Announcements

The 2022 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

We are thrilled to announce that 90% of our ranked MDPI journals, specifically 86 out of 96 (captured in the table below), are performing above average in Q1 or Q2. This year, Clarivate has expanded its Impact Factor (IF) awards to include journals in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), providing greater transparency for the full set of journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. As a result, 111 of MDPI journals have received their first IF in 2023, with 37 journals surpassing an IF of 3.0. In total, 208 MDPI journals have been honored with an IF.

Clarivate explains that by "expanding the coverage but holding to highly selective standards, the [Impact Factor] is now a reliable indicator of trustworthiness, as well as a measure of scholarly impact, at the journal level."

Please visit our blog post where we discuss the release of the latest citation metrics with our Indexing Manager, Dr. Constanze Schelhorn, to find out what's different this time around and how to make use of different metrics available.

Note: The Journal of Personalized Medicine's Impact Factor was omitted in the original release and will be assigned separately. Please find the data on the journal webpage in due course.

Source: 2022 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

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

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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