MDPI will be attending the 14th National Surface Engineering Conference, held in Wuhan, China, from 11 to 13 November 2022. This conference aims to achieve an in-depth exchange of the latest research results in surface engineering and related disciplines and to discuss the frontier trends and future development trends of surface engineering research and engineering application. During this conference, MDPI will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest ideas with us. 

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Lubricants;
• Applied Sciences;
• Surfaces;
• Polymers;
• Materials;
• QuBS;
• Coatings;
• Clean Technologies. 

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. 

For more information about the conference, please see the following link: http://bmgc2022.aconf.cn/index.html.

MDPI is pleased to announce the publication of the inaugural issues of eight new Open Access journals. We wish to thank all the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and Editorial Board Members involved who will be shaping the future course of these brand-new journals.

The new titles presented below were set up as a result of our market research, which showed there is a need for Gold Open Access journals in each of these areas of research. At MDPI, the same trusted, fast, and rigorous peer-review process is employed across journals and disciplines.

MDPI is committed to promoting diverse open science exchanges and provides support to academic organizations and institutions willing to join the open access publishing model.

If you are interested in jointly creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application here, and please do not hesitate to contact us ([email protected]) for further details.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

MDPI will be attending the 6th Micro-Nano Optical Technology and Application Conference (MOTA2022) in Nanjing, China, which will take place from 21 to 23 October 2022. The MOTA2022 is organized by the Chinese Society for Optical Engineering, aiming to build a communication platform between researchers and industrial application teams, as well as promote scientific research progress and the industrialization development of micro-nano optics.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Electronics (leading journal);
• Photonics (leading journal);
• Coatings;
• Sensors;
• Crystals;
• Journal of Imaging.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: https://b2b.csoe.org.cn/meeting/MOTA2022.html.

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Chemistry & Materials Sciences” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded Young Investigators for their outstanding contributions.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Coatings:

• Marta Mohedano, Complutense University of Madrid-UCM, Spain

Materials:

• Edoardo Baldini, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Magnetochemistry:

• Mauro Perfetti, University of Florence, Italy

Membranes:

• Xu Hou, Xiamen University, China

Molecules:

• Biplab Maji, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India

Nanomaterials:

• Andres Castellanos-Gomez, Instituto de Ciencia de los Materiales de Madrid, Spain
• Takuya Isono, Hokkaido University, Japan
• Panbo Liu, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize the winners for the year 2021 in the “Chemistry & Materials Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with the Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners on their achievement.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Catalysts:

• Rahat Javaid, Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute, Japan
• Georgios Bampos, University of Patras, Greece
• Esmail Doustkhah, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan
• Pawan Kumar, University of Alberta, Canada

Magnetochemistry:

• Lorenzo Sorace, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy

Materials:

• Khaled Giasin, University of Portsmouth, UK
• Oldrich Sucharda, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
• Danil Pimenov, South Ural State University, Russia
• Marián Palcut, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia

Metals:

• Khaled Giasin, University of Portsmouth, UK
• Catalin Pruncu, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Jacek Tomków, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland
• Alexander Yu Churyumov, National University of Science and Technology (MISiS), Russia
• Hesam Pouraliakbar, Chungnam National University, South Korea

Nanomaterials:

• George Kenanakis, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Greece
• Goshtasp Cheraghian, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
• Oana Cadar, Research Institute for Analytical Instrumentation, Romania

Polymers:

• Sawsan A. Zaitone, Suez Canal University, Saudi Arabia
• Lucia Baldino, University of Salerno Via Giovanni Paolo II, Fisciano (SA) Italy
• Gyorgy Szekely, University of Manchester, UK
• Bin Jiang, Northeast Agricultural University, China
• Haibao Lu, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Chemistry & Materials Sciences” category, who were selected amongst the extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

C — Journal of Carbon Research：

• “Activated Carbons Derived from High-Temperature Pyrolysis of Lignocellulosic Biomass”
  by Cristian I. Contescu, Shiba P. Adhikari, Nidia C. Gallego, Neal D. Evans and Bryan E. Biss
  C 2018, 4(3), 51; doi:10.3390/c4030051

Catalysts:

• “Hydrogen Oxidation on Ni-Based Electrocatalysts: The Effect of Metal Doping”
  by Elena S. Davydova, Jérémie Zaffran, Kapil Dhaka, Maytal Caspary Toroker and Dario R. Dekel
  Catalysts 2018, 8(10), 454; doi:10.3390/catal8100454
• “Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production: Role of Sacrificial Reagents on the Activity of Oxide, Carbon, and Sulfide Catalysts”
  by Vignesh Kumaravel, Muhammad Danyal Imam, Ahmed Badreldin, Rama Krishna Chava, Jeong Yeon Do, Misook Kang and Ahmed Abdel-Wahab
  Catalysts 2019, 9(3), 276; doi:10.3390/catal9030276
• “A General Overview of Support Materials for Enzyme Immobilization: Characteristics, Properties, Practical Utility”
  by Jakub Zdarta, Anne S. Meyer, Teofil Jesionowski and Manuel Pinelo
  Catalysts 2018, 8(2), 92; doi:10.3390/catal8020092
• “Mechanistic Insights into Photodegradation of Organic Dyes Using Heterostructure Photocatalysts”
  by Yi-Hsuan Chiu, Tso-Fu Mark Chang, Chun-Yi Chen, Masato Sone and Yung-Jung Hsu
  Catalysts 2019, 9(5), 430; doi:10.3390/catal9050430

Ceramics:

• “Chemical Preparation Routes and Lowering the Sintering Temperature of Ceramics”
  by Philippe Colomban
  Ceramics 2020, 3(3), 312–339; doi:10.3390/ceramics3030029

Coatings:

• “State of the Art in Directed Energy Deposition: From Additive Manufacturing to Materials Design”
  by Adrita Dass and Atieh Moridi
  Coatings 2019, 9(7), 418; doi:10.3390/coatings9070418
• “Encapsulation of Organic and Perovskite Solar Cells: A Review”
  by Ashraf Uddin, Mushfika Baishakhi Upama, Haimang Yi and Leiping Duan
  Coatings 2019, 9(2), 65; doi:10.3390/coatings9020065
• “Poly (Lactic Acid)/Thermoplastic Starch Films: Effect of Cardoon Seed Epoxidized Oil on Their Chemicophysical, Mechanical, and Barrier Properties”
  by Rosa Turco, Rodrigo Ortega-Toro, Riccardo Tesser, Salvatore Mallardo, Sofia Collazo-Bigliardi, Amparo Chiralt Boix, Mario Malinconico, Massimo Rippa, Martino Di Serio and Gabriella Santagata
  Coatings 2019, 9(9), 574; doi:10.3390/coatings9090574
• “Physical and Morphological Characterization of Chitosan/Montmorillonite Films Incorporated with Ginger Essential Oil”
  by Victor Gomes Lauriano Souza, João Ricardo Afonso Pires, Carolina Rodrigues, Patricia Freitas Rodrigues, Andréia Lopes, Rui Jorge Silva, Jorge Caldeira, Maria Paula Duarte, Francisco Braz Fernandes, Isabel Maria Coelhoso and Ana Luisa Fernando
  Coatings 2019, 9(11), 700; doi:10.3390/coatings9110700
• “Application and Evaluation of a Pectin-Based Edible Coating Process for Quality Change Kinetics and Shelf-Life Extension of Lime Fruit (Citrus aurantifolium)”
  by Neda Maftoonazad and Hosahalli S. Ramaswamy
  Coatings 2019, 9(5), 285; doi:10.3390/coatings9050285

Crystals:

• “Crystal and Magnetic Structures in Layered, Transition Metal Dihalides and Trihalides”
  by Michael A. McGuire
  Crystals 2017, 7(5), 121; doi:10.3390/cryst7050121
• “σ-Hole Interactions: Perspectives and Misconceptions”
  by Peter Politzer and Jane S. Murray
  Crystals 2017, 7(7), 212; doi:10.3390/cryst7070212
• “σ-Hole Interactions of Covalently-Bonded Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Arsenic: A Survey of Crystal Structures”
  by Peter Politzer, Jane S. Murray, Goran V. Janjić and Snežana D. Zarić 
  Crystals 2014, 4(1), 12-31; doi:10.3390/cryst4010012
• “Epitaxial Graphene on SiC: A Review of Growth and Characterization”
  by Gholam Reza Yazdi, Tihomir Iakimov and Rositsa Yakimova
  Crystals 2016, 6(5), 53; doi:10.3390/cryst6050053

Magnetochemistry:

• “A Clock Transition in the Cr₇Mn Molecular Nanomagnet”
  by Charles A. Collett, Kai-Isaak Ellers, Nicholas Russo, Kevin R. Kittilstved, Grigore A. Timco, Richard E. P. Winpenny and Jonathan R. Friedman
  Magnetochemistry 2019, 5(1), 4; doi:10.3390/magnetochemistry5010004
• “A Series of Field-Induced Single-Ion Magnets Based on the Seven-Coordinate Co(II) Complexes with the Pentadentate (N₃O₂) H₂dapsc Ligand”
  by Vyacheslav A. Kopotkov, Denis V. Korchagin, Valentina D. Sasnovskaya, Ildar F. Gilmutdinov and Eduard B. Yagubskii
  Magnetochemistry 2019, 5(4), 58; doi:10.3390/magnetochemistry5040058
• “Magnetic Janus Particles for Static and Dynamic (Bio)Sensing”
  by Susana Campuzano, Maria Gamella, Verónica Serafín, María Pedrero, Paloma Yáñez-Sedeño and José Manuel Pingarrón
  Magnetochemistry 2019, 5(3), 47; doi:10.3390/magnetochemistry5030047

Membranes:

• “Composite Membranes for High Temperature PEM Fuel Cells and Electrolysers: A Critical Review”
  by Xinwei Sun, Stian Christopher Simonsen, Truls Norby and Athanasios Chatzitakis
  Membranes 2019, 9(7), 83; doi:10.3390/membranes9070083

• “Transport Characteristics of Fujifilm Ion-Exchange Membranes as Compared to Homogeneous Membranes AMX and CMX and to Heterogeneous Membranes MK-40 and MA-41”
  by Veronika Sarapulova, Inna Shkorkina, Semyon Mareev, Natalia Pismenskaya, Natalia Kononenko, Christian Larchet, Lasaad Dammak and Victor Nikonenko
  Membranes 2019, 9(7), 84; doi:10.3390/membranes9070084

Nanomaterials:

• “Nanomaterials for the Removal of Heavy Metals from Wastewater”
  by Jinyue Yang, Baohong Hou, Jingkang Wang, Beiqian Tian, Jingtao Bi, Na Wang, Xin Li and Xin Huang
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(3), 424; doi:10.3390/nano9030424
• “Injectable Alginate-Peptide Composite Hydrogel as a Scaffold for Bone Tissue Regeneration”
  Moumita Ghosh, Michal Halperin-Sternfeld, Itzhak Grinberg and Lihi Adler-Abramovich
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(4), 497; doi:10.3390/nano9040497
• “Carbon Dots and Graphene Quantum Dots in Electrochemical Biosensing”
  by Susana Campuzano, Paloma Yáñez-Sedeño and José M. Pingarrón
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(4), 634; doi:10.3390/nano9040634
• “A Smart Nanovector for Cancer Targeted Drug Delivery Based on Graphene Quantum Dots”
  by Daniela Iannazzo, Alessandro Pistone, Consuelo Celesti, Claudia Triolo, Salvatore Patané, Salvatore V. Giofré, Roberto Romeo, Ida Ziccarelli, Raffaella Mancuso, Bartolo Gabriele, Giuseppa Visalli, Alessio Facciolà and Angela Di Pietro
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(2), 282; doi:10.3390/nano9020282
• “Evolution of Wearable Devices with Real-Time Disease Monitoring for Personalized Healthcare”
  by Kyeonghye Guk, Gaon Han, Jaewoo Lim, Keunwon Jeong, Taejoon Kang, Eun-Kyung Lim and Juyeon Jung
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(6), 813; doi:10.3390/nano9060813
• “An Ultra-High-Energy Density Supercapacitor; Fabrication Based on Thiolfunctionalized Graphene”
  by Janardhanan. R. Rani, Ranjith Thangavel, Se-I Oh, Yun Sung Lee and Jae-Hyung Jang
  Nanomaterials 2019, 9(2), 148; doi:10.3390/nano9020148

Polymers:

• “The Relationships between the Working Fluids, Process Characteristics and Products from the Modified Coaxial Electrospinning of Zein”
  by Menglong Wang, Tao Hai, Zhangbin Feng, Deng-Guang Yu, Yaoyao Yang and SW Annie Bligh 
  Polymers 2019, 11(8), 1287; doi:10.3390/polym11081287
• “Design of Controlled Release System for Paracetamol Based on Modified Lignin”
  by Mahboubeh Pishnamazi, Hamid Hafizi, Saeed Shirazian, Mario Culebras, Gavin M. Walker and Maurice N. Collins 
  Polymers 2019, 11(6), 1059; doi:10.3390/polym11061059
• “Additive Manufacturing of PLA-Based Composites Using Fused Filament Fabrication: Effect of Graphene Nanoplatelet Reinforcement on Mechanical Properties, Dimensional Accuracy and Texture”
  by Miguel Ángel Caminero, Jesús Miguel Chacón, Eustaquio García-Plaza, Pedro José Núñez, José María Reverte and Jean Paul Becar
  Polymers 2019, 11(5), 799; doi:10.3390/polym11050799
• “Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites: Manufacturing, Properties, and Applications”
  by Miguel Ángel Caminero, Jesús Miguel Chacón, ,Eustaquio García-Plaza, Pedro José Núñez, José María Reverte and Jean Paul Becar
  Polymers 2019, 11(10), 1667; doi:10.3390/polym11101667 

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Chemistry & Materials Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of Travel Awards for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors.

MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Crystals:

• Gaojun Mao, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
• Lidia Bofill Herrera, University of Barcelona, Spain

Gels:

• Demetra Giuri, University of Bologna, Italy
• Martina Genta, Imperial College London, UK

Journal of Functional Biomaterials:

• Anushree Seth, Washington University, USA

Magnetochemistry:

• Fabio Ferreira, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Giulia Serrano, University of Florence, Italy

Materials：

• Giulia Fredi, University of Trento, Italy
• Mattia Biesuz, Czech Academy of Science, Czech Republic

Metals:

• Adriana Eres-Castellanos, Spanish National Center for Metallurgical Research, Spain
• Pavel Shurkin, National University of Science and Technology, Russia

Nanomaterials:

• Aleksandrs Leitis, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, France
• Ekaterina Kolesova, ITMO, Russia

Separations:

• Christoph Gstoettner, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

It is our pleasure to announce the launch of a new initiative—the Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program intends to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills, and to work closely with our journal to gain additional editorial experience. Early career scientists who have novel ideas for new Special Issues to be published in Coatings (ISSN: 2079-6412) will act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist; this mentor could be a member of the Coatings Editorial Board or may be from other well-established research institutes or laboratories.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Coatings Editorial Office ([email protected]), and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. When the Special Issue is closed, our office will provide certificates to all of the mentors and to those who have completed the program. Younger scholars will be prioritized as candidates for our journal award.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Coatings will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics in the field.

Follow our Facebook account for up-to-date information regarding the latest research news, Coatings (ISSN: 2079-6412) award announcements, new Editorial Board Members, etc. You can access our Facebook page here.

It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Jian, Prof. Yanxin Qiao, Prof. Yefei Li, Dr. Xuanpeng Wan, Dr. Isabel Coelhoso and Dr. Daniele Carullo, who have joined Coatings (ISSN: 2079-6412) as Editiorial Section Board Members. We look forward to their contributions to the journal.

The award ceremony of "Wuhan University of Technology-Coatings Scholarship" was held on the 8th of December. The winner is Mr. Shidong Li, a Ph.D. student at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology.

On the 4^th of November, the China Association for Science and Technology released the "High-Quality Science and Technology Journals Classification Catalogue Summary":
https://www.cast.org.cn/art/2021/11/4/art_43_172464.html.

Coatings has been graded as T2 in "High-Level English Journals in the Field of Coatings"! There are only 6 journals in T1.

The members of Corrosion and Materials Degradation (ISSN: 2624-5558) are pleased to announce this call for participation in the 2nd Corrosion and Materials Degradation Web Conference. Scientists and engineers currently working on corrosion research are encouraged to join this event and share their findings with colleagues from all over the world.

The conference will cover the following general and related themes (note that this list is not exhaustive):

1. Electrochemical corrosion mechanism at the interface (localized, crevice, advanced characterization techniques, EAC, nanoscale);
2. Corrosion of steel in concrete;
3. Computational modelling, design and prediction of corrosion;
4. Surface treatments and coatings for corrosion protection;
5. Corrosion in new materials (HEA, CCA, TWIP/TRIP, AM, PM);
6. Corrosion in the energy sector (renewable and nuclear);
7. Corrosion in biomedical implants;
8. Atmospheric corrosion;
9. Microbiologically influenced corrosion;
10. Corrosion of magnesium alloys;
11. Corrosion inhibition.

Only abstracts will be accepted for the 2nd Corrosion and Materials Degradation Web Conference. All abstracts that are accepted will be available to view online in open access form on Sciforum.net. Selected authors will have the option to include a video presentation to be displayed with their abstract online. Participants who are selected to make an oral contribution will need to contribute a full manuscript to the section “Selected Papers from Corrosion and Materials Degradation Conference” in Corrosion and Materials Degradation, free of charge.

Important Dates:

Abstract submission: 1 March 2022;
Acceptance notification: 28 March 2022;
Early bird registration: 18 April 2022;
Covering author registration: 1 June 2022.

The Scientific Committee looks forward to receiving contributions in response to this call and would be glad to provide any further information to interested parties. Any questions may be addressed to the conference secretariat ([email protected]).

We thank you in advance for attending this conference, and we look forward to a stimulating exchange.

To find out more about the conference, please visit the following link: https://sciforum.net/event/CMDWC2022.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
[email protected]

MDPI will be attending the 20th National Catalysis Conference in Wuhan, China, which will take place from 15 to 20 October 2021. The theme of the conference is “Catalytic Science and Technology for Green, Low-Carbon, High-Quality Economic Development”. The topics include the science and technology of catalytic materials and catalyst preparation, catalytic materials and catalytic reaction characterization technology and theory, green catalysis, environmental catalysis, energy catalysis, and science and technology in the catalysis process of petroleum and chemical industry.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Catalysts;
• Nanomaterials;
• Coatings;
• Inorganics;
• Applied Sciences;
• Sustainable Chemistry;
• Chemistry;
• Processes;
• Reactions;
• Toxics.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following link: http://20ncc.mzpco.com/.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2021 Coatings Young Investigator Award is Dr. Marta Mohedano.

The selection committee is chaired by the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Alessandro Lavacchi, and supported by Dr. Ramon Escobar Galindo, Prof. Dr. Stefano Farris, Dr. Pascal Briois, Dr. Daniel E. Mack, and PD Dr. Thilo Glatzel.

Dr. Marta Mohedano completed her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Technology (Extraordinary Award) from Complutense University of Madrid-UCM (Spain) in 2011. She is very active in scientific organizations and currently, she is the Chair of the Young EFC (European Federation of Corrosion), the Chair of the EFC Equity Task Force, the EFC Social Media Manager, the Chair of the Task Force Corrosion and Protection, and Board Member in the Spanish Society of Materials (SOCIEMAT). Her research interests lie in the tailoring of surfaces of light alloys (Mg, Al, and Ti) and detailed corrosion studies in different environments for transport and biomaterials applications. Dr. Mohedano has contributed to the field of corrosion and protection of light alloys with a total of 80 publications with >2400 citations and h-index = 31 (Scopus), more than 50 communications to national/international conferences, participation in 13 research projects, 14 technology transfer contracts, and 1 utility model. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Marta Mohedano on receiving this award and for her outstanding achievements.

As the awardee, Dr. Marta Mohedano will receive an honorarium of 2000 CHF; rapid, open access publication free of charge in Coatings after peer review in 2021; and an engraved plaque.

Together with the Coatings editorial team, I would like to congratulate Dr. Marta Mohedano for her achievements and thank the award committee for their excellent work in the hard task of selecting a winner from such a large number of excellent candidate profiles. We would also like to thank all the nominees from various fields of study for their participation and we will continue to reward young scientists with the 2021 Young Investigator Award and wish them further success in their careers.

Dr. Alessandro Lavacchi
Editor-in-Chief, Coatings

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

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)

The 13th Asian-European International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (AEPSE2021) will be held on 26–30 September 2021, in BEXCO, Busan, Republic of Korea!

The AEPSE conference has attracted continually growing interest as a globally significant open forum for scientists and engineers focused on plasma and related aspects in Asia and Europe as well as other regions. The first AEPSE meeting was held in 1997 in Seoul, Korea.

AEPSE2021 is jointly organized by the Asian Joint Committee for Applied Plasma Science and Engineering (AJC-APSE) and The Korean Institute of Surface Engineering (KISE) in collaboration with the European Joint Committee on Plasma and Ion Surface Engineering (EJC/PISE).

From the global viewpoint of recent industrial paradigm change, AEPSE2021 will establish a forum for new topics such as healthcare, new functional materials, biomedicine, agriculture, etc., for the empowerment of plasma technology in the global society as well as fundamental to advanced industrial application of plasma.

The major topics covered in AEPSE2021 will include (1) Fundamental of applied plasmas and films; (2) Applied plasma sources and processes; (4) Functional films, coatings, materials, and devices; (5) Applications in nano, energy, and environment; (6) Bio, healthcare, and agriculture; and (7) Industrial applications and emerging technologies.

Four special topical workshops are also being organized as part of the conference:

• Plasma Healthcare: Status and Future Vision
• Progress and Perspective of Plasma Farming Technology
• Plasma Catalysis; Fundamental and Application Perspective
• Advanced Dry and Wet Surface Processes

For more detailed information, please visit the website: www.aepse.org.

On behalf of the organizing committee, we would like to cordially invite you to participate in AEPSE2021.

Warm regards,

Wonho Choe
Chair of AEPSE2021

Secretariat Office of AEPSE2021
3F, Dong-il Bldg, 27 Dogok-ro 3-gil
Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06253, Republic of Korea
Email: [email protected]

Coatings has established two new sections: “Surface Engineering for Energy Harvesting, Conversion, and Storage” and “Functional Polymer Coatings and Films”. You are welcome to submit manuscripts related to energy-related surface engineering, as well as functional polymer coatings and films.

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.

MDPI will be attending the China Materials Conference and Exhibition 2020, Qingdao, Shandong, China, November 19–21, 2020.

CMC's 19th annual meeting is the premier venue for the presentation in the field of materials sciences, where one can learn from experts, forge collaborations with peers, explore new tools and technologies, and advance their career.

The purpose of the conference is to build an exchange platform for experts, scholars, professors, scientific and technological workers, relevant government management departments and leaders, entrepreneurs, and related personnel, engaged in the scientific research, development, and industrialization of new materials in China to exchange and share the latest materials research achievements, in order to achieve the purpose of mutual promotion and common improvement.

There are many outstanding people in the committee of the meeting, such as Professor Boyun Huang and Academician Lian Zhou of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Professor Bingbo Wei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Coatings (leading journal);
• Materials;
• Crystals;
• Energies;
• Molecules;
• Metals;
• Nanomaterials;
• Polymers.
• Actuators
• Sustainability
• Membranes
• Technologies
• Gels
• ASI

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth C13). 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://cmc2020.medcon.net.cn/cn/web/index/

MDPI will be attending the 4th Micro-Nano Optics Technology and Application Exchange Conference (MOTA2020), Chengdu, September 26–28, 2020.

MOTA2020 is organized by the Chinese Society for Optical Engineering, which combines the national defense and industrial applications to build a large platform for the industrial chain. The aim is to build a seamless docking platform for scientific and technical personnel engaged in related research in China and industrial application teams to form a joint force to promote the rapid technological development of micro-nano optics itself and its industrial development.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Energies (leading journal)
• Photonics
• Nanomaterials
• Coatings
• Sensors
• Clean Technologies
• Safety
• Micromachines

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth "Journal Energies"). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://b2b.csoe.org.cn/meeting/MOTA2020.html.

Dear Colleagues,

The Coatings Editorial Board and Editorial Team would like to gratefully acknowledge the time and energy given by reviewers in assessing the manuscripts submitted to the journal. With their great support, many interesting papers of high quality have been published in Coatings, and a quick peer review process is maintained. In order to acknowledge our reviewers, the editorial team has dedicated an award to reviewers in gratitude for their exceptional dedication in reviewing manuscripts for Coatings.

The following three referees will be awarded the “Coatings 2019 Outstanding Reviewers” prize on the basis of the quantity, timeliness, and quality of their reviews in 2019. Each of them will receive 500 CHF and a certificate for their outstanding review work. We are very pleased to acknowledge the following referees:

Leszek Łatka
Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Poland;

Hannes Rijckaert
Ghent University, Belgium;

Andrey V. Bondarev
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic.

We are happy to announce that Professor Noam Eliaz from Tel-Aviv University, an Editorial Board Member of Materials, Corrosion and Materials Degradation and Coatings, has been elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), USA, as a Senior Member. This award is for Dr. Eliaz’s “success in patents, licensing, and commercialization”, “technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society”, and “contributions to the innovation ecosystem” at Tel-Aviv University, recognizing Prof. Eliaz “as a rising leader and inventor” in his field.

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected].

The updated citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), published by Clarivate. The recent release of the JCR includes seventy-one MDPI titles. Out of these, 18 titles are newcomers, receiving a first Journal Impact Factor which is based on citation activity in 2019: Actuators, Agriculture, Biology, Biomedicines, Biosensors, Chemosensors, Children, Healthcare, Journal of Fungi, Journal of Personalized Medicine (JPM), Land, Life, Magnetochemistry, Membranes, Pharmaceuticals, Photonics, Separations and Toxics.

• Out of the previously listed journals, a total of 72 percent boast an increased Impact Factor.
• 25 journals are ranked among the top 25% of journals in at least one of the categories they are ranked for.
• Articles published in 2019 in MDPI journals account for approximately 17 percent of of articles published in gold Open Access journals covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
  
  

First Impact Factors

Updated Impact Factors

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the 5 winners of the Coatings Best Paper Award 2019, sponsored by MDPI and Coatings.

Nominations were selected from the papers published in 2018 by the Editorial Office of Coatings. The selection committee is chaired by the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Alessandro Lavacchi. We hope this award will encourage the publication of other high-quality papers in the journal in the future.

Original Research Article Award:

Cavitation Erosion Resistance and Wear Mechanism Model of Flame-Sprayed Al₂O₃-40%TiO₂/NiMoAl Cermet Coatings
Mirosław Szala and Tadeusz Hejwowski
Coatings 2018, 8(7), 254; doi:10.3390/coatings8070254
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/8/7/254

Combination of Electrodeposition and Transfer Processes for Flexible Thin-Film Thermoelectric Generators
Hiroki Yamamuro, Naoki Hatsuta, Makoto Wachi, Yoshihiro Takei and Masayuki Takashiri
Coatings 2018, 8(1), 22; doi:10.3390/coatings8010022
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/8/1/22

Damping Oriented Design of Thin-Walled Mechanical Components by Means of Multi-Layer Coating Technology
Giuseppe Catania and Matteo Strozzi
Coatings 2018, 8(2), 73; doi:10.3390/coatings8020073
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/8/2/73

Review Paper Award:

Porous Zinc Oxide Thin Films: Synthesis Approaches and Applications
Marco Laurenti and Valentina Cauda
Coatings 2018, 8(2), 67; doi:10.3390/coatings8020067
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/8/2/67

Sputtering PVD Coatings: A Critical Review on Technique Progress and Market Demand
Andresa Baptista, Francisco Silva, Jacobo Porteiro, José Míguez and Gustavo Pinto
Coatings 2018, 8(11), 402; doi:10.3390/coatings8110402
Available Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/8/11/402

On behalf of the Prize Awarding Committee and the Editorial Board, we would like to congratulate the authors of the above manuscripts and thank Dr. Alessandro Lavacchi for his excellent work in the hard task of selecting a winner from such a large number of excellent candidate profiles. As a reward, each winning group can publish a paper free of charge in Coatings, after the normal peer-review procedure. We are very proud to publish high-quality papers; we will continue to hold the Best Paper Award 2020 and wish all scholars greater success in their careers.

Thank you very much for your valuable contribution to the journal and we are looking forward to further collaborating with you.

Coatings Editorial Office

Congratulations!

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19

As a leading Open Access publisher, MDPI is committed to fostering open scientific exchange in all forms across all disciplines. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many researchers have to stay at home and many academic conferences have been cancelled or postponed. In light of these changes, MDPI has adopted numerous initiatives that may help accelerate scientific exchange and provide support to the academics during this period.

Scholarly Community—Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

Comprehensive and Free Literature Database—Scilit

Scilit is a comprehensive, free database for scientists that uses a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Our crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis. This means that newly published articles are immediately added to Scilit.

Display Academic Achievements—SciProfiles

SciProfiles is an innovative social network for researchers and scholars that is developed by MDPI. In line with our broad mission, the purpose of SciProfiles is to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and providing opportunities for academic networking.

Organize and Participate in Conferences Online—Sciforum

Sciforum is an event planning platform that supports open science by offering the opportunity to host and participate in academic conferences. It provides an environment for scholarly exchange, discussion of topics of current interest, building of networks, and establishing collaborations.

Post Early Versions of Research Outputs—Preprints

Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. We post original research articles and comprehensive reviews, and papers can be updated by authors at any time. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed, and feedback can be received from readers.

***

MDPI remains committed to open science and open data and has signed a statement, along with more than thirty scholarly publishers, showing our intention to facilitate sharing of new research findings as early on as possible. The initiative sees publishers collectively removing barriers to new research, in the face of a global healthcare crisis.

The world is currently suffering from a global pandemic of the corona virus COVID-19. MDPI expresses its sympathies for all of those affected by the virus and stands in solidarity with medical staff and researchers treating patients and searching for scientific solutions.

MDPI has previously published papers covering corona viruses in addition to new papers on the current outbreak, see all papers here. In particular, Viruses has published a number of Special Issues and papers on the topic (see here, here, and here) as well as a forthcoming Special Issue.

Alongside journal articles, MDPI has been a strong supporter of preprints, which are increasingly being used to rapidly disseminate the latest research, and we run the preprint server Preprints.org. Our database of research articles, Scilit, is free to use and covers all publishers including preprint servers. New papers are often in search results within hours of publication and users can set up alerts for new papers.

Our main priority during this period has been the health and safety of staff, and we continue to allow staff to work at home and closely monitor the situation in all locations in which we work. Despite the restrictions, we continue to provide a full publication service and, by close collaboration with our editorial boards and making use our in-house teams, ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in publishing vital research. Fast and open publication has always been at the core of MDPI values and is now more important than ever.

We hope that a solution to the current situation will emerge soon. In the meantime, we will do our best to continue communicating vital research in all fields.

The advantages of the open access model of scientific publishing are being increasingly recognized in the scientific community. It allows new scientific evidence to be accessed from the moment of publication for free by anyone around the globe, boosting the impact of new research. In response, many funders, libraries and universities have been adopting new principles to accelerate the transition to open access.

Recently, “transformative agreements” have been negotiated between traditional publishers and various institutions. While increasing the number of open access papers, these agreements lack binding commitments to a full transition to open access, their conditions vary across different regions, and access is still limited for many users.

MDPI is a co-signatory of the recent position statement raising concerns about potential downsides of transformative agreements and how they may delay a full transition to open access. The statement highlights that these models “risk perpetuating current limitations on access, transparency and market competitiveness, while simultaneously facilitating excessive charges on the public purse”.

As a pioneering open access journal publisher, MDPI is the first to promote the importance of science being made available to everyone. Our peer-reviewed journals, covering diverse academic disciplines, are fully accessible to the public free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This is why, along with other open access publishers, MDPI is a proud signatory of the position paper and is committed to contributing to the replacement of weak transitional agreements with “agreements with publishers that are already fully committed to open science and who offer full, immediate and transparent Open Access”.

Read the position paper here

We are pleased to announce that Encyclopedia will be awarding five Outstanding Contributor Awards for researchers in 2020. The nominations and applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee consisting of senior scholars from the Encyclopedia Editorial Board.

Prize for Winners

1. An official certificate;
2. A cash award of 500 CHF or an MDPI discount voucher of 800 CHF.

Application Deadline

31 December, 2020 (Please send your application email with a list of all entries you contributed to our office before the deadline: [email protected])

Candidate Requirements

1. Have a Ph.D. degree;
2. Have more than three qualified entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020.

Evaluation Standards

1. Number of entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020;
2. Quality of entries online (including length, figure quality, and novelty);
3. Impact of entries (including the number of likes, discussion contents, views, and downloads).

If you are a researcher and have not yet contribute entries to Encyclopedia, please do not miss this chance to highlight your research results.

MDPI will be attending the 17th International Congress on Catalysis, San Diego, California, USA, June 14-19, 2020.

This congress is the premier technical gathering of our communities of practice in surface and organometallic catalysis, industrial homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, and catalysis in condensed media. This meeting brings together participants from academia, industry, and national laboratories, with a tradition and expressed goal of nurturing and mentoring students and young researchers as part of its mission.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Catalysts
• Molecules
• Materials
• Coatings
• Clean Technologies
• Energies
• Inorganics
• Processes

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #408). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://2020icc.com/

Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412), MDPI's open access coatings and surface engineering journal, has published more than 2000 papers since its inception in 2011. Coatings is now covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus, and Inspec (IET), with a 2018 Impact Factory of 2.33, which corresponds to rank 7/20 (Q2) in the JCR category “Materials Science, Coatings and Films”. The Citescore is 2.42, which equals a ranking of 27/115 (Q1) in: Materials Science: Surfaces, Coatings and Films: according to Scopus data.

Our sincere thanks to the Editors-in-Chief of Coatings, Dr. Alessandro Lavacchi, and all the Editorial Board members, as well as to the Guest Editors of Special Issues, who ensured the continued success of the journal through their hard work and diligence.

MDPI will be attending the 149th TMS 2020 on minerals, metals, and materials in San Diego, CA, USA, 23–27 February 2020. An Editorial Board Member meeting of Metals will take place during this event. We warmly welcome you join and share your publishing experience with us.

TMS2020 will present more than 85 symposia planned by all five TMS technical divisions and covering a broad range of topics related to minerals, metals, and materials science and engineering. The event will draw more than 4000 attendees and feature four full days of technical programming.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Metals

Coatings

Materials

Applied Sciences