Announcements

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
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.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

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)

We are excited to welcome the following recognized researchers who recently joined the Editorial Board of JTAER.

Prof. Dr. Ja-Shen Chen, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan;
Prof. Dr. Alessandro De Nisco, University of International Studies of Rome (UNINT), Italy;
Prof. Dr. Ravi Chinta, Nova Southeastern University, USA;
Dr. Carlos Orús, University of Zaragoza, Spain;
Prof. Dr. Ercan Oztemel, Marmara University, Turkey;
Prof. Dr. Riadh Ladhari, Laval University, Canada;
Dr. José Ramón Saura, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain;
Dr. Xuefeng Zhang, Anhui Polytechnic University, China;
Dr. Shahrokh Niko, Åbo Akademi University & Stockholm University, Finland.

On the occasion of our newly launched topical collection “The Connected Consumer” we would like to share with you the scholars behind it and a summary of the key aspects of connected consumers. This post will consist of an introduction to the topic and two investigator spotlights, one dedicated to Prof. Dr Rodríguez-Ardura and the second to Dr Ammetller. 

What is a "connected consumer"?

A connected consumer is a person who buys online, who consumes digital content or products, who interacts with friends and acquaintances through social media and who makes purchase decisions with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

How do connected consumers have transformed e-commerce businesses?

Connected consumers embrace innovative products and process large amounts of marketing information but pay less attention to detail than ever before. They expect to receive instant gratification for their actions and requests on e-commerce platforms and quickly become bored or distracted. They particularly trust other connected consumers’ opinions, even if they do not know them personally, and contribute to brands' virtual communities just for fun, to feel part of a group or to help others. Despite being overstimulated by digital marketing communications, they tend to appreciate the ones with highly emotional or sensorial elements more. In e-commerce, brands should offer compelling and immersive experiences, which at the same time make consumers feel empowered in their relationships with brands.

Will this new trend in consumer behaviour change the e-commerce and commerce landscape in general?

Through their attitudes, preferences and behaviour, connected consumers are not only changing the face of e-commerce but also brick and mortar stores. Physical stores need to digitize and reimagine. They should add e-commerce services, and fully integrate e-commerce with the traditional channels so as to offer true seamless, omnichannel experiences. Because the connected consumer’s behaviour is non-linear but fragmented across channels, retailers should work hard to convert clients in each and every step of the consumer journey; so they must push the conversion rate of physical store browsing to purchasing on the e-commerce platform. Also, visits to physical stores should be so appealing and engaging that no connected consumer wants to miss out.

Investigator Spotlight I: Prof. Dr Inma Rodríguez-Ardura

Dr Inma Rodríguez-Ardura is a Professor of Marketing at the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya or UOC) and is also the director of the UOC’s Digital Business Research Group (or DigiBiz), which is officially accredited as a Consolidated Research Group. She has been a Visiting Fellow of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, a Visiting Professor at Babson College, Boston, and a Resident Researcher at the UOC’s Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Furthermore, she has served as a faculty member at the University of Barcelona and as a part-time Lecturer at the University of Miami Herbert Business School; and has taught master’s courses and seminars at a number of other universities. At the UOC, Prof. Rodríguez-Ardura has coordinated the Marketing Area of the Faculty of Economics and Business and created and has been Director of the Master's Programme in Marketing Management, and the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Marketing and Market Research. Moreover, she has served as Director of the University Master's Programme, and the Doctoral Programme in the Information and Knowledge Society. Her work designing and developing courses in marketing has led her to coordinate and author over thirty didactic materials. 

Prof. Rodríguez-Ardura has carried out twenty-seven research projects funded by European and international institutions. Her research has appeared in numerous impact journals. In addition, she has authored scores of research books and textbooks and has guest-edited special issues on social e-commerce (International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing), qualitative methods for digital marketing (Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research), and consumer behaviour in digital markets (Sustainability). She is currently Section Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research and Associate Editor of Behaviour & Information Technology.

Educational background

• PhD in Economics and Business from the University of Barcelona

Research interests

Prof. Rodríguez-Ardura’s research interests are in the areas of digital marketing channels and e-retailing, the connected consumer (immersive) experiences, and marketing for e-learning.

Personal Interests

• Travelling
• Sports

Investigator Spotlight II: Dr Gisela Ammetller

Dr Ammetller is an Associate Professor of Marketing within the Economics and Business Department of the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC), where she is in charge of marketing courses. She has created several didactic materials for this University, has been the Academic Coordinator (2006-2008) and the Director (2008-2011; 2014-2015) of the Master’s Degree Programme in Marketing and Communication Management. She also collaborates as a lecturer in Postgraduate and Master courses of other universities. She is a researcher of the Digital Business Research Group (DigiBiz) within the UOC, which is accredited as a Consolidate Research Group by the Catalan Government in Spain.

Educational background

• Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Barcelona
• Bachelor in Marketing and Market Research from the University of Barcelona
• M.Sc. Information and Knowledge Society from the UOC
• PhD in Information and Knowledge Society from the UOC

Research interests

Dr Ammetller’s research focuses on digital marketing and consumer behaviour, entrepreneurship and the interface between marketing and e-learning. Within these fields of knowledge, she has co-authored books, book chapters and scientific articles, and she has also participated in related research projects.

Personal Interests

• Photography
• Rock music
• Travelling

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.