Announcements

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

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

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

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

We warmly welcome the scholars listed below to the Editorial Board of Crystals (ISSN: 2073-4352). We look forward to their contributions to the continued success of the journal.

Scientists at Stanford University have recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists—the World’s Top 2% Scientists.

The range of time the statistical data of this list were drawn from spanned 1960 to 2022, and the data are divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" counts the comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" focuses on highlighting the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database and includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, and accounts for 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken.

We are pleased to share that 10 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s Crystals (ISSN: 2073-4352) were featured in Stanford University’s list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2022.

These latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the wide array of scientists who are committed to furthering their knowledge and research for the benefit of the world.

We would like to congratulate our Editorial Board Members on their excellent achievement and thank them for their immense contribution to the scientific progression and development of Crystals.

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 Scientific Conference Programme is coordinated by the European Commission Joint Research Centre and covers the entire range of PV research, technologies and applications focusing on bringing the latest scientific and technological research trends to the market.

It also offers a variety of broader insights into the current developments in the sector, acknowledging that PV integration needs to be approached from all dimensions—scientific, technical, economic, political, business, and also social and educational aspects.

The Programme is structured in plenary, oral, and visual presentations and is divided into 5 topics. These cover the entire range of PV research, technologies, and applications, with a special emphasis on the latest scientific, technological, and market-related trends.

During this conference, MDPI (at booth #B1) will welcome researchers from different backgrounds to visit and share their latest inspirations with us.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Energies (leading journal);
• Materials (leading journal);
• Sustainability;
• Crystals;
• Photonics;
• Nanoenergy Advances;
• Solar.

If you plan on attending this conference, feel free to stop by our booth at #B1. 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: https://www.wcpec-8.com/index.php.

Prof. Dr. Zongyou Yin obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees at the Jilin University in China and completed his Ph.D. at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Then, he started his postdoc career at NTU/Singapore, the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE)/Singapore, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was also a visiting fellow for one year at Harvard University, USA. Prof. Dr. Yin started a research group at the Australian National University (ANU) in 2017. His group’s research is interdisciplinary, encompassing AI-driven materials innovations, nano-to-atomic materials science, the fundamental relationship among materials–structures–devices, and the synergistic integration of multi-functions towards systems for energy and wearable applications. He has published more than 200 refereed book chapters, articles, and conference proceedings. He has edited one book and filed nine international patents, three of which were converted to PCT patents. Prof. Dr. Yin has been honored as one of the world’s Highly Cited Researchers every year since 2015.

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

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
   I would like to make my contribution to this important research area of the “Inorganic Crystalline Materials” Section. Especially with the introduction of the emerging AI technology to materials science and engineering, the research progress is expected to be accelerated in this area, which might also be an opportunity for this Section’s development.

2. What is your vision for the journal?
   Under a cooperative endeavor of the whole team, our publications may aim at driving forward active research in the field of Crystals by providing high-quality peer-reviewed research papers through constructive discussion and exchange of ideas across a wide spectrum of scholarly opinions. Our professional platform at Crystals may promote problem-solving research, creating substantial influence for this field.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
   I would think the future of the research in the inorganic crystalline materials field might cover, but not be limited to: 1) AI-aided new functional materials discovery under the high throughput research strategies; 2) multi-levels and multi-components of micro, nano and atomic materials integration for advanced application development; 3) highly accurate but scalable and cost-effective synthesis strategy development for new-generation functional materials. 

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
   Open access (OA) publications eliminate price barriers for readers, e.g., researchers, teachers, journalists, policy makers and even the general public. On the other hand, OA publications are very competitive due to many available OA journals, and most authors might be very careful in selecting OA journals for their publications. Then, how to attract authors' interests and improve publication qualities and, hence, the reputation of our journal is an important task for us.

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

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