A range of MDPI journals will be attending the 40th Annual Conference of Chinese Society for Imaging Science and Technology (SCIST 2023) as exhibitors. This meeting will be held in Kunming, Yunnan, China, from 13 to 16 May 2023.

The theme of this conference is "Strengthening the Driven by Technological Innovation and Building the Future of Photosensitive Imaging". The conference will invite well-known experts and scholars in the field of photosensitive imaging and related fields to make special reports and keynote reports of the conference. It will also organize academic exchanges in 17 sub-sessions in conjunction with various professional committees. The scale of the meeting is expected to be 1000 people.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences;
• J. Imaging;
• Sensors;
• Chemosensors;
• Photonics.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us at our booth #1-12. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please visit https://2021csist.scimeeting.cn/cn/web/index/, or contact the Applied Sciences Editorial Office at applsci@mdpi.com.

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.

A range of MDPI journals will be attending the Asia Communications and Photonics Conference. This meeting will be held in Shenzhen, China, from 5 to 8 November 2022.

The Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP) is one of the largest conferences in the Asia-Pacific region on optical communication, photonics, and relevant technologies, which has been held annually since 2001 and jointly sponsored by OPTICA, SPIE, IEEE Photonics Society, The Chinese Optical Society, and China Institute of Communications. 

ACP 2022 will be held concurrently with the International Conference on Information Photonics and Optical Communications (IPOC). IPOC was founded by the State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2013.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Micromachines (leading journal);
• Photonics;
• Symmetry;
• Optics;
• Fibers;
• J. Imaging.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: http://www.acp2022.org/.

1. “Optical Solitons and Vortices in Fractional Media: A Mini-Review of Recent Results”
by Boris A. Malomed
Photonics 2021, 8(9), 353; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8090353
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/9/353

2. “Perspectives on UVC LED: Its Progress and Application”
by Tsung-Chi Hsu et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(6), 196; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8060196
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/6/196

3. “In-Fiber Interferometric-Based Sensors: Overview and Recent Advances”
by Amalia Miliou
Photonics 2021, 8(7), 265; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8070265
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/7/265

4. “Neural Network DPD for Aggrandizing SM-VCSEL-SSMF-Based Radio over Fiber Link Performance”
by Muhammad Usman Hadi et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8010019
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/1/19

5. “A Review on X-ray Excited Emission Decay Dynamics in Inorganic Scintillator Materials”
by Vineet Kumar et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(3), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8030071
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/3/71

6. “Simultaneous Dual-Modal Multispectral Photoacoustic and Ultrasound Macroscopy for Three-Dimensional Whole-Body Imaging of Small Animals”
by Eun-Yeong Park et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8010013
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/1/13

7. “Recent Advances in High Speed Photodetectors for eSWIR/MWIR/LWIR Applications”
by Baile Chen et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8010014
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/1/14

8. “Metasurface Holography in the Microwave Regime”
by Guanyu Shang et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(5), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8050135
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/5/135

9. “LIDAR and Beam Steering Tailored by Neuromorphic Metasurfaces Dipped in a Tunable Surrounding Medium”
by Giuseppe Emanuele Lio et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8030065
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/3/65

10. “Advances on Mode-Coupling Theories, Fabrication Techniques, and Applications of the Helical Long-Period Fiber Gratings: A Review”
by Hua Zhao et al.
Photonics 2021, 8(4), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8040106
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/4/106

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!

MDPI will be attending the 6th Micro-Nano Optical Technology and Application Conference (MOTA2022) in Nanjing, China, which will take place from 21 to 23 October 2022. The MOTA2022 is organized by the Chinese Society for Optical Engineering, aiming to build a communication platform between researchers and industrial application teams, as well as promote scientific research progress and the industrialization development of micro-nano optics.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Electronics (leading journal);
• Photonics (leading journal);
• Coatings;
• Sensors;
• Crystals;
• Journal of Imaging.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: https://b2b.csoe.org.cn/meeting/MOTA2022.html.

The Scientific Conference Programme is coordinated by the European Commission Joint Research Centre and covers the entire range of PV research, technologies and applications focusing on bringing the latest scientific and technological research trends to the market.

It also offers a variety of broader insights into the current developments in the sector, acknowledging that PV integration needs to be approached from all dimensions—scientific, technical, economic, political, business, and also social and educational aspects.

The Programme is structured in plenary, oral, and visual presentations and is divided into 5 topics. These cover the entire range of PV research, technologies, and applications, with a special emphasis on the latest scientific, technological, and market-related trends.

During this conference, MDPI (at booth #B1) will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest inspirations with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Energies (leading journal);
• Materials (leading journal);
• Sustainability;
• Crystals;
• Photonics;
• Nanoenergy Advances;
• Solar.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth at #B1. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: https://www.wcpec-8.com/index.php.

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 this year’s winners in the “Physical Sciences” 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.

Entropy:

• Jim W. Kay, University of Glasgow, UK;
• Christophe Chesneau, University of Caen, France;
• Esteban Tlelo-Cuautle, Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Mexico;
• Dennis Dieks, Utrecht University, The Netherlands;
• Claudio Cremaschini, Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.

Photonics:

• Carlos A. F. Marques, University of Aveiro, Portugal;
• Tatiana Latychevskaia, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland.

Universe:

• Amit Kashi, Ariel University, Israel;
• Dominik Elsaesser, Technical University of Dortmund, Germany;
• Isaac Tutusaus, Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio, Spain;
• Jose A.R. Cembranos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain;
• Kazuharu Bamba, Fukushima University, Japan;
• Przemyslaw Malkiewicz, National Centre for Nuclear Research, Poland;
• Szymon Piotr Harabasz, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany;
• Theocharis Kosmas, University of Ioannina, Greece;
• Viktor Toth, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada;
• Vitor De Souza, Universidade de São Paulodisabled, Brazil.

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Physical Sciences” 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.

Galaxies:

• Mahdis Ghodrati, Yangzhou University, China;
• Sandra Etoka, University of Manchester, UK.

Instruments:

• Adriana Dias, University of London, UK.

Photonics:

• Aleksandrs Leitis, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland;
• Elena Losero, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland;
• Zhifeng Zhang, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

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 the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Physical Sciences” category, 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.

Entropy:

• “Classical (Local and Contextual) Probability Model for Bohm–Bell Type Experiments: No-Signaling as Independence of Random Variables”
  By Andrei Khrennikov and Alexander Alodjants
  Entropy 2019, 21(2), 157; doi 10.3390/e21020157
• “Nonlinear Information Bottleneck”
  By Artemy Kolchinsky, Brendan D. Tracey and David H. Wolpert
  Entropy 2019, 21(12), 1181; doi 10.3390/e21121181
• “Dynamic Maximum Entropy Reduction”
  By Václav Klika, Michal Pavelka, Petr Vágner and Miroslav Grmela
  Entropy 2019, 21(7), 715; doi 10.3390/e21070715
• “Topological Information Data Analysis”
  By Pierre Baudot, Monica Tapia, Daniel Bennequin and Jean-Marc Goaillard
  Entropy 2019, 21(9), 869; doi 10.3390/e21090869

Universe:

• “Nonsingular Black Holes in ƒ (R) Theories”
  By Gonzalo J. Olmo and Diego Rubiera-Garcia
  Universe 2015, 1(2), 173-185; doi 10.3390/universe1020173
• “Is It No Longer Necessary to Test Cosmologies with Type Ia Supernovae?”
  By Ram Gopal Vishwakarma and Jayant V. Narlikar
  Universe 2018, 4(6), 73; doi 10.3390/universe4060073
• “A Universe that Does Not Know the Time”
  By João Magueijo and Lee Smolin
  Universe 2019, 5(3), 84 ; doi 10.3390/universe5030084
• “Seeing Black Holes: From the Computer to the Telescope”
  By Jean-Pierre Luminet
  Universe 2018, 4(8), 86; doi 10.3390/universe4080086

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

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

This program intends to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills and to work closely with our journal to gain more editorial experience. Early career scientists who have novel ideas for new Special Issues of Photonics (ISSN: 2304-6732) will act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist; this mentor could be a member of the Photonics Editorial Board or may be from other well-established research institutes or laboratories, etc.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Photonics Editorial Office (photonics@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. When the Special Issue is closed, our office will provide certificates to all the mentors and to those who complete the program. Younger scholars will be prioritized as candidates for our journal award.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Photonics continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics in the field as usual.

Photonics Editorial Office

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)

Photonics is currently recruiting Editors-in-Chief for the following Sections:

• “Optical Communication and Network” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/sectioneditors/Optical_Communication_Network);
• “Optoelectronics and Optical Materials” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/sectioneditors/Optoelectronics_Optical_Materials);
• “Optical Interaction Science” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/sectioneditors/Optical_Interaction_Science);
• “Data-Science Based Techniques in Photonics” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/sectioneditors/data-science_based_techniques_in_photonics);
• “New Applications Enabled by Photonics Technologies and Systems” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/sections/new_applications_enabled_by_photonics_technologies_and_systems).

Photonics (ISSN: 2304-6732, IF 2.676) is an international scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of optics and photonics, published monthly online by MDPI.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is a leader in their particular field of research and is responsible for maintaining the scientific quality of a particular section of a journal. The Section Editor-in-Chief is expected to oversee the growth and development of the journal Sections and its board members. The initial term is for 2 years and entails the following:

• Acting as an ambassador for the journal, MDPI, and open access publishing;
• Making scientific decisions about the scope of the Section;
• Inviting distinguished scientists to join the Editorial Board;
• Suggesting topics for Special Issues;
• Providing support and guidance to Editorial Board Members and editorial staff when required;
• Maintaining oversight of the editorial process for individual manuscripts in the Section (mainly by making the final decision regarding whether or not a paper can be published after peer review and revisions);
• Understanding, leading, and upholding MDPI’s peer review guidelines and ethics guidelines.

To apply for this position (in one of our sections), recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Photonics Editorial Office (photonics@mdpi.com) with the following two files attached:

• A full academic CV;
• A short cover letter that details your interest and enthusiasm for the position.

Photonics Editorial Office

Conference name: 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science (I3S 2022)

Conference website: https://i3s2022warsaw.sciforum.net/

Date: 20–22 June 2022

Place: Warsaw, Poland

It is with great pleasure that we announce the 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science, to be held in Warsaw, Poland, from 20 to 22 June 2022.

Sensor technology has been shown to be suitable for applications in many important fields, including industrial applications, security medical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. This international conference, supported by the Photonics Society of Poland, Warsaw University of Technology, as well as MDPI’s Sensors (ISSN: 1424-8220), will bring together scientists from different areas to discuss important recent developments in sensor technology. It will represent a great opportunity for an in-person meeting of an interdisciplinary community aiming to discuss important breakthroughs in sensor technology and its related fields.

The main topics of the conference include:

• Chemical sensors;
• Biosensors;
• Physical sensors;
• Optical/photonic sensors;
• Sensor applications;
• Specialty optical fibers for sensing;
• Materials, microfluidics, configurations and strategies for sensing;
• Distributed sensing in optical fibers;
• Amorphous materials for sensor applications.

We look forward to your participation in this exciting event.

Dr. Piotr Lesiak, Prof. Tomasz Woliński and Prof. Leszek Jaroszewicz
I3S 2022 Conference Chairs

Follow the conversation on Twitter with #I3S2022

Photonics (ISSN: 2304-6732) released its inaugural issue in 2014 and is now published monthly. From the very start, Photonics has aimed to provide a professional publishing service to the scientific community and has strived toward the effective dissemination of high-quality scientific work.

In order to support the scientific community and contribute to the faster distribution of important scientific research, Photonics has cooperated with various academic conferences. For more details, please visit the following events website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/events.

Photonics is now seeking cooperation with additional academic conferences and is open to a diverse range of collaborations, such as media partnerships, awards, exhibitions, and publications, among others.

Photonics is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal based on research on the science and technology of optics and photonics, published monthly online by MDPI, indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, CAPlus/SciFinder, and many other databases. The new impact factor of Photonics has increased to 2.676. On the Web of Science, Photonics ranks 37th out of 99 (Q2) in the category “Optics”.

The scope of Photonics includes but is not limited to the following:

• Biophotonics, biomedical optics, and medical optics;
• Semiconductor photonics and optoelectronics;
• Nanotechnology and nanostructures in optics;
• Quantum optics, quantum computing, and applications;
• Photonic materials and technology;
• Metamaterials, plasmonics, and nanophotonics;
• Integrated optoelectronics and integrated optics;
• Photonics device and technologies;
• Optical communications and systems;
• Nonlinear and ultrafast optics;
• Imaging systems and holography;
• Computational photonics and nanostructures;
• Photonics for energy and green technologies;
• Fundamentals and applications of photonics/optics;
• Photon–electron–phonon interaction in nanostructures;
• Physics and simulation: material properties, device technologies, and integrated systems.

We welcome consultations with any conferences related to optics and photonics. If you are interested in collaborating with Photonics, please contact us at photonics@mdpi.com.

The journal Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732) is currently recruiting Topical Advisory Panel Members. The Topical Advisory Panel comprises Early Career Researchers, eager to gain experience in editorial work. Early career researchers that currently hold an independent research position in academia or government institute are invited to apply to join the Topical Advisory Panel, where they will provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. Each year, the member’s performance is evaluated, and outstanding members will be promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor in Chief.

You can check the detailed Topical Advisory Panel Responsibilities at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/editors#Supporting_Editor_Responsibilities. 

If you are interested in this position, please submit your application at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/topical_advisory_panel_application.

Photonics is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal based on research on the science and technology of optics and photonics, published monthly online by MDPI, indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, CAPlus/SciFinder, and many other databases. The new impact factor of Photonics has increased to 2.676. On the Web of Science, Photonics ranks 37th out of 99 (Q2) in the category “Optics”. The aims and scope of the journal can be found in the Aims and Scope Section on the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/about.

We are pleased to announce that the following eight new scholars have recently been appointed Editorial Board Members for the journal Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732):

Prof. Dr. Daomu Zhao (Zhejiang University, China);

Prof. Dr. Chi-Wai Chow (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan);

Dr. Val Vullev ( University of California, USA);

Dr. Mingxing Li (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA);

Prof. Dr. Bao-Sen Shi (University of Science and Technology of China, China);

Prof. Dr. Adolfo Cartaxo (University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal);

Dr. Adrian Bradu (University of Kent, UK);

Prof. Dr. Sergei P. Roshchupkin (Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Russia).

We wish them every success in both their research and the development of the journal.

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/editors.

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.

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

The journal Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732) is recruiting Reviewer Board Members. The main responsibility of the new members of the Reviewer Board is to regularly provide timely, high-quality reports on the submitted manuscripts. The responsibilities of the reviewers are available at https://www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

Photonics is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of optics and photonics, published online monthly by MDPI, indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, CAPlus / SciFinder, and many other databases. The new Impact Factor of Photonics has increased to 2.676. On Web of Science, Photonics ranks 37th out of 99 (Q2) in the category “Optics”. The aims and scope of the journal can be found here.

The benefits of joining the Reviewer Board of Photonics are as follows:

• We will announce your entry information on the journal's reviewer board;
• We will offer you a discount code (up to CHF 100) if a comprehensive and timely report is provided. The voucher can be used for your future publications in all MDPI journals;
• You will receive a personalized reviewer certificate;
• You will have the ability to adjust your review frequency based on your schedule in our system;
• Reviewer Board Members may be presented with the possibility of joining the Editorial Board of the journal (subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief).

If you are interested in becoming a Reviewer Board Member (RBM) of Photonics, please send your application, including a full academic CV, to the Photonics Editorial Office (photonics @mdpi.com).

For more information about Photonics, please visit the website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics.

We are pleased to announce that seven new scholars were recently appointed Editorial Board Members for the journal Photonics:

Prof. Dr. Yung-Fu Chen (National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan);
Dr. Mateusz Bawaj (University of Perugia, Italy);
Prof. Dr. Bruno Piccirillo (University of Naples "Federico II", Italy);
Prof. Dr. Jin-Hui Wu (Northeast Normal University, China);
Dr. Anton Husakou (Max-Born-Institute, Germany);
Dr. Howard (Ho Wai) Lee (University of California, USA);
Prof. Dr. Walter Blondel (University of Lorraine - CNRS, France).

We wish them every success in both their research and development of the journal.
Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/editors.

MDPI will be attending the 6th Optoelectronics Global Conference (OGC 2021), hosted by the IEEE Photonics Society, Guangzhou Photonics Chapter, and Southern University of Science and Technology, which will be held from Wednesday, 15 September, until Saturday, 18 September, 2021, at the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center, China.

OGC aims to promote the interaction and exchange of various disciplines among professionals in academia and industry at home and abroad. In addition, it also serves to turn technologies into industrial applications. OGC will be an ideal platform for scholars, researchers and professionals to exchange insights and discuss the development of the optoelectronics industry. It will be a perfect gathering to learn about new perspectives, technologies and trends which might push the boundaries of technology and eventually create a broader future for optoelectronics applications.

The topics covered will include precision optics, optical communications, lasers, infrared applications, and fiber sensors.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Photonics
• Nanomaterials
• Electronics
• Remote Sensing

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit http://www.ipsogc.org/index.html.

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

MDPI will be attending the 12th International Conference on Information Optics and Photonics (CIOP 2021), Xi’an, China, 23–26 July 2021.

CIOP, an annual conference with comprehensive topics on optics and photonics, was initiated in 2007 by Chinese Laser Press, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The 12th International Conference on Information Optics and Photonics (CIOP2021) will be held on 23–26 July 2021 in Xi'an, China.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences (leading journal);
• Electronics;
• Photonics;
• Fibers;
• Optics.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.researching.cn/EN/EventMain/CIOP2021.

MDPI will be attending the IEEE-2021 International Conference of Optical Imaging and Measurement (ICOIM 2021), which is going to be held in Xi’an, China, from the 27^th to the 29^th of August 2021.

Optical imaging and measurement are closely related and have a wide range of applications such as microscopes, telescopes, sensors, etc. Usually, imaging is the basis of measurement, and measurement is a rigorous consideration of imaging results in a quantitative way. This conference covers the broad field of advanced optical imaging and precision measurement technologies, ranging from micro to macro, from static to dynamic, from single physical quantity to multiple. Optical methods continuously have a profound impact on new developments in the field of science and technology, such as milestone breakthroughs, STED optical nanoscope (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014), and LIGO’s interferometer (Nobel Prize in Physics 2017). This conference is looking forward to opening a discussion between optical scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Applied Sciences (leading journal);
• Journal of Imaging;
• Photonics;
• Sensors.

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.icoim.org/.

We are pleased to announce that Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732) has received an increased Impact Factor of 2.676, as published in the 2020 Edition of the Journal Citation Reports® (Clarivate). Photonics ranks 37th out of 99 (Q2) in the category “Optics”. For more journal statistics, please visit:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics/stats.

We would like to thank all of the authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to Photonics and enabled this next big step!

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

• Dual-Core Fiber-Based Interferometer for Detection of Gas Refractive Index
  Haijin Chen et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(4), 111; doi:10.3390/photonics7040111
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/4/111
• A Refractive Index Sensitive Liquid Level Monitoring Sensor Based on Multimode Interference
  Fan Zhang et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(4), 89; doi:10.3390/photonics7040089
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/4/89 
• Development of an Interference Filter-Stabilized External-Cavity Diode Laser for Space Applications
  Linbo Zhang et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(1), 12; doi:10.3390/photonics7010012
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/1/12
• Equivalent Circuit Model of High-Performance VCSELs
  Marwan Bou Sanayeh et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(1), 13; doi:10.3390/photonics7010013
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/1/13
• The Interband Cascade Laser
  Jerry R. Meyer et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(3), 75; doi:10.3390/photonics7030075
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/3/75
• Wide-Angle Beam-Steering Using an Optical Phased Array with Non-Uniform-Width Waveguide Radiators
  Youngin Kim et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(3), 56; doi:10.3390/photonics7030056
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/3/56
• Nonreciprocal Wavefront Manipulation in Synthetically Moving Metagratings
  Younes Ra’di et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(2), 28; doi:10.3390/photonics7020028
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/2/28
• Ultra-Wideband WDM Optical Network Optimization
  Stanisław Kozdrowski et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(1), 16; doi:10.3390/photonics7010016
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/1/16
• Raman-Laser System for Absolute Gravimeter Based On ⁸⁷Rb Atom Interferometer
  Yang Zhao et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(2), 32; doi:10.3390/photonics7020032
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/2/32
• Ultrahigh-Resolution Optical Vector Analyzers
  Oleg Morozov et al.
  Photonics 2020, 7(1), 14; doi:10.3390/photonics7010014
  Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/7/1/14 

(Data as of 25 June 2021)

MDPI will be attending the China Instrument and Control Society Annual Meeting, which is to be held in Shanghai, China, on 27–29 August 2021. The conference invites experts and students who are engaged in the study of instrumentation to participate in an in-depth discussion on the basic research direction, technological innovation, and industrial path of the instrumentation discipline.

The following MDPI journals will be represented at the meeting:

• Sensors;
• Machines;
• ASI;
• Electronics;
• Photonics.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth: C-01. Our delegates are looking forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://meeting.cis.org.cn/.

It is our great pleasure to announce that Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732) has received an increased CiteScore (2020 Scopus data) of 3.5 for the year 2020, which equals the rank of 45/128 (Q2) in "Physics and Astronomy: Instrumentation", the rank of 113/288 (Q2) in "Medicine: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging”, and the rank of 81/192 (Q2) in "Physics and Astronomy: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics".

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to the journal and enabled this next big step!

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)

We are pleased to announce that Photonics became a monthly publication on 1 January, 2021. A monthly publication allows papers to be indexed in Web of Science and other indexing databases on a monthly basis rather than every 3 months, and they become searchable and are cited earlier. We also acknowledge the many valuable publications from our authors and the important contribution of our dedicated reviewers.

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.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Nelson Tansu, the Editor-in-Chief of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732; CODEN: PHOTC5; IF 2.140; www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics), has been appointed as the new Head of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) and Professor in Quantum Electronics at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

Professor Nelson Tansu is a US-based engineering scientist and inventor with an 18-year career in research excellence. Professor Tansu received his BS and PhD degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States, in 1998 and 2003, respectively. Professor Tansu is currently the Director of the Center for Photonics and Nanoelectronics, and the Daniel E. '39 and Patricia M. Smith Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lehigh University. He is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors and has been a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (2018).

Tansu has 18 US patents and has made important advances to the invention and innovation, fundamental sciences, and device technologies of semiconductors for energy efficiency and photonics. His research has been funded (with a total of US$13.39 million) by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Education (DoED), Department of Defense (DOD), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the US. He has authored more than 155 refereed journals and 310 conference publications, and his work has been cited more than 8600 times.

Let us congratulate Professor Nelson Tansu, who will take up his new post at the University of Adelaide in January 2021. The School of EEE at the University of Adelaide is ranked 42nd in the world according to the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 11th in the world in the 2021 US News and World Reports Best Global Universities Subject Ranking. We look forward to his continued success at the University of Adelaide.

The full news release by the University of Adelaide is available in the link below.

www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2020/11/02/uni-adelaide-appoints-leading-engineering-scientist-as-head-of-school-of-electrical-and-electronic-engineering

MDPI will be attending the 4th Micro-Nano Optics Technology and Application Exchange Conference (MOTA2020), Chengdu, September 26–28, 2020.

MOTA2020 is organized by the Chinese Society for Optical Engineering, which combines the national defense and industrial applications to build a large platform for the industrial chain. The aim is to build a seamless docking platform for scientific and technical personnel engaged in related research in China and industrial application teams to form a joint force to promote the rapid technological development of micro-nano optics itself and its industrial development.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Energies (leading journal)
• Photonics
• Nanomaterials
• Coatings
• Sensors
• Clean Technologies
• Safety
• Micromachines

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth "Journal Energies"). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://b2b.csoe.org.cn/meeting/MOTA2020.html.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our Open Access agreement with Jisc Collections, which will allow UK institutions to benefit from access to article processing charge (APC) discounts and streamlined payment workflows.

All institutions participating in the agreement will also gain access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information for easy identification and additional transparency.

Eligible authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system.

About Jisc

Jisc's vision is for the UK to be the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. At its heart is the super-fast national research and education network, Janet, with built-in cyber security protection.  Jisc also provides technology solutions for its members (colleges, universities and research centres) and customers (public sector bodies), helps members save time and money by negotiating sector-wide deals and provides advice and practical assistance on digital technology. Jisc is funded by the UK higher and further education and research funding bodies and member institutions.

For more information, contact helen.dobson@jisc.ac.uk.

About MDPI

MDPI is a publisher of fully peer-reviewed, Open Access journals with a focus on thorough and rapid editorial processing. Its aim is to ensure that high-quality research is verified and made available to the research community as quickly as possible. MDPI stands at the forefront of the Open Access movement, having launched its first online journal Molecules in 1996. Today, MDPI is a leader in Open Access publishing with over 250 journals across all research disciplines, and all content published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

For any questions about this agreement, please contact the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

The updated citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), published by Clarivate. The recent release of the JCR includes seventy-one MDPI titles. Out of these, 18 titles are newcomers, receiving a first Journal Impact Factor which is based on citation activity in 2019: Actuators, Agriculture, Biology, Biomedicines, Biosensors, Chemosensors, Children, Healthcare, Journal of Fungi, Journal of Personalized Medicine (JPM), Land, Life, Magnetochemistry, Membranes, Pharmaceuticals, Photonics, Separations and Toxics.

• Out of the previously listed journals, a total of 72 percent boast an increased Impact Factor.
• 25 journals are ranked among the top 25% of journals in at least one of the categories they are ranked for.
• Articles published in 2019 in MDPI journals account for approximately 17 percent of of articles published in gold Open Access journals covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
  
  

First Impact Factors

Updated Impact Factors

The editors are pleased to inform that Photonics has received a first Impact Factor of 2.140, as published in the 2019 Edition of the Journal Citation Reports® (Clarivate), released just now. Photonics ranks 48th out of 97 (Q2) titles in the 'Optics' category.

Thank you to the authors, editorial board members and reviewers for their contribution in achieving this milestone for Photonics.

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19

As a leading Open Access publisher, MDPI is committed to fostering open scientific exchange in all forms across all disciplines. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many researchers have to stay at home and many academic conferences have been cancelled or postponed. In light of these changes, MDPI has adopted numerous initiatives that may help accelerate scientific exchange and provide support to the academics during this period.

Scholarly Community—Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

Comprehensive and Free Literature Database—Scilit

Scilit is a comprehensive, free database for scientists that uses a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Our crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis. This means that newly published articles are immediately added to Scilit.

Display Academic Achievements—SciProfiles

SciProfiles is an innovative social network for researchers and scholars that is developed by MDPI. In line with our broad mission, the purpose of SciProfiles is to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and providing opportunities for academic networking.

Organize and Participate in Conferences Online—Sciforum

Sciforum is an event planning platform that supports open science by offering the opportunity to host and participate in academic conferences. It provides an environment for scholarly exchange, discussion of topics of current interest, building of networks, and establishing collaborations.

Post Early Versions of Research Outputs—Preprints

Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. We post original research articles and comprehensive reviews, and papers can be updated by authors at any time. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed, and feedback can be received from readers.

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MDPI remains committed to open science and open data and has signed a statement, along with more than thirty scholarly publishers, showing our intention to facilitate sharing of new research findings as early on as possible. The initiative sees publishers collectively removing barriers to new research, in the face of a global healthcare crisis.

Photonics is recruiting Section Editors-in-Chief for the following six new Sections:

• Biophotonics and Biomedical Optics
• Optical Communication, Information Processing, and Data Storage
• Optoelectronics and Optical Materials
• Lasers, Light Sources and Sensors
• Optical Interaction Science
• Classical Optics

Photonics publishes high impact fundamental research as well as applications of optics and photonics. The journal particularly welcomes both theoretical (simulation) and experimental research, and is covered by Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE - Web of Science), Inspec (IET), and Scopus. The first Impact Factor is expected in June 2020 (JCR - Clarivate Analytics). The Photonics website can be accessed here.

The Section Editor-in-Chief is responsible for:

• defining the Aims and Scope of the Section;
• advising on the strategic development of the Section;
• ensuring the quality of the published content;
• nominating/inviting Guest Editors and optionally delegating to them the authority to make final acceptance decisions for submitted articles;
• nominating/inviting contributors;
• nominating and leading the Section Editorial Board; and
• promoting the journal at scientific conferences or through other venues.

To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Photonics Editorial Office (photonics@mdpi.com) before 30 June 2020.

The world is currently suffering from a global pandemic of the corona virus COVID-19. MDPI expresses its sympathies for all of those affected by the virus and stands in solidarity with medical staff and researchers treating patients and searching for scientific solutions.

MDPI has previously published papers covering corona viruses in addition to new papers on the current outbreak, see all papers here. In particular, Viruses has published a number of Special Issues and papers on the topic (see here, here, and here) as well as a forthcoming Special Issue.