Open Access, Broadly Recognized: 363 MDPI Journals Receive CiteScores for 2025
The 2025 CiteScore metrics have been officially released by Scopus, and the results confirm what has become a consistent pattern for MDPI's journal portfolio: broad recognition across disciplines, steady improvement across the majority of ranked titles, and a growing presence at the top of subject category rankings.
CiteScore, published annually by Elsevier's Scopus database, measures the average citations received by articles published in a journal over a four-year window. As a complement to the Journal Impact Factor, which uses a two-year window based on the Web of Science database, CiteScore provides an alternative, long-term perspective on citation performance.
The 365 MDPI journals in Scopus (as of May 2026) are indexed across a wide range of subject categories, ensuring that open access research remains highly discoverable to a global readership through one of the most widely used platforms in academic publishing.
Data Summary (2025 CiteScores)
- New Additions: 41 MDPI journals received a CiteScore for the first time.
- Trending Upward: 234 of 322 previously ranked journals (73%) saw an increase in their CiteScore compared to last year.
- High Visibility: 314 journals (86%) rank in Q1 or Q2 in at least one subject category.
- Elite Performance: 42 journals rank in the top 10% of their subject categories.
Portfolio Performance
Among the 322 journals that held a CiteScore in 2024, 234 saw an increase this year. Quartile improvements outnumbered declines across the portfolio, with 52 journals moving to a higher quartile and only 20 seeing a decline. Furthermore, no previously ranked journals were removed. The 42 journals now ranked in the top 10% of their subject categories are drawn from a strong foundation of 178 journals holding a Q1 position.
With the large majority of our indexed portfolio ranked in the top half of research fields, researchers can confidently choose MDPI to meet funder mandates for high-quality, fully compliant Open Access publishing.
Exceptional Achievements for Foods and Life
Notably, both Foods and Life achieved a 99th percentile ranking in their respective subject categories for the 2025 CiteScores. This outstanding placement positions them as leading journals in their fields and highlights the high visibility and global impact of the open access research they publish.
Journal Metrics and Beyond
Journal-level metrics describe outlets, not individual articles. An increasing number of funders and institutions—including signatories of DORA and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment—now explicitly encourage evaluation at the article level rather than by the journal in which research appears. MDPI supports this direction: we report CiteScore alongside the Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Indicator, and article-level usage data because no single number captures the full reach and contribution of published research.
Thank You
These results reflect the sustained effort of thousands of editors-in-chief, editorial board members, reviewers, and authors across every field MDPI serves. The metrics are the outcome; the work is yours.