Publisher’s Note: Econometrics—A New Era for a Well-Established Journal

Throughout its lifespan, a journal goes through many phases—and Econometrics (Econometrics Homepage n.d.) is currently confronted with a particularly challenging new chapter. On the weekend of 17 December 2023, the three Editors-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Marc S. Paolella, Prof. Dr. Ryo Okui and Prof. Dr. Martin Wagner, decided to step down. They subsequently informed all of the editorial board members and one day later, the majority of the board also decided to end their affiliation with the journal. Some board members told us that this was a good opportunity to step back from their role as they were already overwhelmed with other works. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the three Editors-in-Chief, the Founding Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Kerry Patterson as well as the whole board for their many contributions.

1. What Happened?

This year, Econometrics received its first impact factor of 1.5 (MDPI 2023a). In order to make the journal grow in a sustainable way, we discussed with the Editors-in-Chief on numerous occasions the possibilities for securing this new journal’s status in Web of Science, which includes maintenance of a steady volume of publications in each issue and refining the scope of the journal. Unfortunately, we were unable to agree on an overarching strategy for the development of this journal.

A further reason named by the Editors-in-Chief in their decision to step down was the emergence of a website that claims that MDPI is a ‘predatory publisher’. MDPI has already responded separately to these false and derogatory claims of that website (MDPI 2023b), which is not a credible source: there is no information on who is maintaining the website, how it is funded, or what the criteria are for inclusion on the ‘predatory list’. MDPI is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which deals with ethics in scientific publishing. COPE published an announcement on 6 April 2023 warning against fake news from anonymous sources, which was released directly in relation to the claims made by this website (COPE 2023). MDPI also published an announcement on this topic.

As the Head of Publishing, I speak on behalf of all 431 MDPI journal offices and also on behalf of the thousands of external journal editors who work every day to ensure that the research community is provided with exactly what it needs: articles published in full open access that have undergone a rigorous publication process that meets international standards in full and in every respect. We are proud to have provided professional publishing services to over 2.7 million authors to date, and this number continues to grow daily—the size of the demand for our service affirms the value MDPI creates for scientific communities worldwide.

2. What Is Next?

MDPI is determined to continue the journal Econometrics with a new editorial board, providing ongoing publishing services to experts in the field of econometrics. If you are interested in joining the editorial board or would like to make a recommendation, please reach out to the Econometrics Editorial Office: econometrics@mdpi.com.