadskas, Edmundas Kazimieras
Zeadally, Sherali
Zhai, Tianyou
Zhang, Wei
Zhang, Binlin
Zhang, Shujun
Zhang, Guoping
Zhang, Zengqiang
Zhang, Yu Shrike
Zhang, Qichun
Zhang, Xian-Ming
Zhang, Guowen
Zhang, Min
Zhang, Yue-Jun
Zhang, Shaoqing
Zhang, Fan
Zhang, Weili
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhang, Zhien
Zhang, Tierui
Zhang, Hongjie
Zhang, Dengsong
Zhang, Liangpei
Zhang, Dan
Zhang, Yu-Dong
Zhang, Fusuo
Zhao, Yi
Zhao, Guochun
Zhao, Li-Dong
Zheng, Hao
Zheng, Gengfeng
Zhong, Cheng
Zhou, Weiqi
Zhou, Qi
Zhou, Jizhong
Zhu, Hongwei
Zhu, Chengzhou
Zhu, Junfa
Zhu, Zhe
Zhu, Quanxin
Zhuang, Xiaodong
Zhuang, Xiaoying
Zou, Quan

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of ScienceTM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

16 November 2021
Topical Advisory Panel Established to Support Editorial Board

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

  • Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
  • Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
  • Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
  • Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

25 October 2021
Open Access Week 2021 | It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity, 25–31 October

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

  • 25 October 2021
    Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • 28 October 2021
    Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University
  • 29 October 2021
    Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology
  • 29 October 2021
    Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

23 September 2021
2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award—Winners Announced


Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

  • Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
  • Alban Kuriqi;
  • Álvaro González-Vila;
  • Alessandro Alaimo;
  • Alexey Beskopylny;
  • Alexander Yu Churyumov;
  • Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
  • Andrea Mastinu;
  • Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
  • Anton Rassõlkin;
  • Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
  • Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
  • Artur Słomka;
  • Baojie He;
  • Bartłomiej Potaniec;
  • Bojan Đurin;
  • Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
  • Carmelo Maria Musarella;
  • Chiachung Chen;
  • Chiman Kwan;
  • Cristian Busu;
  • Danil Pimenov;
  • Dan-Cristian Dabija;
  • Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
  • Demetrio Antonio Zema;
  • Denis Butusov;
  • Elena Lucchi;
  • Gaurab Dutta;
  • Livia Anastasiu;
  • M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

22 September 2021
MDPI Joins SDG Publishers Compact

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

3 August 2021
Announcement on Japanese Consumption Tax (JCT)

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

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