Announcements

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)

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Agronomy 10th Anniversary Outstanding Reviewer Award. The Agronomy Editorial Board and Editorial Team would like to gratefully acknowledge the time and energy dedicated by reviewers in checking the manuscripts submitted to Agronomy. It is due to their efforts that the high quality of the journal and quick turnaround are maintained.

“I greatly appreciate your decision to grant me with your prestigious award of “Agronomy 10th Anniversary Outstanding Reviewer Award”. It is a great pleasure to review manuscripts for the journal of Agronomy (MDPI). I will do my best to review manuscripts for Agronomy in the future too. I also hope that my work as a reviewer will increase further the scientific value of Agronomy.”

“I am especially appreciative and pleased to have been selected to receive the “Agronomy 10th Anniversary Outstanding Reviewer Award”. It is an honor for me that my work in reviewing has been recognized in this way by the Agronomy Award Committee, and I promise that I will continue my efforts.”

“I want to thank you for giving me the award as a reviewer of Agronomy on the 10^th anniversary of this journal. It is an important distinction and a great honor for me considering the high renown Agronomy has. I am glad, that my work as a reviewer caused the increase of published papers quality and could be an indication for young scientist preparing and submitting manuscripts to the Agronomy. I suppose these aspects gained recognition among participants of Award Committee. At the end, I would like to wish you many valuable and interesting papers and keeping the high rank of Agronomy in the future, as well as health and further success for whole Redactors team in the 2021.”

“When I first joined the Reviewer Board of Agronomy back in March 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus (or COVID-19 as it is widely known) had already landed on the shores of the US and we were all puzzled and rather worried to a certain extent, based on the news from Europe and elsewhere, for the development and advancement of the disease in the society. Despite the overall unrest and challenges of everyday life since then, I was fortunate to receive invitations for reviewing manuscripts for the Agronomy and other MDPI journals that enabled me to stay focused and positive, whilst expanding my knowledge in the broader area of crop improvement and agriculture, in general. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the journal Award Committee for this unanticipated recognition, as well as the editors that I communicated with the past few months. I hope that 2021 will be a better year for all of us. Until then, stay safe and stay healthy!”

The above awardees have been selected by the Editor-in-Chief of Agronomy, Prof. Dr. Peter Langridge. Each of them will receive 500 CHF, an offer to publish a paper free of charge in Agronomy before 31 June 2021, and a certificate to recognize their outstanding work.

Kind regards,
Prof. Dr. Peter Langridge
Editor-in-Chief, Agronomy

To expand our contribution and impact on the fields of agronomy and agroecology, we are recruiting scientists to join our Editorial Board. We encourage applications from researchers with a background in a wide range of subject areas (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/sections).

Should you decide to serve on the Agronomy Editorial Board, you would be responsible for some of the following tasks depending on your availability:

1. Helping review 6–10 manuscripts per year, include making pre-check decision, first decision, and final decision;
2. You may choose to help edit a Special Issue on a topic related to your research;
3. Promoting Agronomy and published papers at conferences that you attend or organize.

Benefits for Agronomy Editorial Board Members include the following:

1. You can publish one paper per year free of charge;
2. A recognition certificate as an Editorial Board Member of Agronomy;
3. We may apply travel grants for conferences that you attend or organize;
4. Additional sponsorships are offered by Agronomy for conferences that you organize.

Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395; CODEN: ABSGGL) is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal published monthly online by MDPI. Its impact factor is 2.603 (2019), and it has been indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)-Web of Science, Scopus, and other databases. For more information about Agronomy, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy.

To apply or request further information, please contact the Agronomy Editorial Office (agronomy@mdpi.com).

We welcome the following 22 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Agronomy:

Dr. Jana Okleštková, Palacký University, Czech Republic

Dr. Christina Eynck, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada

Dr. Betty Benrey, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland

Dr. Adamo Domenico Rombolà, University of Bologna, Italy

Prof. Dr. Mark P. Widrlechner, Iowa State University, USA

Dr. Sabine Tausz-Posch, CQUniversity, Australia

Dr. Salvatore Ceccarelli, Bioversity International, Italy

Dr. Arnd Jürgen Kuhn, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, Germany

Dr. Rodolfo Gentili, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Prof. Nikolaos Papadopoulos, University of Thessaly, Greece

Dr. Vladimir Nekrasov, Hertfordshire, UK

Prof. Ana I Ribeiro-Barros, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (UNL), Portugal

Dr. Stéphane Bourque, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France

Prof. Dr. Nazim Gruda, University of Bonn, Germany

Dr. Emanuele Radicetti, University of Tuscia, Italy

Dr. Sophie Parks, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Australia

Prof. Dr. Essaid Ait Barka, Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France

Dr. Siegbert Melzer, University of Kiel, Germany

Dr. Nunzio Fiorentino, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Dr. Fabienne Micheli, Cirad, France

Dr. Victor Gaba, Agricultural Research Organization—The Volcani Center, Israel

Dr. Vicente J. Febres, University of Florida, USA

We look forward to their contributions to the journal.

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.

Dear scientists, researchers, and authors,

We are pleased to announce that the 1st International Electronic Conference on Agronomy (IECAG 2021), chaired by Prof. Dr. Youssef Rouphael, will be held on https://iecag2021.sciforum.net from 3 to 17 May 2021.

This conference aims to provide leading scientists working in the field of agronomy with a platform where they can share and discuss the latest research and promote the advancement of this exciting and rapidly changing field. We hope to encourage discovery across the discipline as we cover the following seven topics, as listed below:

• Application of New Breeding Technologies to Crop Improvement
• Sustainable Management Practices for Soil Health and Food Security
• Agronomic Innovations for Sustainable Intensification of Horticultural Production Systems
• Challenges in Grassland Agro-Ecology in a Global Change Context
• Weed Invasion, Biology and Management in Agricultural Settings
• Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems
• Precision and Digital Agriculture

We proudly invite the global community of scholars to join IECAG 2021 to present their latest research and developments and share novel ideas on all multidisciplinary aspects of agronomy. Thanks to the flexibility of our innovative electronic platform, you are welcome both to upload and present your work and to attend the conference completely free of charge. We are also considering creating a Special Issue for selected conference papers in our journal Agronomy (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/Agronomy/special_issues/IECAG2021). In this case, papers published in this Special Issue would receive a 20% discount on the article processing charge.

IECAG 2021 offers you the opportunity to participate in an international scholarly conference without the concerns and expense of travelling—all you need is access to the Internet. During the conference period, you will be able to upload papers, posters, and presentations (including videos) and to comment on other presentations and otherwise engage with fellow scholars in real time. In this way, the conference offers a novel opportunity to exchange opinions and views within the scholarly community and to discuss papers and the latest research in a discussion forum. A number of live online sessions are planned throughout the duration of the conference. During each session, participants will have the possibility to ask questions during the Q&A session. The live sessions are free for authors. Authors with submissions to IECAG 2021 will be given priority for registration (with no extra cost) to the live online sessions with our keynote speakers.

Time Schedule:

• Abstract Deadline: 31 January 2021
• Abstract Acceptance Notification Deadline: 20 February 2021
• Full Paper Submission Deadline: 31 March 2021
• Conference: 3–17 May 2021

Paper Submission Guidelines:

For information about the procedures for submission, peer review, revision, and acceptance of conference proceedings papers, please refer to the section “Instructions for Authors” at the website (https://sciforum.net/conference/IECAG2021).We look forward to receiving your research papers and to welcoming you to our 1st International Electronic Conference on Agronomy (IECAG 2021).Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.

Kind regards,
Prof. Dr. Youssef Rouphael
University of Naples Federico II

Conference Secretariat

Ms. Alicia Ren
Ms. Leda Xuan
Ms. Gris Guo
Email: iecag2021@mdpi.com

We welcome the following 34 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Agronomy:

Prof. Dr. Thomas E. Reagan, Louisiana State University, USA

Dr. Anita Ierna, National Research Council (CNR-IBE), Italy

Prof. Richard Webster, Rothamsted Research, UK

Prof. Dr. Carlos Iglesias, North Carolina State University, USA

Dr. Ward Smith, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada

Dr. Luke Moe, University of Kentucky, USA

Prof. Dr. Massimo Fagnano, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Dr. Pavlos Tsouvaltzis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Prof. Dr. Victor Galea, The University of Queensland, Australia

Dr. Jianjun Yang, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China

Prof. Dr. José L.S. Pereira, Agrarian School of Viseu, Portugal

Dr. Joseph Robins, Utah State Univ., USA

Dr. Andreas Stahl, Univ Giessen, Germany

Prof. Dr. Zvi Peleg, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Prof. Dr. Enrico Porceddu, Tuscia University, Italy

Dr. David W. Archer, USDA Agricultural Research Service, USA

Dr. Antonios Zambounis, Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, Greece

Dr. Giacomo Mangini, Italian National Research Council, Italy

Dr. Ivan Hiltpold, Agroscope, Switzerland

Dr. Yuba Kandel, Iowa State University, USA

Dr. Carlos Miranda, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain

Dr. Katja Klumpp, INRA, France

Prof. Dr. Amanda Kennedy, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Prof. Dr. Jacynthe Dessureault-Rompré, Laval University, Canada

Dr. Maik Veste, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Germany

Dr. Fred Muehlbauer, USDA‐ARS, USA

Dr. Nikolaos Ntoulas, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece

Dr. Federico Vita, University of Florence, Italy

Dr. Riccardo Velasco, CREA - Research Centre for Viticulture and Enology, Italy

Dr. Naeem Khan, University of Florida, USA

Prof. Dr. Lech Wojciech Szajdak, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

Dr. Ashraf Tubeileh, California Polytechnic State University, USA

Prof. Dr. Jose Beltrao, Unversity of Algarve, Portugal

Dr. Juan Jose Rios, Centro de Edafologia y Biologia Aplicada del Segura (CEBAS-CSIC), Spain

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.