Announcements

We are delighted to announce that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is now a participant of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). Authors funded by the BMGF can enjoy discounts on the APC, while the funder covers the costs of eligible articles centrally. BMGF also has access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency.

We hope that funded authors find the programme beneficial and we are happy to offer our IOAP to other funders that need a streamlined workflow of compliance checking and APC coverage. 

To claim their discount, BMGF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript.

For any questions about the BMGF agreement, please contact the funder at support@chronos-oa.com or the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

We congratulate Donna Strickland (University of Waterloo, Canada) on receiving the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with fellow physicist Gérard Mourou, for inventing a method for generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses which can be utilized in a variety of applications in science and technology (e.g., advanced material 3D micro-/nano-processing and micro-machining).

One of Dr. Donna Strickland's studies was published in Applied Sciences: Effect of Two-Photon Stark Shift on the Multi-Frequency Raman Spectra Appl. Sci. 2014, 4(3), 390–401. The paper described how linear Raman scattering from two-photon dressed states can lead to the generation of these extra peaks on the low-frequency side of the Raman orders.

The MRG spectra are shown for two positively chirped pump pulses, with total energy of 1.5 mJ as a function of time delay between the two pulses (figure adapted from Appl. Sci. 2014, 4(3), 390–401).

Recently, it was announced that a group of European funders supported 10 principles that will help to expand open access, known as Plan S. MDPI warmly welcomes this move as a step towards achieving more open and accessible communication of research across all disciplines. Some aspects remain to be clarified, however the details given so far match the aims and values that MDPI has held over the past two decades.

We believe that open access publishers should be active participants in discussions around Plan S, particularly regarding potential new business models and practical aspects of implementation. MDPI supports APCs as a transparent unit of payment for article publishing, however we are committed to exploring other measures and recently signed the Jussieu Call. Sustainability is a key value for MDPI, and future funding models should have at their heart the sustainability of knowledge and research dissemination. Plan S provides an opportunity for funders and publishers to directly discuss funding of open access journals in ways that are beneficial to all parties involved.

We are happy to announce the establishment of an Open Access (OA) agreement with Qatar National Library (QNL). QNL is committed to supporting and helping Qatar authors publish OA at no cost. Through this national agreement, QNL will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by Qatar-based corresponding authors in MDPI journals.

Eligible corresponding authors affiliated with Qatar research centers and universities are prompted to choose QNL as part of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email and/or a computer registered with the institution’s IP range. QNL will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

Qatar authors that have their APC covered by QNL are advised to include the following sentence in their acknowledgments: "The publication of this article was funded by Qatar National Library".

For more information, please visit Open Access at QNL or email the QNL Open Access team at openaccess@qnl.qa.

Our editorial team will be attending the XXVI Ibero-American Catalysis Congress (CICat 2018) in Coimbra, Portugal, 9–14 September 2018

As a result of the biannual meetings held since 1968, the Ibero-American Federation of Catalysis Societies (FISoCat), the Portuguese Society of Chemistry (SPQ) and the University of Coimbra, have the pleasure of organizing the XXVI Ibero-American Catalysis Congress (CICat 2018).

As in previous editions, this event aims to be a meeting point for the Ibero-American community working in Catalysis and in all its different areas of scientific knowledge. The 2018 CICat has a symbolic historical importance, for reaching 50 years since the beginning of this series of Encounters. Participants of CICat 2018 are also invited to visit the city of Coimbra, as well as its historic center and the University of Coimbra (UNESCO World Heritage Site).

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Catalysts
Processes
Energies
Symmetry
Applied Sciences
Sustainability
Materials

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth near the Lobby Coffee Break). 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://cicat2018.eventos.chemistry.pt/?setLn=es.

We are pleased to inform that Applied Sciences received an updated Journal Impact Factor of 1.689 in the June 2018 release of the Journal Citation Reports®. The journal's 5-Year Impact Factor is 1.855. Applied Sciences now ranks 170/285 (Q3) in the category 'Materials Science, Multidisciplinary', 98/171 (Q3) in 'Chemistry, Multidisciplinary' and 77/146 (Q3) in 'Applied Physics.'

Overview of Citation Metrics:

• Journal Impact Factor, 2 yrs (2017): 1.689
• 5-Year Impact Factor (2017):  1.855
• CiteScore, 3 yrs (Scopus):  1.90
• SJR Scimago Journal Rank 2017 (SJR):  0.303
• Source Normalized Impact 2017 (SNIP):  0.801

Evolution of Impact Factor, Citations and Publications for Applied Sciences:

We are pleased to report Applied Sciences received a CiteScore of 1.90 for 2017. The metric reflects citation activity in 2017 in Scopus for papers published in the period 2014‒2016.

For the full details in the current CiteScore release, please see the journal's Source profile. To check the full list of MDPI journals receiving CiteScores, please see here.

The 2017 CiteScore™ data is available now, based on citation data in the Scopus® database. The current CiteScore reflects citation activity in 2017 for articles published in 2014‒2016. Please note that the list below includes journals assigned a CiteScore in this year’s release. For a full list of journals indexed in Scopus, please see our journal list.

Thirteen of our journals received a CiteScore which is in the top 10% of the distribution in at least one of the categories (marked with * in the table below), while a further 32 journals exhibit scores that are in the first quartile of the respective categories.

To access the full data for MDPI journals, please see here. More data can also be found in SJR Scimago Journal & Country Rank.

Unlike CiteScores and the widely used Journal Impact Factors, the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) metrics are normalized in order to correct for differences in citation practices between scientific fields. Therefore, the SNIP allows direct comparison between journals specialized in different fields.

According to 2017 data, MDPI publishes six journals with an average citation impact, or SNIP, in excess of 1.500. These journals are Biomolecules, Cancers, Journal of Clinical Medicine (JCM), Marine Drugs, Remote Sensing and Sensors (see the last column in the table below).

CiteScore Data for MDPI Journals

MDPI will be attending the 69th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, to be held in Bologna, Italy, 2–7 September 2018.

To mark the continuity between academic culture and technological progress, the scientific theme of the meeting is Electrochemistry from Knowledge to Innovation. Fundamental aspects of analytical, molecular, physical and bioelectrochemistry will be discussed, as well as their applications to (nano)materials science, energy, environment and biomedicine.

The following MDPI journals will be represented at the Meeting:

• Coatings
• Metals
• Applied Science
• Catalysts
• Materials
• Chemosensors
• Biosensors

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #9). 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://annual69.ise-online.org/.