Announcements

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.

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 the engineering category. The winners were selected by the journals’ Award Evaluation Committee.

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

Actuators:

• Yi Zhang, University of Electronic Science and Technology, China

Batteries:

• Lin Ma, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

Biosensors:

• Stefano Cinti, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Buildings:

• Umberto Berardi, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
• Benedetto Nastasi, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

JMSE:

• Do Kyun Kim, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Machines:

• Fernando Bento, University of Beira Interior, Portugal
• Goshtasp Cheraghian, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
• Roman Mykhailyshyn, The University of Texas at Austin, USA

Micromachines:

• Pingan Zhu, City University of Hong Kong, China

Processes:

• Viknesh Andiappan, the Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Malaysia

Sensors:

• Wenzhuo Wu, Purdue University, USA

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.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2022 Travel Awards in the engineering category 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 with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Biosensors:

• Dmitry Kireev, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Buildings:

• Danilo D’Angela, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

JMMP:

• Jungsub Kim, Texas A&M University, USA

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.

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when generously dedicating their time to reviewing papers, 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 the engineering category for their outstanding contributions 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.

Actuators:

• Chongjing Cao, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), China

Applied Sciences:

• Roman Mykhailyshyn, University of Texas at Austin, USA
• Chiranjibi Sitaula, Monash University, Australia
• Davide Forcellini, ¹University of Auckland, New Zealand; ²University of San Marino, San Marino
• Giuseppe Ciaburro, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy
• Yang Song, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
• Xiaoming Liu, Beijing Institute of Technology, China

Biosensors:

• Carlos Torres-Torres, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico

Buildings:

• Paolo Blecich, University of Rijeka, Croatia
• Łukasz Ścislo, Cracow University of Technology, Poland

Fluids:

• Giorgio Sonnino, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
• Luiz Antonio Alcântara Pereira, Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI), Brazil

JMSE:

• Cagatay Iris, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
• Chiemela Victor Amaechi, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
• Denis Istrati, University of Nevada, USA
• Mai The Vu, Sejong University, Korea
• Mina Tadros, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Machines:

• Chao Fu, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
• Eduardo Suárez, Universidade de Vigo, Spain
• Jordi-Roger Riba, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain

Processes:

• Catalin Ianasi, Institute of Chemistry “Coriolan Dragulescu”, Romania
• Daniel Ferrández, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain
• Kamil Krzysztof Roman, Institute of Technology and Life Sciences in Warsaw, Poland
• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
• Mariusz Szymanek, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland

Sensors:

• Agustin L. Herrera-May, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico
• Chiachung Chen, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
• Jae-Myung Ryu, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Republic of Korea
• Sebastian Głowiński, Koszalin Technical University, Poland
• Wei Zhou, University of Waterloo, Canada

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.

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 excellent 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 with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

JMSE:

• “Mathematical Modelling of Wave-Induced Motions and Loads on Moored Offshore Structures”
  by Changqing Jiang, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Machines:

• “Experimental Characterization of Frictional Hysteresis for Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Jointed Structures”
  by Alfredo Fantetti, Imperial College London, UK

Processes:

• “Sustainable Cultivation of Microalgae Biomass for Bioenergy Production”
  by Angela Paul Peter, Xiamen University Malaysia, Malaysia

Sensors:

• “Studying Protein Function with Fluorescent Nanoantennas”
  by Scott G. Harroun, Université de Montréal, Canada

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.

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 of the papers published in the journal.

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

Actuators:

• “Two-Way and Multiple-Way Shape Memory Polymers for Soft Robotics: An Overview”
  by Giulia Scalet
  Actuators 2020, 9(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/act9010010

• “Low-Cost, Open-Source Mechanical Ventilator with Pulmonary Monitoring for COVID-19 Patients”
  by Leonardo Acho, Alessandro N. Vargas and Gisela Pujol-Vázquez
  Actuators 2020, 9(3), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/act9030084

• “Styrenic-Rubber Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Inherent Stiffness Compensation”
  by Giacomo Moretti, Luca Sarina, Lorenzo Agostini, Rocco Vertechy, Giovanni Berselli and Marco Fontana
  Actuators 2020, 9(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/act9020044

Applied Sciences:

• “Chromium(III) Removal from Wastewater by Chitosan Flakes”
  by Loris Pietrelli, Iolanda Francolini, Antonella Piozzi, Maria Sighicelli, Ilaria Silvestro and Marco Vocciante
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(6), 1925; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10061925

• “Unravelling the Environmental Application of Biochar as Low-Cost Biosorbent: A Review”
  by Antía Fdez-Sanromán, Marta Pazos, Emilio Rosales and María Angeles Sanromán
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(21), 7810; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10217810

• “Observation of Potential Contaminants in Processed Biomass Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy”
  by Jingshun Zhuang, Mi Li, Yunqiao Pu, Arthur Jonas Ragauskas and Chang Geun Yoo
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(12), 4345; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124345

• “Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis 2020: Where We Stand”
  by Angelo Iacobino, Lanfranco Fattorini and Federico Giannoni
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(6), 2153; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10062153

• “Real-Time Remote Maintenance Support Based on Augmented Reality (AR)”
  by Dimitris Mourtzis, Vasileios Siatras and John Angelopoulos
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(5), 1855; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10051855

• “Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for Soft Robotics Applications and Challenges”
  by Jung-Hwan Youn, Seung Mo Jeong, Geonwoo Hwang, Hyunwoo Kim, Kyujin Hyeon, Jihwan Park and Ki-Uk Kyung
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(2), 640; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10020640

• “Low-Cost Biochar Adsorbents for Water Purification Including Microplastics Removal”
  by Virpi Siipola, Stephan Pflugmacher, Henrik Romar, Laura Wendling and Pertti Koukkari
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(3), 788; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10030788

• “Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of AISI 316L Produced by Directed Energy Deposition-Based Additive Manufacturing: A Review”
  by Abdollah Saboori, Alberta Aversa, Giulio Marchese, Sara Biamino, Mariangela Lombardi and Paolo Fino
  Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(9), 3310; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10093310

Buildings:

• “Humans-as-a-Sensor for Buildings—Intensive Longitudinal Indoor Comfort Models”
  by Prageeth Jayathissa, Matias Quintana, Mahmoud Abdelrahman and Clayton Miller
  Buildings 2020, 10(10), 174; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10100174

• “Circular Building Design: An Analysis of Barriers and Drivers for a Circular Building Sector”
  by Jouri Kanters
  Buildings 2020, 10(4), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10040077

• “Building Information Modelling (BIM) to Enhance Occupational Safety in Construction Activities: Research Trends Emerging from One Decade of Studies”
  by Mario Fargnoli and Mara Lombardi
  Buildings 2020, 10(6), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10060098

• “A SWOT Analysis of the Use of BIM Technology in the Polish Construction Industry”
  by Krzysztof Zima, Edyta Plebankiewicz and Damian Wieczorek
  Buildings 2020, 10(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10010016

• “Durability and Climate Change—Implications for Service Life Prediction and the Maintainability of Buildings”
  by Michael A. Lacasse, Abhishek Gaur and Travis V. Moore
  Buildings 2020, 10(3), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10030053

• “Worker 4.0: The Future of Sensored Construction Sites”
  by Diego Calvetti, Pedro Mêda, Miguel Chichorro Gonçalves and Hipólito Sousa
  Buildings 2020, 10(10), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10100169

Fluids:

• “A Review of Topology Optimisation for Fluid-Based Problems”
  by Joe Alexandersen and Casper Schousboe Andreasen
  Fluids 2020, 5(1), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids5010029

• “On the Deterministic Prediction of Water Waves”
  by Marco Klein, Matthias Dudek, Günther F. Clauss, Sören Ehlers, Jasper Behrendt, Norbert Hoffman and Miguel Onorato
  Fluids 2020, 5(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids5010009

• “On the Effect of Block Roughness in Ogee Spillways with Flip Buckets”
  by Rasoul Daneshfaraz, Amir Ghaderi, Aliakbar Akhtari, Silvia Di Francesco
  Fluids 2020, 5(4), 182; https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids5040182

JMSE:

• “Marine Application of Fiber Reinforced Composites: A Review”
  by Felice Rubino, Antonio Nisticò, Fausto Tucci and Pierpaolo Carlone
  J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(1), 26; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8010026

• “Numerical Simulation of Large Wave Heights from Super Typhoon Nepartak (2016) in the Eastern Waters of Taiwan”
  by Shih-Chun Hsiao, Hongey Chen, Han-Lun Wu, Wei-Bo Chen, Chih-Hsin Chang, Wen-Dar Guo, Yung-Ming Chen and Lee-Yaw Lin
  J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(3), 217; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8030217

• “Development of Deterministic Artificial Intelligence for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)”
  by Timothy Sands
  J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(8), 578; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8080578

Lubricants:

• “Effective Application of Solid Lubricants in Spacecraft Mechanisms”
  by Jeffrey R. Lince
  Lubricants 2020, 8(7), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/lubricants8070074

• “High-Rate Laser Surface Texturing for Advanced Tribological Functionality”
  by Jörg Schille, Lutz Schneider, Stefan Mauersberger, Sylvia Szokup, Sören Höhn, Johannes Pötschke, Friedemann Reiß, Erhard Leidich and Udo Löschner
  Lubricants 2020, 8(3), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/lubricants8030033

Micromachines:

• “Size Sorting of Exosomes by Tuning the Thicknesses of the Electric Double Layers on a Micro-Nanofluidic Device”
  by Satoko Fujiwara, Kyojiro Morikawa, Tatsuro Endo, Hideaki Hisamoto and Kenji Sueyoshi
  Micromachines 2020, 11(5), 458; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11050458

• “Additive Manufacturing of Sub-Micron to Sub-mm Metal Structures with Hollow AFM Cantilevers”
  by Giorgio Ercolano, Cathelijn van Nisselroy, Thibaut Merle, János Vörös, Dmitry Momotenko, Wabe W. Koelmans and Tomaso Zambelli
  Micromachines 2020, 11(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11010006

• “A Robotic Biopsy Endoscope with Magnetic 5-DOF Locomotion and a Retractable Biopsy Punch”
  by Manh Cuong Hoang, Viet Ha Le, Kim Tien Nguyen, Van Du Nguyen, Jayoung Kim, Eunpyo Choi, Seungmin Bang, Byungjeon Kang, Jong-Oh Park and Chang-Sei Kim
  Micromachines 2020, 11(1), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11010098

• “Development of Fully Flexible Tactile Pressure Sensor with Bilayer Interlaced Bumps for Robotic Grasping Applications”
  by Lingfeng Zhu, Yancheng Wang, Deqing Mei and Chengpeng Jiang
  Micromachines 2020, 11(8), 770; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11080770

• “A mm-Sized Free-Floating Wireless Implantable Opto-Electro Stimulation Device”
  by Yaoyao Jia, Yan Gong, Arthur Weber, Wen Li and Maysam Ghovanloo
  Micromachines 2020, 11(6), 621; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11060621

Processes:

• “Advanced Bioethanol Production: From Novel Raw Materials to Integrated Biorefineries”
  by Aleta Duque, Cristina Álvarez, Pablo Doménech, Paloma Manzanares and Antonio D. Moreno
  Processes 2021, 9(2), 206; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9020206

• “An Overview on Fault Diagnosis, Prognosis and Resilient Control for Wind Turbine Systems”
  by Zhiwei Gao and Xiaoxu Liu
  Processes 2021, 9(2), 300; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9020300

• “Role of Microalgae in the Recovery of Nutrients from Pig Manure”
  by Ana Sánchez-Zurano, Martina Ciardi, Tomás Lafarga, José María Fernández-Sevilla, Ruperto Bermejo and Emilio Molina-Grima
  Processes 2021, 9(2), 203; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9020203

• “Applying Lean Six Sigma Methodology to a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility: A Case Study”
  by Brian Byrne, Olivia McDermott and John Noonan
  Processes 2021, 9(3), 550; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9030550

Sensors:

• “YOLO-Tomato: A Robust Algorithm for Tomato Detection Based on YOLOv3”
  by Guoxu Liu, Joseph Christian Nouaze, Philippe Lyonel Touko Mbouembe and Jae Ho Kim
  Sensors 2020, 20(7), 2145; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20072145

• “Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Solutions: A Review”
  by Corina Covaci and Aurel Gontean
  Sensors 2020, 20(12), 3512; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20123512

• “Applications of Graphene Quantum Dots in Biomedical Sensors”
  by Bhargav D. Mansuriya and Zeynep Altintas
  Sensors 2020, 20(4), 1072; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20041072

WEVJ:

• “Beyond the State of the Art of Electric Vehicles: A Fact-Based Paper of the Current and Prospective Electric Vehicle Technologies”
  by Joeri Van Mierlo, Maitane Berecibar, Mohamed El Baghdadi, Cedric De Cauwer, Maarten Messagie, Thierry Coosemans, Valéry Ann Jacobs and Omar Hegazy
  World Electr. Veh. J. 2021, 12(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj12010020

• “An Overview of Parameter and Cost for Battery Electric Vehicles”
  by Adrian König, Lorenzo Nicoletti, Daniel Schröder, Sebastian Wolff, Adam Waclaw and Markus Lienkamp
  World Electr. Veh. J. 2021, 12(1), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj12010021

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. 

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.

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.

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)

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Luis Augusto Teixeira has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Neuromechanics” in Biomechanics (ISSN: 2673-7078).

Name: Dr. Luis Augusto Teixeira
Interests: body balance control in young, older and neurologic individuals; interlateral asymmetry of behavior
Website: https://bv.fapesp.br/en/pesquisador/4535/luis-augusto-teixeira/

Prof. Dr. Luis Augusto Teixeira is an Associate Professor of Motor Control and Learning at the School of Physical Education and Sport of the University of São Paulo. He is the head of the Human Motor Systems Laboratory, with a research focus on (i) understanding reactive responses for body balance recovery following unanticipated mechanical perturbations, (ii) translation of perturbation-based balance training principles into programs of motor activities for older adults, and (iii) development of an accelerometry-based smartphone application for clinical evaluation of dynamic body balance. He recently became the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Neuromechanics” in Biomechanics.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Luis Augusto Teixeira, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and Open Access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
Being a Section Editor-in-Chief of Biomechanics represents the possibility of participating decisively in the process of scientific advancement in this area of investigation. The Section “Neuromechanics” in particular, is rather appealing by merging neuroscience and behavioral approaches.

2. What is your vision for the journal?
By covering a wide range of topics, Biomechanics represents a reference in this research area for those interested in the quantitative study of biological problems from a mechanical perspective. Open Access means that research findings are available to all, promoting faster and more effective development of knowledge around the world.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
The future of this investigation field looks exciting due to the fast advancement of technology for studying biological problems based on mechanical principles. Over the next few years, the field of neuromechanics will witness a deeper interaction between advancements in neurophysiology and techniques of behavioral evaluation founded on biomechanical principles.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
Open Access is an irreversible trend in scientific development in a democratic way, meaning that everyone around the world can have full access to scientific information published in all scientific journals. Thus, Open Access represents a way of disseminating scientific findings without economic barriers.

We warmly welcome Dr. Luis Augusto Teixeira as the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Neuromechanics”, and we look forward to achieving many milestones under his leadership.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. François Prince has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Sports Biomechanics” in Biomechanics (ISSN: 2673-7078).

Prof. Dr. François Prince is a Full Professor at the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal, Canada. Prof. Dr. Prince obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Montreal in 1992, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Waterloo in 1994. Prof. Dr. Prince is the Chair of Biomechanics and Performance Analysis of the Performance Sciences Council at Sport Scientist Canada. He was the Dean and Director of the Department of Kinesiology, University of Montreal, from 2007 to 2014. He is the Co-Director of the International Institute of Biomechanics and Surgical Ergonomics. As a former high-level running athlete, his research interests are focused on Olympics and Paralympics sports biomechanics as well as the control of standing and sitting posture and locomotion in young, adolescent, adult, and elderly populations. He is a member of Sport Scientist Canada and an Associate Researcher of the Institut national du sport du Québec, Montreal, Canada. He was awarded the 2010 John Charnley Award from the American Hip Society and the 1999 AQIPA Research Career Award. He recently became the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Sports Biomechanics” in Biomechanics. 

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. François Prince, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing: 

There are not so many journals related specifically to sports biomechanics; here is a great opportunity to promote this field of research. 

I would like the journal to increase its impact factor and to become a vehicle for sports biomechanics scientific societies to publish their conference papers and scientific papers. 

Much more scientific research will be performed in sports sciences, and its publication is an important aspect. Biomechanics is a discipline of primary importance in sports performance. 

I think open access is the future of scientific information to allow broad audience accessibility. 

We wish Prof. Dr. Prince every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.

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:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

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!

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

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

We are honored to present the winners in the “Engineering” category, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

Actuators:

• “Position Control of Pneumatic Actuators Using Three-Mode Discrete-Valued Model Predictive Control”
  by Haitao Qi, Gary M. Bone and Yile Zhang
  Actuators 2019, 8(3), 56; doi: 10.3390/act8030056
• “Review of Electrothermal Actuators and Applications”
  by Alissa Potekhina and Changhai Wang
  Actuators 2019, 8(4), 69; doi: 10.3390/act8040069

Batteries:

• “Pre-Lithiation Strategies for Rechargeable Energy Storage Technologies: Concepts, Promises and Challenges”
  by Florian Holtstiege, Peer Bärmann, Roman Nölle, Martin Winter and Tobias Placke
  Batteries 2018, 4(1), 4; doi: 10.3390/batteries4010004
• “A Critical Review of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Processes from a Circular Economy Perspective”
  by Omar Velázquez-Martínez, Johanna Valio, Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio, Markus Reuter and Rodrigo Serna-Guerrero
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 68; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040068
• “Critical Review of the Use of Reference Electrodes in Li-Ion Batteries: A Diagnostic Perspective”
  by Rinaldo Raccichini, Marco Amores and Gareth Hinds
  Batteries 2019, 5(1), 12; doi: 10.3390/batteries5010012
• “Life Cycle Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Automotive Applications”
  by Qiang Dai, Jarod C. Kelly, Linda Gaines and Michael Wang
  Batteries 2019, 5(2), 48; doi 10.3390/batteries5020048
• “Design Strategies for High Power vs. High Energy Lithium Ion Cells”
  by Michael J. Lain, James Brandon and Emma Kendrick
  Batteries 2019, 5(4), 64; doi: 10.3390/batteries5040064

Chemosensors:

• “Influence of Humidity on NO₂-Sensing and Selectivity of Spray-CVD Grown ZnO Thin Film above 400 °C”
  by Roussin Lontio Fomekong and Bilge Saruhan
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(3), 42; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7030042
• “Low Molecular Weight Fluorescent Probes (LMFPs) to Detect the Group 12 Metal Triad”
  by Ashley D. Johnson, Rose M. Curtis and Karl J. Wallace
  Chemosensors 2019, 7(2), 22; doi: 10.3390/chemosensors7020022

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• “Marine Application of Fiber Reinforced Composites: A Review”
  by Felice Rubino, Antonio Nisticò, Fausto Tucci and Pierpaolo Carlone
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(1), 26; doi: 10.3390/jmse8010026
• “Numerical Simulation of Large Wave Heights from Super Typhoon Nepartak (2016) in the Eastern Waters of Taiwan”
  by Shih-Chun Hsiao, Hongey Chen, Han-Lun Wu, Wei-Bo Chen, Chih-Hsin Chang, Wen-Dar Guo, Yung-Ming Chen and Lee-Yaw Lin
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(3), 217; doi: 10.3390/jmse8030217
• “Development of Deterministic Artificial Intelligence for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)”
  by Timothy Sands
  Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(8), 578; doi: 10.3390/jmse8080578

Lubricants:

• “Solid Lubrication with MoS₂: A Review”
  by Mohammad R. Vazirisereshk, Ashlie Martini, David A. Strubbe and Mehmet Z. Baykara
  Lubricants 2019, 7(7), 57; doi:10.3390/lubricants7070057
• “Investigations of the Friction Losses of Different Engine Concepts. Part 1: A Combined Approach for Applying Subassembly-Resolved Friction Loss Analysis on a Modern Passenger-Car Diesel Engine”
  by Christoph Knauder, Hannes Allmaier, David E. Sander and Theodor Sams
  Lubricants 2019, 7(5), 39; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7050039
• “A Discussion on Present Theories of Rubber Friction, with Particular Reference to Different Possible Choices of Arbitrary Roughness Cutoff Parameters”
  by Andrea Genovese, Flavio Farroni, Antonio Papangelo and Michele Ciavarella
  Lubricants 2019, 7(10), 85; doi: 10.3390/lubricants7100085

Micromachines:

• “4D Printing of Multi-Hydrogels Using Direct Ink Writing in a Supporting Viscous Liquid”
  by Takuya Uchida and Hiroaki Onoe
  Micromachines 2019, 10(7), 433; doi: 10.3390/mi10070433
• “Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance and Mechanism of Au@CaTiO₃ Composites with Au Nanoparticles Assembled on CaTiO₃ Nanocuboids”
  by Yuxiang Yan, Hua Yang, Zao Yi, Ruishan Li and Xiangxian Wang
  Micromachines 2019, 10(4), 254; doi: 10.3390/mi10040254
• “Three-Dimensionally Structured Flexible Fog Harvesting Surfaces Inspired by Namib Desert Beetles”
  by Jun Kyu Park and Seok Kim
  Micromachines 2019, 10(3), 201; doi: 10.3390/mi10030201

Processes:

• “Accelerating Biologics Manufacturing by Modeling or: Is Approval under the QbD and PAT Approaches Demanded by Authorities Acceptable without a Digital-Twin?”
  by Steffen Zobel-Roos, Axel Schmidt, Fabian Mestmäcker, Mourad Mouellef, Maximilian Huter, Lukas Uhlenbrock, Martin Kornecki, Lara Lohmann, Reinhard Ditz and Jochen Strube
  Processes 2019, 7(2), 94; doi: 10.3390/pr7020094
• “Multiscale Agent-Based and Hybrid Modeling of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment”
  by Kerri-Ann Norton, Chang Gong, Samira Jamalian and Aleksander S. Popel
  Processes 2019, 7(1), 37; doi: 10.3390/pr7010037
• “Dynamic Flowsheet Model Development and Sensitivity Analysis of a Continuous Pharmaceutical Tablet Manufacturing Process Using the Wet Granulation Route”
  by Nirupaplava Metta, Michael Ghijs, Elisabeth Schäfer, Ashish Kumar, Philippe Cappuyns, Ivo Van Assche, Ravendra Singh, Rohit Ramachandran, Thomas De Beer, Marianthi Ierapetritou and Ingmar Nopens
  Processes 2019, 7(4), 234; doi: 10.3390/pr7040234

Sensors:

• “A Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Blockchain for IoT”
  by Ashutosh Dhar Dwivedi, Gautam Srivastava, Shalini Dhar and Rajani Singh
  Sensors 2019, 19(2), 326; doi: 10.3390/s19020326
• “The Progress of Glucose Monitoring—A Review of Invasive to Minimally and Non-Invasive Techniques, Devices and Sensors”
  by Wilbert Villena Gonzales, Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher and Amin Abbosh
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 800; doi: 10.3390/s19040800
• “Contact-Based Methods for Measuring Respiratory Rate”
  by Carlo Massaroni, Andrea Nicolò, Daniela Lo Presti, Massimo Sacchetti, Sergio Silvestri and Emiliano Schena
  Sensors 2019, 19(4), 908; doi: 10.3390/s19040908

World Electric Vehicle Journal:

• “Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer Charging Infrastructure for Future EVs: From Experimental Track to Real Circulated Roads Demonstrations”
  by Stéphane Laporte, Gérard Coquery, Virginie Deniau, Alexandre De Bernardinis and Nicolas Hautière
  World Electr. Veh. J. 2019, 10(4), 84; doi: 10.3390/wevj10040084

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 2021 in the “Engineering” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

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

Biosensors:

• Amay J. Bandodkar, North Carolina State University, USA.

ChemEngineering:

• Andrew S. Paluch, Miami University, USA.

Chemosensors:

• Mindy Levine, Ariel University, Israel.

Electronics:

• Amir H. Gandomi, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering:

• Tiago Fazeres-Ferradosa, University of Porto, Portugal.

Machines:

• Chen Lv, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore;
• Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto, University of Malaga (UMA), Spain;
• Ning Sun, Nankai University, China.

Processes:

• Anton Rassõlkin, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.

Sensors:

• Qammer H. Abbasi, Queen Mary University of London, UK;
• Chi Hwan Lee, Purdue University, USA.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Engineering” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented 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 this year’s Travel Awards and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Actuators:

• Matthew Wei Ming Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Applied Sciences:

• Márcia de Sousa Oliveira, University of León, Spain;
• Caroline Sarah Taylor, University of Sheffield, UK;
• Raquel Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Alen Horvat, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain;
• Marie Švecová, University of Chemistry and Technology, Czech Republic;
• Venanzio Giannella, University of Salerno, Italy;
• Michaël Lobet, University of Namur, Belgium;
• Lam Thi Ngoc Tran, National Research Council, Italy;
• Hanfei Mei, University of South Carolina, USA.

Applied System Innovation:

• Mert Nakip, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland.

Biosensors:

• Mengdi Bao, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA;

Yichi Su, Stanford University, USA.

Buildings:

• Karthik Panchabikesan, Concordia University, Canada;
• Xiaolei Yuan, Tongji University, China.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, Université de Strasbourg & CNRS, France.

Electronics:

• Peng Hang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore;
• Alfonso González Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain.

Fluids:

• Alberto Zingaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy;
• Sarah E. Morris, Auburn University, USA.

Infrastructures:

• Angelo Aloisio, University of L’Aquila, Italy;
• André Filipe Castanheira Alves Furtado, University of Porto, Portugal.

Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications:

• Tommaso Zanotti, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing:

• Nagalingam Arun Prasanth, Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab, Singapore.

Machines:

• Muhammad Jamil, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), China;
• Mariagrazia Tristano, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Processes:

• Michele Schlich, University of Cagliari, Italy;
• Álvaro Santana Mayor, University of La Laguna, Spain.

Sensors:

• Eleonora Macchia, Åbo Akademi University, Finland;
• Alfonso Gonzalez Briones, University of Salamanca, Spain;
• Saúl Vallejos Calzada, University of Burgos, Spain;
• Ana Novo, University of Vigo, Spain;
• Yalin Liu, Macau University of Science and Technology, China;
• Marilena Giglio, Politecnico of Bari, Italy;
• Yuzhi Shi, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when 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 2021 in the “Engineering” category 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 achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Actuators:

• Ryszard Dindorf, Kielce University of Technology, Poland.

Applied Sciences:

• Khaled Giasin, University of Portsmouth, UK;
• Jakub Krzysztof Grabski, University of Technology, Poland;
• Marcos Tostado-Véliz, University of Jaén, Spain;
• Luigi Pugliese, University of Calabria, Italy;
• Francesco Bennardo, University of Catanzaro, Italy;
• Heriberto Perez-Acebo, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain.

Biosensors:

• Amir Hatamie, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Buildings:

• Francesco Fiorito, Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy;
• Paul G. O’Brien, York University, Canada.

Chemosensors:

• Verónica Montes García, University of Strasbourg, France.

Machines:

• Piotr Gierlak, Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland;
• Sebastian A. Nugroho, University of Michigan, USA;
• Viorel Paleu, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Romania.

Processes:

• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland;
• Bartłomiej Zieniuk, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland;
• Zbigniew Nadolny, Poznan University of Technology, Poland;
• Attila Egedy, University of Pannonia, Hungary;
• Seok-Ho Rhi, Chungbuk National University, Korea.

Sensors:

• Hojong Choi, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Korea;
• Li Fu, Hangzhou Dianzi University, China;
• Leonardo De Mello Honorio, Federal University of Juiz De Fora Juiz De Fora, Brazil;
• Mario Versaci, Mediterranea University, Italy;
• Robertas Damasevicius, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.

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:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

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 Researchers^TM 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.

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

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

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.

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.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Tibor Hortobagyi has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Neuromechanics” in Biomechanics (ISSN: 2673-7078).

Name: Prof. Dr. Tibor Hortobagyi
Affiliation: University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
Homepage: https://www.rug.nl/staff/t.hortobagyi/research
Interests: gait; posture; balance; dynamic balance; static balance; biomechanics; muscle mechanics; neural control of posture; neural control of gait; exercise and other intervention effects on motor and cognitive function; resistance training; exergaming; power training; dance training; weight shift; dual tasking; magnetic brain stimulation; peripheral nerve stimulation; EEG; fMRI; eccentric muscle function; Parkinson’s disease; multiple sclerosis; stroke; interlimb transfer; cross education; motor brain plasticity; motor spinal plasticity

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Tibor Hortobagyi:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that encouraged you to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The “Neuromechanics” Section of Biomechanics filled a gap in the knowledge forum. The best illustration of this is the number of courses taught around the world under this name. There are also many textbooks with the concept of neuromechanics in the title. Because human and animal movement is at the intersection of neural command and the ensuing accelerations and forces commands generate, neuromechanics will provide a valuable platform for this field of knowledge.

2. What is your vision for the journal?
Rigorously scrutinized manuscripts, reporting on the latest developments on the interaction between the central nervous system and skeletal muscle function across the whole lifespan in terms of health and disease.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
The neuromechanics community strives for excellence and novelty by integrating information and methods across different sub-disciplines. Such sub-fields include but are not limited to physiology, neurophysiology, physics, engineering, medicine, and computer science. This is the only way to identify the governing mechanisms and principles of human and animal voluntary movement in developing children, aging adults, and individuals who have suffered an injury and require movement rehabilitation. “Neuromechanics” is well-positioned to provide a forum for an area of scientific study that has been historically underrepresented but cannot be ignored any longer.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
Open Access is reshaping the landscape of information dissemination. This is the only way that the latest theoretical and practical information concerning neuromechanics can reach the broadest readership geographically and otherwise. It is imperative that researchers, physicians, engineers, coaches, athletes, non-academic audiences, and policy makers can access the latest ideas about neuromechanics in low-income and lower-middle income countries worldwide. Evidence suggests that Open Access articles and books are accessed and downloaded 10-15 times more and are cited 2-3 times more than non-Open Access publications. I thus firmly believe that if publishers and academic and other stakeholders can take on the costs of publishing, Open Access publishing increases diversity and creates universal access.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Tibor Hortobagyi in his role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading the “Neuromechanics” Section of Biomechanics to achieve more milestones.

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.

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

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

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Justin Keogh has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Biomechanics (ISSN: 2673-7078).

Dr. Justin Keogh is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Australia. He completed his Ph.D. in Exercise Science at Griffith University, Australia, in 2006. In addition to his academic career, he has been a part-time sports scientist, strength and conditioning coach, and Paralympic powerlifting coach. His current research focuses on improving human physical performance across the lifespan, with the major focus being strength and power sports, including strongman, powerlifting, and the football code, as well as older adults with limited physical function. He is a member of multiple societies and is currently a Fellow of the International Society of Biomechanics in Sport, Exercise, and Sport Science Australia and the Australian Association of Gerontology.

We warmly welcome Dr. Justin Keogh in his role as Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Biomechanics to achieve more milestones.

Name: Dr. Justin Keogh
Affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD 4226, Australia
Homepage: https://bond.edu.au/profile/justin-keogh
Research Interests: biomechanics; motor control and learning; resistance training; sarcopenia; strength and conditioning; team sports

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

MDPI is proud to adopt the principles of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) to support building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications.

The C4DISC represents organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion within the publishing industry.

MDPI’s Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of MDPI journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

Representatives from C4DISC meet monthly, and have started to implement initiatives to shed light and improve on the lack of diversity in scholarly communications. Some of the initiatives include developing a joint statement of principles; conducting market research; providing training resources, best practices, toolkits, and documentation for our collective memberships; and establishing outreach programs, curricula, events, and publications.

The Coalition is committed to:

• eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

At MDPI we have slightly revised the layout for articles to be published in the 2021 Volume, starting at the end of December 2020. As of today, the article templates available for download on ‘Instructions for Authors’ pages have been updated.

The most noticeable change can be found on the first page of the article, where a left-hand column has been created to include the following front matter elements: (i) the recommended citation style for the article, (ii) the publishing history, (iii) as well as the Creative Commons Attribution license used (iv) a standard note regarding affiliations. At the same time, the extra spacing on the left means the authors’ affiliations are now more clearly set apart than before. Other front matter key elements such as journal logo, article type, article title, authors, abstract and keywords remain unchanged.

The blank column on the left runs through all pages in an article; as a result, the main text is slightly more condensed, which improve reader friendliness for smaller screens. Small figures/tables are aligned on the left with standard indenture, while large figures/tables are centered and covering the full width of the page. The revised layout was applied in the article pictured below, to serve as an example:

1) Information is displayed in the left information bar.

2) In the main text, there is a blank column on the left.

3) Small tables/figures are aligned on the left, large tables/figures are centered.

We are pleased to acknowledge that many academic editors who have made an impact on MDPI journals as editorial board members, editors-in-chief, or section editors, are recognized as 2020 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

Highly Cited Researchers highlights the top 1% of researchers, by citations, in one or more of the 22 fields used in Clarivate Analytics Essential Science Indicators. We offer our congratulations to 279 academic editors of MDPI journals who were recognized as the most influential scholars in their fields in 2020.

The full list of 2020 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed on https://recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/

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