Announcements

Opening Thoughts

I am pleased to share that MDPI is now an Affiliate Member of CHORUS, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ensuring public access to articles reporting on U.S. government-funded research. This partnership highlights our long-standing commitment to advancing Open Access (OA) publishing and meeting funders’ open research requirements.

Read the full announcement here.

The CHORUS platform went live in July 2014 and includes NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Science Foundation.

“This partnership positions MDPI to further support academic institutions in adhering to national mandates”

Joining CHORUS perfectly aligns our mission as the leading OA publisher, which is to drive transparency and innovation in scholarly publishing, with that of CHORUS itself, which is to advance Open Access research. It will also support MDPI publications from organizations such as NASA, with 1,200 research papers published by NASA-affiliated authors as at 31 August 2024.

Impactful Research

MDPI’s Best Paper Awards—Award-Winning Papers in 2023 Announced

MDPI is committed to supporting and recognizing the academic community and is proud to announce the recipients of the 2023 Best Paper Awards, which recognize high-quality papers of significant scientific merit and impact. Each year, the editors of our journals carefully select papers that showcase outstanding scientific achievement.

This year, 115 Best Paper Awards were presented, chosen from 346 exceptional papers in a highly competitive selection process. Congratulations to the authors for their remarkable contributions!

To learn more about all the awardees and their research projects, visit the following pages:

• Biology and Life Sciences
• Business and Economics
• Chemistry and Materials Sciences
• Computer Sciences and Mathematics
• Engineering
• Environmental and Earth Sciences
• Medicine and Pharmacology
• Public Health and Healthcare
• Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities
• Physical Sciences

About MDPI Awards
MDPI regularly offers various awards to recognize researchers, particularly young scientists, and to promote communication within the scientific community. These awards exist to inspire and acknowledge talented scientists who have made significant contributions to advancing their fields.

To find out more MDPI awards, please click here.

“Our awards exist to inspire and acknowledge talented scientists”

Inside MDPI

MDPI AI Team Presented at EuroSciPy 2024 in Poland

As part of the CEO Letter, I hold dear this ‘Inside MDPI’ section, where I have an opportunity to highlight various projects, teams and updates within our organization. As such, I’m happy to showcase the following presentations from members of MDPI’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) team, which were recently presented at the EuroSciPy 2024 (16^th European Conference on Python in Science). This conference took place in Szczecin, Poland from 26–30 August.

“This event was a great opportunity to reinforce our commitment to innovation and excellence in publishing”

MDPI colleagues Frank Sauerburger (AI Tech Leader) and Daniele Raimondi (Senior Data Scientist) both presented at the conference. Frank discussed MDPI’s AI infrastructure, while Daniele showcased a new methodological approach we have been developing to track the journey of rejected academic manuscripts. This approach combines AI, data science and analytics to improve the identification of manuscripts and authors, enhancing our understanding of publishing dynamics.

This event was a great opportunity to reinforce our commitment to innovation and excellence in publishing. It also allowed us to contribute to the academic discussion on integrating AI and data science into scholarly communication.

From data analysis in Jupyter Notebooks to production applications: AI infrastructure at reasonable scale – Frank Sauerburger

Frank’s presentation on MDPI’s AI infrastructure provided a chance to showcase the advanced technological frameworks that power our operations. Given the technical and academic focus of EuroSciPy, this talk demonstrated how MDPI’s AI capabilities are not only cutting-edge but also central to driving efficiency and innovation in scholarly publishing. Engaging with the EuroSciPy community helps position MDPI as a leader in applying AI within the publishing industry, fostering potential collaborations and attracting interest from top researchers.

A Qdrant and Specter2 framework for tracking resubmissions of rejected manuscripts in academia – Daniele Raimondi

Daniele’s talk on the novel methodological approach that combines AI, Data Science, and Analytics was crucial in highlighting how MDPI is advancing the precision and effectiveness of manuscript and author identification. This approach is pivotal in enhancing our understanding of publishing dynamics and ensuring the quality and integrity of the academic content we manage. By presenting at EuroSciPy, we had the opportunity to engage with an audience deeply involved in scientific computing, gaining feedback and insights that could further refine our methodologies.

Thank you, Frank and Daniele, for representing MDPI so well!

I will share more about MDPI’s AI team and projects in upcoming CEO Letters, as we have a well-rounded AI and Data Team working on an exciting suite of AI products for MDPI and the scholarly community at large.

Coming Together for Science

The 1^st International Conference on AI Sensors & The 10^th International Symposium on Sensor Science

I am pleased to share the success of our MDPI conference The 1^st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Sensors and the 10th International Symposium on Sensor Science in Singapore this past 1–4 August.

With nearly 400 attendees, the event brought together researchers and industry experts from China, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India and other countries to share their findings on the latest developments in sensors, sensing technology, artificial intelligence for sensing applications and AI-enhanced sensing systems.

We accepted a total of 355 abstracts, featuring 772 authors from 28 countries. Over the course of the four-day event, 66 posters were displayed and 296 talks were delivered, including 4 plenary talks, 46 keynote speeches, 122 invited talks, and 124 selected oral presentations. View the event gallery here.

I am pleased to announce the winners of the four awards, including Best Presentation and Best Poster, recognizing the contributions of our participants during the conference.

Looking ahead, the 2^nd International Conference on AI Sensors and Transducers is scheduled to take place from 29 July to 5 August, 2025, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Thank you to our Conference team, including Ionut Spatar, Teodora Nicoleta Cremene, Ang Kai Lin, Benjamin Tay, Leong Jin Yue Esther, Wong Jolin, Judith Wu, Alethea Liu and Flora Li, who were involved in making this event a success. A big thank-you also goes to our local MDPI colleagues for their support: Yu Nwe Soe, Hen Chu Yang, Kwah Zhi En Watcharapong, Zephan Yang, Daphne Neo, Huimin Cheng, Nathan Li and Ting Yin.

Upcoming In-Person Event

Find more upcoming MDPI events here.

Closing Thoughts

The 2^nd Sustainable Publishing Forum

In 2022, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) outlined three goals to reflect the academic community’s shared aspirations: promoting Open Science, maintaining research integrity and fulfilling social responsibility. Open Science has evolved from the Open Access movement of the early 2000s to become a preferred model in academic publishing. Publishers and academic journals play a crucial role in ensuring research integrity, with efforts to prevent misconduct markedly on the increase now.

As the world faces sustainability challenges, the academic publishing industry is increasingly committed to contributing the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many publishers are implementing strategies to support these objectives, including ours, which you can view here.

The 2^nd MDPI Sustainable Publishing Forum provided a platform for global editors and publishers to discuss these themes, aiming to strengthen collaboration and advance the contributions that scientific publishing can make to academia and society.

“Open Science has evolved to become a preferred model in academic publishing”

The 2^nd Sustainable Publishing Forum

We hosted MDPI’s 2^nd Sustainable Publishing Forum in Beijing, China, on 15–16 August, attracting nearly 120 attendees from local and international publishers, university presses, scientific and technical journal associations, libraries and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The event focused on promoting Open Science, maintaining research integrity, and fulfilling social responsibility.

This was an excellent opportunity for us to share more with conference attendees about the approach of our research integrity team. Our Head of Publishing, Peter Roth, also participated, speaking on how to identify and avoid predatory publishers and about the principles that underpin ethical academic publishing.

I extend my thanks to all of our conference speakers, including Hylke Koers (STM Solutions), who presented on STM Trends 2028 and shared insights on the STM Integrity Hub, of which MDPI is a member.

Opening Thoughts

MDPI Moves to New Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland

“This new chapter continues our mission of positioning MDPI as a leader in OA publishing”

For Those New to MDPI

A pioneer in scholarly, Open Access publishing, MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996. MDPI is leading the transition to Open Science by making a greater proportion of the research conducted worldwide free and accessible to everyone. To date, over 3.5 million researchers have entrusted MDPI with publishing their scientific discoveries. MDPI’s editorial process is bolstered by a network of dedicated reviewers, a team of 6,000 professional, well-trained staff members, and an in-house article submission platform designed to ensure efficient processes within its 440 fully Open Access titles. MDPI supports more than 800 academic institutions worldwide, helping them adhere to national mandates while facilitating authors’ publication in fully compliant (CC BY) Open Access journals.

Impactful Research

New and Emerging MDPI Journals Making an Immediate Impact

Unpacking some of the Impact Factor updates from the June CEO Letter, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the 137 MDPI journals which received Impact Factor for the first time.

Academic authors highly value efficient publishing processes, robust editorial support, and the opportunity to publish in high-impact journals. We are proud that our newly launched journals typically achieve coverage in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) of the Web of Science within just a few years, with a median time of only three years from release to inclusion.

As part of our commitment to advancing academic research and providing high-quality OA publishing, we actively seek new research areas to expand our portfolio of journals. We have a proven track record of successfully establishing new journals.

Our dedicated teams excel in fostering dynamic editorial boards and working closely with Editors-in-Chief (EiC) to define the precise scope and focus of each new journal. Our expertise extends to collaborating with indexing services, ensuring that our journals comply with best practices and are indexed promptly in all relevant databases.

Emerging Titles Ranked for the First Time

Our commitment to excellence is reflected in the annual impact metrics released this past June. The latest edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) showcases the integration of journals from the ESCI in the new unified category rankings, providing a simplified and more complete view of all journals within each subject category, including newly established titles.

Out of 137 new and developing MDPI journals ranked in the 2024 release, 79 are in the top half (Q1 or Q2) of their categories. Here is a breakdown of the number of MDPI’s ESCI-indexed journals by quartile in the JCR:

These rankings highlight our success in rapidly establishing high-impact new journals. Among those that made it directly into the top 25% of their category are the International Journal of Neonatal Screening, Journal of Xenobiotics, Polysaccharides, Smart Cities, and thirteen other journals.

You can browse MDPI journals by Indexing. Simply visit our Journals page and select from the list of Indexing bodies in the top left-hand corner.

Inside MDPI

MDPI Corporate Marketing Strategy and Team Meeting 2024

In July, I hosted the annual Corporate Marketing strategy and team-building activity with 15 of our team members.

The aim was to align the Corporate Marketing strategy with MDPI's goal of becoming the world's most trusted OA publisher. While we provide a high-level publishing experience for our authors, as seen from our surveys, we need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community and continue enhancing our reputation.

The Corporate Marketing team plays an important role as the mouthpiece for all our major activities within MDPI, especially those that model what it means to be a trusted partner. The purpose of the strategy meeting was to develop a feeling of trust in one another and an understanding of how to inspire trust in the stakeholders with whom we interact.

“We need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community”

We conducted a set of activities to facilitate that sense of mutual trust and trustworthiness. Examples of some activities we worked on during this strategy-building event include:

• Exploring what trust means
• ‘Letter to self’
• ‘The brand I most trust’
• Most Trusted Academic Publisher
• ‘The brand I would like MDPI to become’
• ‘The 2029 MDPI Annual Report’
• Voice of Customer and Share of Voice – survey/data update on MDPI Brand Experience and Brand Perception
• Integrate Trust-Based Objective into Marketing Plan
• ‘Becoming the MDPI experience’
• ‘Trusting the next steps’

While two days is not enough to finalize a marketing strategy, it is sufficient to get everyone who attended into the mindset of the direction in which we are working. From here, we will develop a program with next steps on main projects, update communications, and collaborate with team leads to incorporate this approach into our work going forward.

As a marketing team, we can communicate our messages, but trust has to be built at every touchpoint in the stakeholder journey. Just talking about it isn’t enough. We need to be about it. That’s a role each of us plays, from editorial to IT, from marketing to HR. We must build trust from the inside out. It starts with each manager and resonates out via every team member.

As a company, our goal is to give all stakeholders with whom we interact – whether internal or external – the experience of working with an organization it can trust.

Coming Together for Science

MDPI in Poland: Krakow Office

In July, I had the pleasure of visiting our Krakow office, following my recent trip to Warsaw to meet with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

About our Krakow office

• Opened in 2020
• 99 staff members as at 1 August 2024
• Main Departments include Editorial, Production, English Department, JRS, PR

Our Krakow office participates in international conferences, conducts author trainings and scholar visits, and engages in local market outreach. The office is also a member of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology (IZTECH) and is working on expanding its local engagement.

Krakow is the second-largest city in Poland, with a population of about 800,000. It also has a large student population of around 128,000, with seven universities. This means that roughly one in every eight residents is a student.

Poland and MDPI

“Poland is a crucial market for MDPI”

Meeting with Ministry of Education

Our commitment to collaborating with Polish institutions is evident through our 33 Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreements with prestigious institutions such as the University of Warsaw, the University of Wroclaw, the Jagiellonian University, and Gdańsk University of Technology. Through IOAP discounts, a healthy waiver rate, and our peer-review voucher system, we provide the Polish scholarly community with significant savings in OA publishing. The Minister greatly appreciated these efforts and our commitment to offsetting some of the APC costs.

We discussed industry concerns about the threat of papermills and presented the preventive measures MDPI has in place to mitigate this risk and uphold high ethical standards. We informed them of our commitment to combating papermills, including our involvement with United2Act and the STM Research Integrity Hub, as well as our efforts to expand our research integrity team and explore proactive measures.

Closing Thoughts

MDPI Thought Leadership Op-ed on Open Access is Now Live on Politico

I am pleased to share that our thought leadership Op-ed piece on Open Access (OA) is now live on Politico. This is a nice push for continued influence and support of OA among policymakers and industry leaders.

Why Politico?

Politico's reputation as a highly credible and influential news platform makes it an important venue to reach key opinion leaders (KOL) from academia, policymakers, and thought leaders from many industries. This visibility helps promote the OA philosophy.

Open Access: A Moral Imperative for Progress

In this piece, I discuss the necessity of making scientific research freely available to all. I argue that publicly funded research should be publicly accessible, highlighting how OA democratizes scientific knowledge, accelerates research availability, and fosters collaboration.

“Open Access is a fundamental right for all citizens”

Democratizing scientific communication
The impulse to democratize scientific communication is nothing new. OA may seem like a recent innovation, but its principles have historical roots traceable to Europe in the 15th century. Just as the printing revolution accelerated the dissemination of new ideas, OA publishing unlocks new scientific insights that would otherwise only be accessible to a few.

Benefits for scholars: amplifying impact through Open Access
Authors publishing in an OA journal can expect more citations of their work, increasing its potential impact. Research findings that are freely available are more likely to be cited than those hidden behind a paywall. Freedom of access greatly increases the potential audience for each paper, fostering a sense of community among researchers worldwide. Heightened visibility can attract prospective collaborators and employers for young scientists. At MDPI, we believe that all these factors can only accelerate the advance of science. Additionally, authors retain copyright in their work instead of signing it away, permitting broader dissemination under Creative Commons licenses and increasing its capacity for impact.

The moral imperative
OA is not just a matter of scientific policy; it is a fundamental right for all citizens and a prerequisite for a brighter, more informed future. Publicly funded research should be a top priority, and I am pleased to see policy moving in this direction. Our capacity to generate transformative scientific insights has to be democratized. The question today is no longer whether we can afford to embrace OA; rather, it is whether we can afford not to.