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.

We are very pleased to announce that Future Internet (ISSN: 1999-5903) will receive an Impact Factor from the Web of Science in June 2023. Thank you for your continued support for Future Internet. More information can be accessed at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/4252.

We would like to extend our gratitude to the authors, editors, and reviewers whose efforts have helped us to achieve this milestone!

For more journal statistics, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/stats.

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 currently recruiting Editorial Board Members (EBMs) for MDPI journals indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) in Web of Science. In particular, we are looking for experts who are interested in aiding in the development of our journals and safeguarding the scientific quality of the published findings.

Journals currently listed in the ESCI will receive an Impact Factor in June 2023, according to the changes announced by Web of Science (Clarivate). Therefore, this is an excellent time to become an Editorial Board Member for one of these fast-developing journals.

If you are interested in sharing your expertise in one of the journals listed below, please send us an application using this link.

The Editorial Office of the journal will contact you once the application has been approved.
Editorial Board Members are responsible for academic decisions on manuscripts in their field of expertise, will edit Special Issues, and may be invited to review manuscripts. The initial term lasts for two years, after which it can be renewed, and entails the following:

• Prescreening and making decisions on new submissions related to your research interests;
• Setting up at least one Special Issue during your term on a topic related to your research interests (or supervising Special Issues related to your research field);
• Providing input or feedback regarding journal policies;
• Helping to promote the journal among your peers or at conferences;
• Attending Board meetings to suggest journal development strategies;
• Reviewing manuscripts.

Editorial Board Members are entitled to a full waiver on one publication per year in the journal that they serve and need to be experts in their fields.

The list of ESCI journals can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals/esci.

Please find the list of ESCI journals, categorized by subject, for which we are recruiting Editorial Board Members below.

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

This program aims to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills as well as to work closely with our journal to gain more editorial experience. Early career scientists who have novel ideas for new Future Internet Special Issues will act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist; this mentor could be a member of the Editorial Board of Future Internet (ISSN: 1999-5903), from other well-established research institutes or laboratories, etc.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Providing a CV, including a list of publications;
• Proposing a Special Issue title and a short introduction;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue;
• Reviewing and making decisions on submissions under the mentorship of our Editorial Board Members.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Co-editing the Special Issue with younger scholars and performing quality control of the publications in the Special Issue;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have 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.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and mentees. If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Future Internet Editorial Office (futureinternet@mdpi.com), and we will discuss the process (mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Future Internet continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics as usual.

Future Internet Editorial Office

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.

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!

Dr. William Liu is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE), School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences (SECMS) at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. He holds Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering, both obtained at the University of Canterbury (UC), New Zealand, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. He worked as a network planner and designer in Beijing Telecom in China for 5 years before moving to New Zealand in 2002. He has co-authored more than 100 papers published in international journals and conferences, and he participates in the Program Committees of several premier IEEE conferences, including INFOCOM, GLOBECOM, ICC, GreenCom, CloudNet, DRCN, RNDM and ATNAC. He is the Founding and current Chair of IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) New Zealand North Chapter. He is the current Chair of IEEE New Zealand North Section Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT). He has been a Senior member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing (TCGCC) since 2011 and a Senior member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Big Data (TCBD) since 2015. He is a member of the New Zealand Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Tertiary Education Centre (STEM-TEC).

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. William Liu:

1. We have always been committed to publishing high-quality articles that are included in SCIE. As an Editorial Board Member of the journal Future Internet, what do you consider the criteria for manuscript screening to be? What aspects of articles do you like most?

The criteria include that the topic/ idea is novel, solid experiments and analysis, and the verification of formulas. Of course, in cases where there is a novel idea and perfect experimental analysis, we cannot have both, so the idea is novel and the requirements for the experiment can be appropriately reduced. I do not care about author groups. The editorial department needs to control the authorship in the manuscript. It is important to avoid including scholars from well-known institutions or well-known scholars who did not contribute to the article in the authorship.

2. The Editorial Office has recently made plans to increase our journal citations and we would like to take the journal to the next level by publishing more high-quality papers. Would you recommend your colleagues to contribute to Future Internet? Would you like to participate in some journal construction work for Future Internet (e.g., decision-making, webinars, reviewing)?

I like the name of the journal Future Internet very much, and it is also very attractive that Future Internet ranks 92 out of 352 (Q2) in “Computer Networks and Communications”. I am very willing to recommend my colleagues to contribute to Future Internet, and participate in the construction of the journal, such as participating in conferences, reviewing manuscripts, promoting Future Internet on the webinars I take part in, sending calls for papers on the mailing lists and participating in the webinars held by our journal to discuss the hot topics of Climate Extremes, Climate Crisis, ICT, smart grid, energy network, coordinated communication and networking.

Peer review constitutes an essential part of the publication process, ensuring that Future Internet (ISSN: 1999-5903) maintains its high standards for the quality of its published papers. We are looking to recruit expert reviewers to help uphold the quality and efficiency of Future Internet. More information about the role is available at: https://www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

To qualify as a reviewer, applicants must have published around eight papers related to remote sensing in the last 5 years and hold a Ph.D. degree.

We will extend the following benefits to reviewers:

• Receiving a discount voucher code based on the review quality;
• Inclusion in the journal’s annual acknowledgment of reviewers; more details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/2/53;
• Consideration for the journal’s Outstanding Reviewer Award; details can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/awards;
• Invitation to join the Reviewer Board; see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/submission_reviewers for more information.

To apply, please visit the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer/journals/review.

MDPI will be attending the Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2022) in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, which will take place from 17 to 21 October 2022. The CCS is the largest and most important annual meeting of the international complex systems community. It comes under the auspices of the Complex Systems Society. This edition, organized by IFISC, takes place after previous events held in Lyon, Singapore, Thessaloniki, and Cancun.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Entropy;
• Fractal and Fractional;
• Symmetry;
• Mathematics;
• Dynamics;
• Algorithms;
• Systems;
• Informatics;
• MAKE;
• Information;
• Future Internet;
• Applied System Innovation;
• Data.

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: https://www.ccs2022.org/.