Announcements

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

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

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

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

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

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

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

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

Certificates and awards:

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

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Forests Editorial Office (forests@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

We are pleased to share the 10 most cited papers published in Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) in 2021. You are welcome to visit more of the most cited & viewed articles.

1. “Combination of Feature Selection and CatBoost for Prediction: The First Application to the Estimation of Aboveground Biomass”
by Mi Luo, Yifu Wang, Yunhong Xie, Lai Zhou, Jingjing Qiao, Siyu Qiu and Yujun Sun
Forests 2021, 12(2), 216; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020216
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/216

2. “Thermal Conductivity of Poplar Wood Veneer Impregnated with Graphene/Polyvinyl Alcohol”
by Shuang-Shuang Wu, Xin Tao and Wei Xu
Forests 2021, 12(6), 777; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060777
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/777

3. “Economic Efficiency of Forest Enterprises—Empirical Study Based on Data Envelopment Analysis”
by Nikolay Neykov, Stanislava Krišťáková, Iveta Hajdúchová, Mariana Sedliačiková, Petar Antov and Blanka Giertliová
Forests 2021, 12(4), 462; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12040462
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/4/462

4. “Modelling the Material Resistance of Wood—Part 3: Relative Resistance in above- and in-Ground Situations—Results of a Global Survey”
by Christian Brischke, Gry Alfredsen, Miha Humar, Elena Conti, Laurie Cookson, Lukas Emmerich, Per Otto Flæte, Stefania Fortino, Lesley Francis, Ulrich Hundhausen et al.
Forests 2021, 12(5), 590; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12050590
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/5/590

5. “Similarities and Differences among Soil Fungal Assemblages in Managed Forests and Formerly Managed Forest Reserves”
by Marta Brygida Kujawska, Maria Rudawska, Robin Wilgan and Tomasz Leski
Forests 2021, 12(3), 353; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12030353
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/3/353

6. “Emerald Ash Borer Approaches the Borders of the European Union and Kazakhstan and Is Confirmed to Infest European Ash”
by Mark G. Volkovitsh, Andrzej O. Bieńkowski and Marina J. Orlova-Bienkowskaja
Forests 2021, 12(6), 691; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060691
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/691

7. “Assessing Biomass Removal and Woody Debris in Whole-Tree Harvesting System: Are the Recommended Levels of Residues Ensured?”
by Abdelwahab Bessaad, Isabelle Bilger and Nathalie Korboulewsky
Forests 2021, 12(6), 807; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12060807
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/6/807

8. “The Role of Remote Sensing for the Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Health: A Systematic Evidence Synthesis”
by Pablo Torres, Marina Rodes-Blanco, Alba Viana-Soto, Hector Nieto and Mariano García
Forests 2021, 12(8), 1134; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12081134
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/8/1134

9. “Comparison of Selected Terramechanical Test Procedures and Cartographic Indices to Predict Rutting Caused by Machine Traffic during a Cut-to-Length Thinning Operation”
by Marian Schönauer, Stephan Hoffmann, Joachim Maack, Martin Jansen and Dirk Jaeger
Forests 2021, 12(2), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020113
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/2/113

10. “A Qualitative Study on the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance Efforts to Improve Wildfire Decision-Making”
by Courtney A. Schultz, Lauren F. Miller, Sarah Michelle Greiner and Chad Kooistra
Forests 2021, 12(3), 344; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12030344
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/3/344

Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists—the World’s Top 2% Scientists (https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw). 

The timeframe of the statistical data of this list is from 1960 to 2022, and it is divided into two lists: "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" and "2022 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking". The "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking" includes a comprehensive influence performance of scientists during their careers, and the "2022 Annual Influence Ranking" highlights 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, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

We are pleased to share that 83 Editorial Board Members from MDPI’s journal Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907) were featured in Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientists list in 2022.

The latest Stanford rankings reflect the significant influence and research excellence of the scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge 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 Forests.

Name: Dr. Wade T. Tinkham

Affiliation: Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forest Service, United State Department of Agriculture, CO, USA

Dr. Wade T. Tinkham is a Research Forester who utilizes a combination of field inventories, remote sensing, GIS, and forest growth/landscape change models to characterize and address a wide array of applied forest management questions. His work is building towards a suite of spatially aware decision support tools and methods for characterizing, monitoring, and projecting changes in resources across multiple scales.

Highly Cited Paper:
“Influence of Agisoft Metashape Parameters on UAS Structure from Motion Individual Tree Detection from Canopy Height Models”
by Wade T. Tinkham and Neal C. Swayze
Forests 2021, 12(2), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12020250

1. Can you introduce yourself and give an overview of your current research?

I entered forestry through a private management lens but have since found my niche in research in the overlap of biometry and remote sensing as a Research Forester for the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. We recently completed a series of studies developing unmanned aerial system (UAS)-assisted forest inventory methods for characterizing individual tree locations, heights, diameters, and crowns in open canopy forests like those dominated by ponderosa pine. Now, I am working with collaborators at the University of Idaho and Oregon State University to expand the feasibility of these methods to denser forest systems by merging below-canopy remote sensing with UAS observations. With my collaborators, we are working to make UAS-derived forest inventory data accessible for management planning.

2. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper? What do you hope this research will bring to forestry?

One of our goals with this paper was to conduct a validation of methods that actually could be interpreted by foresters. Much of the UAS structure from the motion literature focuses on validating the individual points, while foresters are still managing trees, so we cut out the middle step and demonstrated the quality of extracted tree variables. My hope is that this work will draw attention to the potential of UAS forest monitoring to provide individual tree observations, particularly in semi-arid conifer forests where the spatial arrangement of the trees has become an important emphasis for restoration.

3. What led you to publish in Forests? Was it important to you that the journal is open access?

We targeted Forests to publish this work for two reasons. First, we wanted to present this work that crosses the lines between remote sensing and forestry in an outlet that would be seen by a forestry audience. Second, we wanted to take advantage of the open access policy and ensure that this work could be accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Wade T. Tinkham

Neal C. Swayze

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!

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Forests (IF: 3.282, ISSN: 1999-4907).

Name: Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng
Email: c.macinnis-ng@auckland.ac.nz
Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Homepage: https://www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/cate-macinnis-ng/
Research keywords: plant ecophysiology; carbon and water cycles; forest function; global change

Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng works at the University of Auckland in the School of Biological Sciences as an Associate Professor of ecology. She is a plant ecophysiologist specializing in plant–climate interactions. Her recent work has focused on drought impacts on New Zealand's iconic kauri trees. She also has broader interests in climate change impacts on biodiversity and working with Indigenous researchers and communities to achieve restoration and conservation outcomes.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng, who shared her vision for the journal with us, as well as her views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as the Editor-in-Chief?

I am delighted to join long-standing Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Tim Martin as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Forests. Many international journals remain somewhat region-specific with most papers coming from a particular part of the world. As a researcher in the southern hemisphere, I am conscious of the fact that we see research efforts focused on European and North American species and ecosystems and this is problematic when we are trying to understand global patterns. It also highlights the inequities in distributions of funding and resources. Forest research is a truly global discipline and the research published in Forests comes from many different parts of the world. Since the journal is open access, the research is available to all. There is more we can do to increase global representation and Forests provides a solid platform for this.

2. What does the future of this field of research look like?

Forests are an essential part of sustainable solutions to climate change. Developing research in this space covering ecology, physiology, production forests, urban forests and all aspects of tree biology will contribute to our understanding of how best to use forests to address climate change. This includes understanding the limitations of forest solutions, especially under future climates.

3. What is your vision for the journal? Do you have any suggestions for the future development of Forests?

I think the awards for emerging researchers are great and the electronic conferences are an excellent initiative because they are a carbon-friendly and free method for researchers to disseminate their work and network. I look forward to working with the Forests team to further increase the global reach of the journal.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?

Open access publishing is important for making results available to everyone rather than locking papers behind a paywall. I am not sure if we have found the perfect model yet, but I am pleased to be part of a journal that has all papers fully available to anyone who wants to read them. 

We warmly welcome Dr. Cate Macinnis-Ng in her new role as Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to her leading Forests to many more milestones.

A range of MDPI journals will be attending INTECOL 2022 as exhibitors. This meeting will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 28 August to 2 September 2022.

“Frontiers in Ecology – Science and Society” is the general theme of the conference. With an estimated number of 1500 participants coming to Geneva, and as many following the conference from a distance, the conference aims to bring the state-of-the-art expertise in ecology to the forefront of societal challenges.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Diversity (leading);
• Sustainability;
• Forests;
• Ecologies;
• Environments;
• Plants;
• Animals;
• World;
• Quaternary;
• Earth;
• Resources;
• Applied Sciences;
• Birds;
• Climate;
• Water;
• Fishes.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us at our booth #03. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit http://intecol2021.org/, or contact the Diversity Editorial Office at diversity@mdpi.com.