Conference name: 8^th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC)

Conference website: https://2022.eso-conference.org/

Date: 4–6 May 2022

Venue: Lyon, France

ESOC 2022, taking place 4–6 May 2022, is Europe’s leading forum, and indeed a leading forum worldwide for advances in research and clinical care of patients with cerebrovascular diseases. ESOC 2022 will live up to its expectation, and present to you a packed, high-quality scientific program, including major clinical trials, state-of-the-art seminars, educational workshops, scientific communications of the latest research, and debates about current controversies and dilemmas.

1. "Interaction of Oxidative Stress and Misfolded Proteins in the Mechanism of Neurodegeneration"
Abramov, A.Y.; Potapova, E.V.; Dremin, V.V. and Dunaev, A.V.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life10070101

2. "Amyloidogenic Intrinsically Disordered Proteins: New Insights into Their Self-Assembly and Their Interaction with Membranes"
Scollo, F. and La Rosa, C.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life10080144

3. "Optimization of Molecular Dynamics Simulations of c-MYC^1-88—An Intrinsically Disordered System"
Sullivan, S.S. and Weinzierl, R.O.J.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life10070109

4. "The Conformational Plasticity Vista of PDZ Domains"
Murciano-Calles, J.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life10080123

5. "Functional Mammalian Amyloids and Amyloid-Like Proteins"
Rubel, M.S.; Fedotov, S.A.; Grizel, A.V.; Sopova, J.V.; Malikova, O.A.; Chernoff, Y.O. and Rubel, A.A.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090156

1. “Universal Molecular Triggers of Stress Responses in Cyanobacterium Synechocystis”

Kirill S. Mironovet al.

Life 2019, 9, 67; 10.3390/life9030067

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life9030067

2. “On the Role and Production of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) in the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803”

Moritz Koch et al.

Life 2020, 10, 47; 10.3390/life10040047

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10040047

3. “Diurnal Regulation of In Vivo Localization and CO2-Fixing Activity of Carboxysomes in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942”

Yaqi Sun et al.

Life 2020, 10, 169; 10.3390/life10090169

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090169

4. “Over Expression of the Cyanobacterial Pgr5-Homologue Leads to Pseudoreversion in a Gene Coding for a Putative Esterase in Synechocystis 6803”

Ketty Margulis et al.

Life 2020, 10, 174; 10.3390/life10090174

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090174

5. “The Role of the Cyanobacterial Type IV Pilus Machinery in Finding and Maintaining a Favourable Environment”

Fabian D. Conradi et al.

Life 2020, 10, 252; 10.3390/life10110252

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10110252

6. “Rapid Transcriptional Reprogramming Triggered by Alteration of the Carbon/Nitrogen Balance Has an Impact on Energy Metabolism in Nostoc sp. PCC 7120”

Marius Surleac et al.

Life 2020, 10, 297; 10.3390/life10110297

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10110297

7. “Genome Editing by CRISPR-Cas: A Game Change in the Genetic Manipulation of Chlamydomonas”

Manel Ghribi et al.

Life 2020, 10, 295; 10.3390/life10110295

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10110295

8. “Arsenolipids in Cultured Picocystis Strain ML and Their Occurrence in Biota and Sediment from Mono Lake, California”

Ronald A. Glabonjat et al.

Life 2020,10, 93; 10.3390/life10060093

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10060093

9. “Diatom-Derived Polyunsaturated Aldehydes Are Unlikely to Influence the Microbiota Composition of Laboratory-Cultured Diatoms”

Chloe L. Eastabrook et al.

Life 2020, 10, 29; 10.3390/life10030029

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10030029

10. “Rapid and Efficient Colony-PCR for High Throughput Screening of Genetically Transformed Chlamydomonas reinhardtii”

Serge Basile Nouemssi et al.

Life 2020, 10, 186; 10.3390/life10090186

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090186

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.

Abate, Antonio Abatzoglou, John T. Abbaszadeh, Mostafa Acharya, U. Rajendra Acharya, Viral V. Agarwal, Ravi P. Ahn, Myung-Ju Airoldi, Laura Ali, Imran Allakhverdiev, Suleyman I. Aluko, Rotimi E. Anasori, Babak Andersson, Dan I. Andes, David Anker, Stefan D. Apergis, Nicholas Ariga, Katsuhiko Arqub, Omar Abu Aschner, Michael Assaraf, Yehuda G. Astruc, Didier Atala, Anthony Atanasov, Atanas G. Atangana, Abdon Bahram, Mohammad Bakris, George L. Balandin, Alexander A. Baleanu, Dumitru Balsamo, Gianpaolo Bando, Yoshio Banks, William A. Bansal-Travers, Maansi Barba, Francisco J. Barros, Lillian Basit, Abdul W. Baskonus, Haci Mehmet Bassetti, Matteo Battino, Maurizio Bell, Jordana T. Bellomo, Nicola Benediktsson, Jon Atli Benelli, Giovanni Benjakul, Soottawat Bhatnagar, Amit Biddle, Stuart J. H. Biondi, Antonio Biondi-Zoccai, Giuseppe Bjarnsholt, Thomas Blaabjerg, Frede Blaschke, Thomas Blay, Jean-Yves Blumwald, Eduardo Blunt, John W. Boffetta, Paolo Bogers, Marcel Bonomo, Robert A. Boyer, Cyrille Brestic, Marian Brevik, Eric C. Buhalis, Dimitrios Burdick, Jason A. Byrd, John C. Cabeza, Luisa F. Cai, Xingjuan Cai, Jianchao Calhoun, Vince D. Calin, George Cao, Jinde Cao, Guozhong Carvalho, Andre F. Castellanos-Gomez, Andres Cerqueira, Miguel Ângelo Parente Ribeiro Chang, Jo-Shu Chang, Chih-Hao Chastin, Sebastien Chau, Kwok-wing Chemat, Farid Chen, Xiaobo Chen, YangQuan Chen, Jianmin Chen, Chaoji Chen, Min Chen, Qi Chen, Jun Chen, Xi Chen, Peng Chen, Yulin Chen, Bo Chen, Chen Chen, Zhi-Gang Chen, Wei-Hsin Chen, Gang Chen, Yongsheng Chen, Xiang Chen, Yimin Chen, Runsheng Chen, Lidong Chen, Shaowei Chen, Qian Chen, Yu Chen, Shuangming Chiclana, Francisco Cho, Sun Young Choi, Wonyong Chowdhary, Anuradha Choyke, Peter L. Cichocki, Andrzej Corella, Dolores Corma, Avelino Cortes, Javier Cortes, Jorge Costanza, Robert Crommie, Michael F. Cui, Yi Cui, Haiying Cui, Qinghua Cummings, Kenneth Michael Dai, Shifeng Dai, Sheng Daiber, Andreas Davis, Steven J. Dawson, Ted M. de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar Decker, Eric Andrew Dekel, Avishai Demaria, Marco Deng, Yong Deng, Xiangzheng DePinho, Ronald A. Desneux, Nicolas Dimopoulos, Meletios-Athanasios Ding, Aijun Dionysiou, Dionysios D. Dokmeci, Mehmet Remzi Dolgui, Alexandre Dong, Fan Dou, Shi Xue Dou, Letian Du, Qian Du, Bo Dube, Shanta Rishi Dufresne, Alain Dummer, Reinhard Dupont, Didier Edwards, David Elaissari, Abdelhamid Elhoseny, Mohamed Ellahi, Rahmat Ellis, Erle C. ElMasry, Gamal Esteller, Manel Estévez, Mario Fabbro, Doriano Facchetti, Antonio Fan, Zhanxi Fang, Chuanglin Fasano, Alessio Fečkan, Michal Felser, Claudia Feng, Liangzhu Fensholt, Rasmus Ferdinandy, Péter Fernandez-Lafuente, Roberto Ferreira, Isabel C. F. R. Filippi, Massimo Fisher, Helen Fortino, Giancarlo Fosso Wamba, Samuel Franceschi, Claudio Fujita, Hamido Fujita, Masayuki Gai, Francesco Gaisford, Simon Galanakis, Charis M. Galluzzi, Lorenzo Galvano, Fabio Gan, Ren-You Gan, Lihua Gandomi, Amir H. Gao, Bin Gao, Feng Gao, Minrui Gao, Huijun Gao, Wei Gao, Huile Garbe, Claus Garcia, Hermenegildo Gasbarrini, Antonio Gasco, Laura Gautret, Philippe Geng, Yong Gerdts, Gunnar Geschwind, Daniel H. Ghadimi, Noradin Ghaffari, Roozbeh Ghamisi, Pedram Giampieri, Francesca Glick, Bernard R. Gnant, Michael Goel, Ajay Gogotsi, Yury Goldewijk, Kees Klein Gong, Jinlong Gong, Yongji Govindan, Kannan Granato, Daniel Grancini, Giulia Green, Douglas R. Grosso, Giuseppe Gu, Ke Guan, Cao Guastella, Adam J. Guerrero, Josep M. Gui, Guan Guizani, Mohsen Guo, Zaiping Gupta, Rangan Gutzmer, Ralf Haase, Dagmar Habibi-Yangjeh, Aziz Hagemann, Stefan Hagger, Martin Hamblin, Michael R. Hammoudeh, Shawkat Han, Heesup Hanes, Justin Harrison, Roy M. Hartung, Hans-Peter Hasanuzzaman, Mirza He, Jr-Hau He, Hongwen He, Jiaqing He, Debiao Henseler, Jörg Herrera, Francisco Herrera-Viedma, Enrique Hetz, Claudio Ho Kim, Jung Holmes, Elaine Hossain, Ekram Hsueh, Po-Ren Hu, Xiaosong Hu, Wenbin Huang, Jianping Huang, Hongwei Huang, Yu Huang, Jianying

Huang, Peng Huang, Baibiao Huang, Shaoming Hubacek, Klaus Iqbal, Hafiz M. N. Ismail, Ahmad Fauzi Izzo, Angelo A. Jacobson, Kenneth A. Jain, Atul Jankovic, Joseph Jelezko, Fedor Ji, Xiaobo Ji, Guangbin Jiang, Hai-Long Jiang, Lei Jiang, Junjun Jiang, Qing Jiang, Shibo Jin, Shi Jones, Peter A. Kalantar-zadeh, Kourosh Kaner, Richard B. Kannan, Kurunthachalam Kappos, Ludwig Karagiannidis, George K. Karimi, Hamid Reza Karimi-Maleh, Hassan Karp, Peter D. Kataoka, Kazunori Katritch, Vsevolod Kawi, Sibudjing Keesstra, Saskia Kepp, Oliver Keyzers, Robert A. Khademhosseini, Ali Khan, Nafees A. Kiessling, Fabian Kim, Ki-Hyun Kim, Haegyeom Kim, Jeonghun Kim, Jong Seung Kirkwood, John M. Kisi, Ozgur Kivshar, Yuri Klenk, Hans-Peter Ko, Wen-Chien Konopleva, Marina Y. Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P. Koonin, Eugene V. Kou, Gang Krausmann, Fridolin Krebs, Frederik C. Kroemer, Guido Kuca, Kamil Kudo, Masatoshi Kuhn, Jens H. Kumar, Devendra Kumar, Alan Prem Kumar, Sudhir Kumar Sangaiah, Arun Kurths, Juergen Kuznetsov, Nikolay V. Kuzyakov, Yakov Kwan, Mei-Po Kyrpides, Nikos C. La Vecchia, Carlo Lai, Yuekun Lam, James Lammers, Twan Lamuela-Raventos, Rosa M. Lancellotti, Patrizio Landi, Francesco Laurent, Sophie Lavie, Carl J. Laxminarayan, Ramanan Lee, Sang Soo Lee, Jin-Wook Lee, Pooi See Lehmann, Johannes Lei, Yaguo Lei, Ting Leng, Lijian Leung, Dennis Y. C. Leung, Victor C. M. Levine, Ross Li, Wei Li, Jie Li, Jinghong Li, Jun Li, Heng Li, Gang Li, Yat Li, Peng Li, Hailong Li, Changpin Li, Yan Li, Yurui Li, Xiaodi Li, Hong Li, Shutao Li, Hongyi Li, Zhijun Li, Peiyue Lin, Yuehe Lin, Hongjun Lin, Lin Lip, Gregory Y. H. Liu, Jian Liu, Meng Liu, Hong Liu, Tao Liu, Lei Liu, Jianxing Liu, Wei Liu, Gang Liu, Yang Liu, Peide Lockhart, Shawn R. Long, Hualou Löscher, Wolfgang Lu, Jun Lu, Jianquan Lu, Nanshu Lucey, Brian Luigi Russo, Gian Lund, Henrik Luo, Jun Luo, Yi Luo, Jingshan Luo, Yangchao Lupton, Deborah Luque, Rafael Lv, Wei Lvov, Yuri M. Lyons, Timothy W. Ma, Tianyi Ma, Jun Ma, Jiayi Ma, Wen-Xiu Ma, Yanming Maggioni, Aldo Pietro Mahmood, Nasir Mahmoudi, Morteza Mai, Liqiang Mallavarapu, Megharaj Mandala, Mario Mardani, Abbas Marengo, Jose Maria Rossolini, Gian Martinoia, Enrico Mathiesen, Brian Vad Mathivanan, Suresh Mattick, John S. Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof McCabe, Matthew E. McCauley, Darren McClements, David Julian Melcher, Karsten Melenhorst, Jan Joseph Melero, Ignacio Mezzetti, Bruno Mirjalili, Seyedali Mishchenko, Artem Mittler, Ron Moreau, Philippe Motohashi, Hozumi Mousavi Khaneghah, Amin Mu, Shichun Mueller, Lukas A. Mueller-Roeber, Bernd Muenzel, Thomas Muhammad, Khan Munger, J. William Nauen, Ralf Naushad, Mu. Negri, Eva Nemeroff, Charles B. Newman, David J. Niaura, Raymond S. Nie, Feiping Nieto, Juan J. Novara, Agata Nunkoo, Robin Ogino, Shuji Olabi, Abdul-Ghani Ong, Hwai Chyuan O'Regan, Donal Orsini, Nicola Ouyang, Minggao Ozcan, Aydogan Pacher, Pal Pan, Xiaoqing Pan, Likun Pan, Quan-Ke Pang, Huan Pavela, Roman Pedrycz, Witold Pei, Yanzhong Peng, Shushi Peng, Qing Peng, Mugen Perc, Matjaz Perez-Alvarez, Jose Angel Perlin, David S. Piquero, Alex R. Polasky, Stephen Pommier, Yves Poor, H. Vincent Postolache, Mihai Potenza, Marc N. Poulter, Benjamin Preat, Veronique Prinsep, Michele R. Pu, Hong-Bin Putnik, Predrag Qiu, Jieshan Qu, Xiaogang Quiles, José L. Rabczuk, Timon Ramakrishna, Seeram Ramkissoon, Haywantee Ran, Jingrun Recio, Isidra Reiter, Russel J. Remuzzi, Giuseppe Ren, Jinsong Ren, Jun Riahi, Keywan Richardson, Paul G. Rignot, Eric Rimm, David Rinn, John L. Robert, Caroline Rodriguez, Rosa M. Rojo, Teofilo Ros, Emilio Rosen, Marc A. Roubaud, David Russo, Alessandro Saad, Fred Saad, Walid Sadorsky, Perry Sander, Chris Santamouris, Mattheos Santoro, Gabriele

Saraiva, Jorge A. Sarchiapone, Marco Scalbert, Augustin Schloter, Michael Schneider, Gisbert Schubert, Ulrich S. Schulz, Rainer Schwab, Matthias Schweizer, Frank Scolyer, Richard A. Scorrano, Luca Scott, David Scott, Stuart A. Scott, Daniel Serra-Majem, Lluis Sethi, Gautam Shabala, Sergey Shaheen, Sabry M. Shao, Zongping Sharma, Gaurav Shen, Guozhen Shen, Hao Sheremet, Mikhail A. Shi, Peng Shi, Yumeng Shoenfeld, Yehuda Siano, Pierluigi Sillanpaa, Mika Simões, Manuel Simpson, Richard J. Singh, Bhupinder Pal Singh, Vijay P. Smagghe, Guy Song, Yu Song, Houbing Sood, Anil K. Srivastava, Hari M. Stadler, Marc Stadler, Peter F. Stanley, H. Eugene Stoumpos, Constantinos C. Strano, Michael S. Stunnenberg, Hendrik G. Su, [email protected] Su, Chun-Yi Subramanian, S. V. Sun, Zhipei Sun, Fengchun Sun, Hongqi Sunderland, Elsie M. Suzuki, Nobuhiro Svenning, Jens-Christian Szabo, Csaba Szallasi, Arpad Szolnoki, Attila Tacke, Frank Tan, Weihong Tan, Chaoliang Tang, Hua Tang, Chuyang Tang, Chuan-He Tanzi, Rudolph E. Teichmann, Sarah Telenti, Amalio Thakur, Vijay Kumar Thiele, Holger Tian, Jie Tohge, Takayuki Tran, Lam-Son Phan Truhlar, Donald G. Tsao, Rong Tsuda, Kenichi Tukker, Arnold Tung, Chen-Ho Turskis, Zenonas Urquhart, Andrew Valko, Marian Van Breusegem, Frank Van de Wiele, Tom van der Werf, Guido van Wesemael, Bas Vangronsveld, Jaco Varma, Rajender S. Varsani, Arvind Varshney, Rajeev K. Vasilakis, Nikos Vasilakos, Athanasios V. Vasquez, Juan C. Vatanen, Tommi Ventura, Marco Vermote, Eric Veronese, Nicola Verpoorte, Robert Vethaak, A. Dick Vieta, Eduard Vincent, Jean-Louis Wagner, Wolfgang Walton, Vaughn M. Wan, Jiafu Wan, Shaohua Wang, Qi Wang, Joseph Wang, Meng Wang, Tao Wang, Yuan Wang, Xin Wang, Chao Wang, Yong Wang, Jun Wang, Erkang Wang, Sibo Wang, Jian Wang, Ning Wang, John Wang, Qin Wang, Shaojian Wang, Guoxiu Wang, Huanting Wang, Chunsheng Wang, Gongming Wang, Zhong Lin Wang, Lianzhou Wang, Shaobin Wang, Yang Wang, Zifa Wei, Zhixiang Wei, Leyi Weissleder, Ralph Wen, Guanghui Wiens, John J. Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Willerslev, Eske Wishart, David S. Witlox, Frank Wu, Jun Wu, Tom Wu, Hao Bin Wu, Hui Wu, Haijun Wu, Zhongbiao Wu, Zhong-Shuai Wu, Zheng-Guang Xia, Meimei Xia, Xinhui Xiang, Quanjun Xiao, Jianbo Xiao, Jie Xie, Jian-Hua Xin, Sen Xing, Baoshan Xiong, Rui Xu, Bin Xu, Li Da Xu, Yi-Jun Xu, Hui Xu, Zeshui Yamauchi, Yusuke Yan, Huaicheng Yan, Kai Yang, Chenguang Yang, Xiao-Jun Yang, Bing Yang, Yun-Gui Yang, Jie Yang, Jian Yang, Xinsong Yang, Shihe Yang, Yi Yang, Yang Yao, Jen-Chih Yao, Yonggang Yazyev, Oleg Yin, Yulong Yin, Zongyou Yin, Shen Yin, Ya-xia Yin, Shou-Wei Ying, Guang-Guo Young, Allan H. Yu, Shu-Hong Yu, Jun Yu, Guihua Yu, Wenwu Yu, Guocan Yu, Minghao Zarco-Tejada, Pablo J. Zavadskas, Edmundas Kazimieras Zeadally, Sherali Zhai, Tianyou Zhang, Wei Zhang, Binlin Zhang, Shujun Zhang, Guoping Zhang, Zengqiang Zhang, Yu Shrike Zhang, Qichun Zhang, Xian-Ming Zhang, Guowen Zhang, Min Zhang, Yue-Jun Zhang, Shaoqing Zhang, Fan Zhang, Weili Zhang, Xiaodong Zhang, Zhien Zhang, Tierui Zhang, Hongjie Zhang, Dengsong Zhang, Liangpei Zhang, Dan Zhang, Yu-Dong Zhang, Fusuo Zhao, Yi Zhao, Guochun Zhao, Li-Dong Zheng, Hao Zheng, Gengfeng Zhong, Cheng Zhou, Weiqi Zhou, Qi Zhou, Jizhong Zhu, Hongwei Zhu, Chengzhou Zhu, Junfa Zhu, Zhe Zhu, Quanxin Zhuang, Xiaodong Zhuang, Xiaoying Zou, Quan

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.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Life 2021 PHD Thesis Award is Dr. Brayon Fremin. Dr. Soukaina El Amrani Zerrifi and Dr. Carina Isabel Coelho Proença are honorable mentions.

Dr. Brayon Fremin is from Stanford University, USA. In his Ph.D. thesis, Dr. Fremin developed original ideas and methods for profiling RNA expression in the microbiome. The results—generated by concepts developed independently by Dr. Fremin himself while he was a Ph.D. student—are attracting considerable attention (> 100 citations) after being published in the most well-reputed journals. The procedures used were highly original, and identification of what genes are expressed and novel open reading frames of the microbiome should have a huge impact on understanding how the microbiome influences many disease states. His advisor, Dr. Bhatt, states “I have never met a more creative and pioneering translational scientist in my entire career”. We look forward to reading about Dr. Fremin’s many scientific accomplishments to come.

Dr. Soukaina El Amrani Zerrifi, from Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco, is recognized for her outstanding accomplishments and the impact of her work on the environment and bio-technological development of her country. In her thesis work, she isolated and identified multiple products from both seaweeds and bacteria that hold great potential for combatting cyanobacterial blooms, which represent a major ecological and environmental threat in many marine ecosystems. Her work has already been highly cited, and her advisor, Dr. Oudra, stated that she has “enormous potential to excel in research”.

Dr. Carina Isabel Coelho Proença, from University of Porto, Portugal, is recognized for her impressive productivity and impact within the field, as reflected by over 190 citations of publications arising from her Ph.D. work. Her research investigated the potential application of flavonoids targeting several diabetes-related enzymes as novel therapeutics. By means of systematic characterization, and sophisticated computational approaches, followed up by experimental validation, the study identified specific aspects of flavonoid structure that can enable differential targeting of five different enzymes which are central to diabetes. This large body of work generated nine highly cited papers with Dr. Proença as lead author. Her advisor, Dr. Fernandes, praised the “enthusiasm, commitment, hard work, and intellectual rigor” displayed throughout her doctoral studies.

As the awardee, Dr. Brayon Fremin will receive an honorarium of CHF 800, while all three of Dr. Brayon Fremin, Dr. Soukaina El Amrani Zerrifi and Dr. Carina Isabel Coelho Proença will have the opportunity to publish one paper free of charge before 31 December 2023 in Life, after peer review.

We want to thank all the excellent Ph.D. students who applied for this award as their brilliant CVs made the choice very difficult. We would also like to thank all of the Award Committee Members for their thorough evaluation of the applications.

1. “Self-Reported Real-World Safety and Reactogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Vaccine Recipient Survey”

Alexander G. Mathioudakis et al.

Life 2021, 11, 249; 10.3390/life11030249

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life11030249

2. “Seroprevalence of Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among the Personnel and Students of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece: A Preliminary Report”

Ourania E. Tsitsilonis et al.

Life 2020, 10, 214; 10.3390/life10090214

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090214

3. “One-Seventh of Patients with COVID-19 Had Olfactory and Gustatory Abnormalities as Their Initial Symptoms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”

Hsin Chi et al.

Life 2020, 10, 158; 10.3390/life10090158

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10090158

4. “The Microbiota/Host Immune System Interaction in the Nose to Protect from COVID-19”

Arianna Di Stadio et al.

Life 2020, 10, 345; 10.3390/life10120345

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10120345

5. “Investigation of Genetic Variations of IL6 and IL6R as Potential Prognostic and Pharmacogenetics Biomarkers: Implications for COVID-19 and Neuroinflammatory Disorders”

Claudia Strafella et al.

Life 2020, 10, 351; 10.3390/life10120351

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10120351

6. “Molecular Epidemiology Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Strains Circulating in Romania during the First Months of the Pandemic”

Marius Surleac et al.

Life 2020, 10, 152; 10.3390/life10080152

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10080152

7. “Previous Humoral Immunity to the Endemic Seasonal Alphacoronaviruses NL63 and 229E Is Associated with Worse Clinical Outcome in COVID-19 and Suggests Original Antigenic Sin”

Daniele Focosi et al.

Life 2021, 11, 298; 10.3390/life11040298

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life11040298

8. “Long-Term SARS-CoV-2 Infection Associated with Viral Dissemination in Different Body Fluids Including Bile in Two Patients with Acute Cholecystitis”

Rossana Scutari et al.

Life 2020,10, 302; 10.3390/life10110302

Available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10110302

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.

We are pleased to announce the good news that Prof. Dr. Doron Lancet has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the section "Origin of Life" Section in Life (ISSN: 2075-1729).

Prof. Dr. Doron Lancet completed his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry at Hebrew University, Ph.D. in Immunology at Weizmann Institute, and postdoctoral training at Harvard and Yale. Back at Weizmann, he pioneered research on the biochemistry and evolution of olfaction and headed a human genome research center, where he deciphered human diseases and developed GeneCards, the world-famous gene web compendium. In parallel, Lancet pioneered a lipid-first scenario for the origin and early evolution of life. For that, he established a novel computer-based chemical kinetics model that demonstrates how self-reproducing lipid assemblies can support a pre-RNA path for the origin of life under harsh prebiotic conditions.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Doron Lancet, 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 highly appreciate the vision and devotion of the journal in advancing and enhancing the level of publication in the field of origin of life.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

I see it progressing to be the world’s top journal in its field.

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

We are at a turning point in understanding the origin of life, moving from compound-centric to systems chemistry approaches. These have the potential for seeking chemical principles that could reveal how simple multi-molecular reproducers could emerge from a chaotic chemical environment.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

An excellent trend!

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Doron Lancet as Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Origin of Life”, and we look forward to Life achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sections/origin_life.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Renate Kunert has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the new Section “Cell Biology and Tissue Engineering” in Life (ISSN: 2075-1729).

Prof. Dr. Renate Kunert is a Professor of Animal Cell Factory Design at the Department of Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. She is heading the Institute of Animal Cell Technology and Systems Biology and runs a research group working on the production of recombinant proteins in mammalian cells. Production clones are developed for the development of bioprocesses and investigation of cellular biology using methods relevant to systems biology. The model proteins range from monoclonal antibodies to difficult to-express proteins such as extracellular domains of viral envelope and cellular surface proteins. Protein engineering is applied by using rational and randomized approaches to obtain protein variants with the original or even enhanced specificity and functionality while increasing stability and producibility.

In teaching, Prof. Dr. Renate Kunert supervises students of the Bachelor and Master Curriculum Biotechnology in practical exercises and lectures on biotechnology, cell factories, biological therapeutics, and other elective lectures.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Renate Kunert, 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 its Section Editor-in-Chief?

The journal is up to date in terms of the content addressed and the treatment of the topics. Cell biology and tissue engineering is a forward-looking discipline in human medicine.

Currently, the spectrum of cellular modifications for personalized medicine is very diverse and the idea of “Special Issues” is useful and forward-looking.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

The vision is to give many excellent scientists the opportunity to present their work in a highly visible way and to expand their network through this platform. In this way, we all contribute to the development of new treatment strategies.

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

This field of research will be the future of all medical innovations because protein substitution will be too expensive despite the production processes that have already and will additionally be improved.

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

Open access is absolutely necessary.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Renate Kunert as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Cell Biology and Tissue Engineering”, and we look forward to Life achieving many more milestones under her leadership. For further information on the journal section, please visit the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sections/Cell_and_Tissue.

We are pleased to announce that the new journal Physiologia (ISSN 2673-9488) has established companionship with its sister journal Life (ISSN 2075-1729).

Physiologia is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal aimed at publishing articles demonstrating conceptual advances across the realms of physiology, from humans and animals to plants and cells. With a focus upon integrating molecular, cellular, systems, and whole organismal functions, the field of physiology has long been recognized as one which advances our understanding of the constructs of life across all species.

Physiologia publishes articles including research papers, reviews, editorials, and communications, etc. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. The full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced.

We are offering a full waiver on article processing charges for papers submitted before 15 December 2021. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 15 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 3 days (median values for MDPI journals in the second half of 2020). If accepted after peer review, your paper will be published in an open access format.

Manuscripts can be submitted via the journal’s online submission system at: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=physiologia.

Read the editorial prepared by Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Philip J. Atherton here.

We cordially invite you to consider Physiologia as the platform for publishing your work.

Physiologia Editorial Office

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]

We are pleased to announce that the new journal Hydrobiology (ISSN 2673-9917) has established companionship with its sister journals Life (ISSN 2075-1729) and Water (ISSN 2073-4441).

Hydrobiology is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal related to the science of life and life processes in water. It publishes regular research articles, reviews, and short notes. Our aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. There is no restriction on the length of the papers. The full experimental details must be provided so that results can be reproduced.

We welcome cross-disciplinary research at the molecular, organism, and ecosystem level on all aspects of aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity conservation ranging from freshwater fauna and flora to marine habitats. For details on the background and scope of this journal, please click on this link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/hydrobiology/about.

We offer a full waiver on article processing charges for papers submitted before 15 November 2021. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision provided to authors approximately 15 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 3 days (median values for MDPI journals in the second half of 2020). If accepted after peer review, your paper will be published in open access format.

Manuscripts can be submitted via the journal’s online submission system at: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=hydrobiology.

Read Publisher’s Note to Launch Hydrobiology here.

We cordially invite you to consider Hydrobiology as the platform for publishing your work.

Hydrobiology Editorial Office
[email protected]

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

Life is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal of scientific studies related to fundamental themes in life sciences. It has been covered by leading indexing services, including the SCIE (Web of Science) (search for "Life-Basel"), Scopus, PubMed, etc. The 2020 Impact Factor was 3.817. More information about our journal can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life

The Life editorial team is pleased to announce this open call for Special Issue proposals, which offers a group of authors the opportunity to work on an interconnected set of papers on an innovative topic. We are soliciting high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a continuous selection process throughout the year.

Proposals for a Special Issue should have a well-articulated unifying topic and reflect on an international level, the best work in a particular research area (either an established or an important emerging area), in which future investigations may be propelled by the publication of a set of novel research papers. Hence, an international group of Guest Editors and a few high-quality planned papers are always encouraged when it comes to proposals.

Proposals for Special Issues must be sent to the Editorial Office ([email protected]), which will then forward them to the Editors-in-Chief of Life for evaluation.

Information to be provided in a proposal:

- A 300–500-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, technical advancement, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;

- A few keywords on the topic;

- A plan for obtaining high-quality papers or a list of at least three planned papers;

- A brief resume of the proposed Guest Editors, together with their information (title, name, email, affiliation, personal website, keywords of interests);

- A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);

- 10 confirmed contributors.

Guest Editor(s) Role:

Once the proposal is accepted, the Guest Editor will circulate the Call for Papers for the Special Issue and invite submissions.

The Guest Editor has the privilege of publishing one paper free of charge (with the CHF 1600 publication fee waived) in this Special Issue and of inviting some feature papers to be published with a special discount.

Each submission will undergo a formal peer-review process, after which the assigned Editor will ask the Guest Editor, the Editor-in-Chief, or a suitable Editorial Board Member to decide whether the paper is acceptable for publication in Life.

If ten or more papers are published in this Special Issue, a Special Issue book can be organized, and a hard copy will be sent to each Guest Editor.

Editorial Office’s Role

The Editorial Office will set up the Special Issue website, arrange promotional material, assist with invitations to contribute papers, and take care of the administrative tasks associated with peer review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports, contacting authors, and arranging professional production before publication.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office ([email protected]) if you are interested and would like further details and clarifications.

We look forward to receiving your creative proposals.

Life Editorial Office

Life is recruiting Section Editors-in-Chief for the following three new Sections:

• Cell Biology and Tissue Engineering;
• Ecology;
• Animal Science.

Section Editors-in-Chief are responsible for the following:

• Defining the Aims and Scope of the Section;
• Advising on the strategic development of the Section;
• Ensuring the quality of the published content;
• Nominating/inviting Guest Editors and optionally delegating to them the authority to make final acceptance decisions for submitted articles;
• Nominating/inviting contributors;
• Nominating and leading the Section Editorial Board;
• Promoting the journal at scientific conferences or through other venues.

To apply for this position, recommend potential candidates, or request further information, please contact the Life Editorial Office ([email protected]) before 30 September 2021.

Life (ISSN ISSN: 2075-1729; Impact Factor: 3.817) is an international, peer-reviewed, scientific, open access journal concerned with the fundamental themes in the field of life sciences. It is indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus, PubMed, and other important databases.

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

Journal	Impact Factor	Rank	Category
Cancers	6.639	Q1	• Oncology
Cells	6.600	Q2	• Cell Biology
Pharmaceutics	6.321	Q1	• Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Antioxidants	6.313	Q1	• Food Science & Technology
			• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
			• Chemistry, Medicinal
Biomedicines	6.081	Q1	• Medicine, Research & Experimental
			• Pharmacology & Pharmacy
			• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
International Journal of Molecular Sciences	5.924	Q1	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
		Q2	• Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Pharmaceuticals	5.863	Q1	• Pharmacology & Pharmacy
			• Chemistry, Medicinal
Journal of Fungi	5.816	Q1	• Mycology
			• Microbiology
Nutrients	5.719	Q1	• Nutrition & Dietetics
Biosensors	5.519	Q1	• Chemistry, Analytical
			• Instruments & Instrumentation
		Q2	• Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Marine Drugs	5.118	Q1	• Chemistry, Medicinal
			• Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Biology	5.079	Q1	• Biology
Nanomaterials	5.076	Q1	• Physics, Applied
		Q2	• Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
			• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
			• Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Viruses	5.048	Q2	• Virology
Journal of Personalized Medicine	4.945	Q1	• Medicine, General & Internal
			• Health Care Sciences & Services
Metabolites	4.932	Q2	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Biomolecules	4.879	Q2	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Remote Sensing	4.848	Q1	• Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
		Q2	• Remote Sensing
			• Imaging Science & Photographic Technology
			• Environmental Sciences
Gels *	4.702	Q1	• Polymer Science
Antibiotics	4.639	Q2	• Infectious Diseases
			• Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Toxins	4.546	Q1	• Toxicology
			• Food Science & Technology
Vaccines	4.422	Q2	• Immunology
			• Medicine, Research & Experimental
Molecules	4.412	Q2	• Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
			• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Foods	4.350	Q2	• Food Science & Technology
Polymers	4.329	Q1	• Polymer Science
Journal of Clinical Medicine	4.242	Q1	• Medicine, General & Internal
Toxics	4.146	Q2	• Toxicology
			• Environmental Sciences
Catalysts	4.146	Q2	• Chemistry, Physical
Microorganisms	4.128	Q2	• Microbiology
Membranes	4.106	Q1	• Polymer Science
		Q2	• Engineering, Chemical
			• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
			• Chemistry, Physical
Genes	4.096	Q2	• Genetics & Heredity
Fermentation *	3.975	Q2	• Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease *	3.948	Q2	• Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Plants	3.935	Q1	• Plant Sciences
Life	3.817	Q2	• Biology
Diagnostics	3.706	Q2	• Medicine, General & Internal
Current Oncology	3.677	Q3	• Oncology
Materials	3.623	Q1	• Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
		Q2	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
			• Chemistry, Physical
			• Physics, Applied
			• Physics, Condensed Matter
Sensors	3.576	Q1	• Instruments & Instrumentation
		Q2	• Chemistry, Analytical
			• Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Pathogens	3.492	Q2	• Microbiology
Agronomy	3.417	Q1	• Agronomy
			• Plant Sciences
Chemosensors	3.398	Q2	• Instruments & Instrumentation
			• Chemistry, Analytical
		Q3	• Electrochemistry
Land	3.398	Q2	• Environmental Studies
Brain Sciences	3.394	Q3	• Neurosciences
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health	3.390	Q1	• Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (SSCI)
		Q2	• Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (SCIE)
			• Environmental Sciences (SCIE)
Tomography	3.358	Q2	• Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Fractal and Fractional *	3.313	Q1	• Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Sustainability	3.251	Q2	• Environmental Sciences (SCIE)
			• Environmental Studies (SSCI)
		Q3	• Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SCIE)
			• Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SSCI)
Water	3.103	Q2	• Water Resources
			• Environmental Sciences
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research	3.049	Q3	• Business
Energies	3.004	Q3	• Energy & Fuels
Agriculture	2.925	Q1	• Agronomy
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information	2.899	Q2	• Geography, Physical
			• Computer Science, Information Systems
		Q3	• Remote Sensing
Micromachines	2.891	Q2	• Instruments & Instrumentation
			• Physics, Applied
		Q3	• Chemistry, Analytical
			• Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Coatings	2.881	Q2	• Materials Science, Coatings & Films
			• Physics, Applied
		Q3	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Children	2.863	Q2	• Pediatrics
Processes	2.847	Q3	• Engineering, Chemical
Separations	2.777	Q3	• Chemistry, Analytical
Insects	2.769	Q1	• Entomology
Animals	2.752	Q1	• Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
			• Veterinary Sciences
Symmetry	2.713	Q2	• Multidisciplinary Sciences
Atmosphere	2.686	Q3	• Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
			• Environmental Sciences
Applied Sciences	2.679	Q2	• Engineering, Multidisciplinary
			• Physics, Applied
		Q3	• Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
			• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Photonics	2.676	Q2	• Optics
Buildings *	2.648	Q2	• Construction & Building Technology
			• Engineering, Civil
Healthcare	2.645	Q2	• Health Policy & Services (SSCI)
		Q3	• Health Care Sciences & Services (SCIE)
Minerals	2.644	Q2	• Mining & Mineral Processing
			• Mineralogy
			• Geochemistry & Geophysics
Forests	2.634	Q1	• Forestry
Crystals	2.589	Q2	• Crystallography
		Q3	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Entropy	2.524	Q2	• Physics, Multidisciplinary
Diversity	2.465	Q2	• Biodiversity Conservation
		Q3	• Ecology
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering	2.458	Q2	• Oceanography
			• Engineering, Marine
			• Engineering, Ocean
Medicina	2.430	Q2	• Medicine, General & Internal
Machines *	2.428	Q2	• Engineering, Mechanical
		Q3	• Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Electronics	2.397	Q3	• Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
			• Computer Science, Information Systems
			• Physics, Applied
Fishes *	2.385	Q2	• Fisheries
			• Marine & Freshwater Biology
Metals	2.351	Q2	• Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering
		Q3	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Horticulturae *	2.331	Q1	• Horticulture
Veterinary Sciences *	2.304	Q1	• Veterinary Sciences
Universe	2.278	Q3	• Physics, Particles & Fields
			• Astronomy & Astrophysics
Mathematics	2.258	Q1	• Mathematics
Magnetochemistry	2.193	Q3	• Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear
			• Chemistry, Physical
			• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Current Issues in Molecular Biology	2.081	Q4	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Actuators	1.994	Q3	• Instruments & Instrumentation
			• Engineering, Mechanical
Aerospace *	1.659	Q2	• Engineering, Aerospace

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 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.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Kousuke Hanada has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new Section “Plant Science” in Life.

Dr. Kousuke Hanada is a Professor in the Department of Bioscience and Bioinformatics of Kyusyu Institute of Technology, Japan. Prof. Dr. Hanada completed his PhD studies at Graduate University for Advanced Studies before completing his postdoc at the National Institute of Genetics, Ecology & Evolution Department of University of Chicago and Plant Biology Department of Michigan State University. After this, Prof. Dr. Kousuke Hanada visited RIKEN as a researcher. Following which, at the end of 2020, he became a professor. Prof. Dr. Kousuke Hanada’s group has solid knowledge of plant biology, plant genomics and plant evolution, with a particular emphasis on plant genome analysis and plant diversity analysis.

Prof. Dr. Kousuke Hanada has published 115 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Kousuke Hanada as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section "Plant Science", and we look forward to Life achieving many more milestones under his leadership.

For further information please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sections/Plant_Sci.

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)

To assist health workers and researchers working under challenging conditions to bring this pandemic to its end, Life has created a new section called “COVID and Life”. This section welcomes articles and reviews related to the COVID-19 pandemic and Life is committed to disseminating high-quality research as quickly as possible. All content related to the COVID-19 pandemic is freely available.

The following Special Issues of this section are currently open for submissions:

• Ecology, Evolution and Epidemiology of Coronaviruses (Deadline: 25 May 2021)
• Neutralizing-Antibody-Based Treatments for COVID-19: Achievements and Lessons Learnt for Future Pandemics (Deadline: 31 August 2021)
• Old and New Pandemics: Challenges for Humans (Deadline: 30 September 2021)

Life (ISSN 2075-1729; CODEN: LBSIB7) is an international peer-reviewed open access journal of scientific studies related to the fundamental themes in life sciences, published monthly online by MDPI.

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript to the new sections mentioned above, please click here.

To propose or request further information, please contact the Life Editorial Office ([email protected]).

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the Life 2020 Young Investigator Awards are Prof. Dr. Luning Liu and Dr. David E. Olson.

Prof. Dr. Luning Liu is Chair of Microbial Bioenergetics and Bioengineering and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. His research focuses on the biosynthesis and functions of photosynthetic membranes, macromolecular assemblies, and organelles, as well as engineering bio-machineries for various biotechnological applications. He has published over 60 high-profile papers. As PI and co-PI, Dr. Liu has secured GBP 3.0M and GBP 4.5M funds.

 

Dr. David E. Olson is a chemical neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on understanding how small molecules like psychedelics influence neural plasticity, learning, memory, and mood. By harnessing compound-induced neuroplasticity, Dr. Olson’s group is developing next-generation neurotherapeutics to treat a variety of brain disorders.

 

As awardees, Prof. Dr. Liu and Dr. Olson will each receive an honorarium of 1000 CHF and the opportunity to publish one paper free of charge before 31 December 2021 in Life, after peer review.

We want to thank all the excellent young scientists who applied for this award as their brilliant CVs made the choice very difficult. We would also like to thank all of the Award Committee Members for their thorough evaluation of the applications.

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.

Adams, Dave Agarwal, Ravi P. Ahn, Choon Ki Ahn, Myung-Ju Albrecht, Randy A. Andersson, Dan I. Anker, Stefan D. Apergis, Nicholas Ariga, Katsuhiko Artaxo, Paulo Balsamo, Gianpaolo Barba, Francisco J. Benediktsson, Jon Atli Benelli, Giovanni Bhatnagar, Amit Bialystok, Ellen Blaabjerg, Frede Blay, Jean-Yves Bogers, Marcel Bolton, Declan J. Boyer, Cyrille Brocca, Luca Bruix, Jordi Buhalis, Dimitrios Burdick, Jason A. Byrd, John C. Cabeza, Luisa F. Cabrerizo-Lorite, Francisco Javier Cai, Jianchao Calhoun, Vince D. Cantu, Robert C. Cerqueira, Miguel Chang, Jo-Shu Chau, Kwok-wing Chemat, Farid Chen, Jianmin Chen, Jun Chen, Min Chen, Shaowei Chen, Wei Chen, Wei-Hsin Chen, Xiaofeng Chen, Yangkang Chen, Zhi-Gang Chiclana, Francisco Corella, Dolores Cortes, Javier Cortes, Jorge Cummings, Kenneth Michael Dai, Shifeng Decker, Eric A. DePinho, Ronald A. Dimopoulos, Meletios-Athanasios Dincer, Ibrahim Du, Yihong Dupont, Didier Edwards, David Ellahi, Rahmat Ellis, Erle C. ElMasry, Gamal Esteller, Manel Estruch, Ramón Fang, Chuanglin Fasano, Alessio Fernandez-Lafuente, Roberto Ferreira, Isabel Fortino, Giancarlo Galluzzi, Lorenzo Galvano, Fabio Gandomi, Amir H. Gandomi, Amir H. Gao, Bin Gao, Feng Gao, Wei Garbe, Claus García, Hermenegildo Geschwind, Daniel H. Giampieri, Francesca Giralt, Sergio A. Glanz, Karen Goldewijk, Kees Klein Gössling, Stefan Govindan, Kannan Granato, Daniel Grosso, Giuseppe Grosso, Giuseppe Guerrero, Josep M. Haase, Dagmar Hagger, Martin S. Hamblin, Michael R. Han, Heesup Jankovic, Joseph Janotti, Anderson

Jiang, Hai-Long Kalaji, Hazem M. Kalantar-Zadeh, Kourosh Kaner, Richard B. Karimi, Hamid Reza Kataoka, Kazunori Keesstra, Saskia Kepp, Oliver Kerminen, Veli-Matti Keyzers, Robert A. Khademhosseini, Ali Khan, Nafees A. Kim, Ki-Hyun Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír Klenk, Hans-Peter Konopleva, Marina Y. Krammer, Florian Krebs, Frederik C. Kroemer, Guido Kudo, Masatoshi Kurths, Juergen Kurzrock, Razelle Kuznetsov, Nikolay V. Kyrpides, Nikos C. La Vecchia, Carlo Lai, Yuekun Lam, James Lancellotti, Patrizio Lee, Sangmoon Leung, Victor C. M. Li, Jinghong Li, Yurui Lindahl, José M. Merigó Lip, Gregory Y. H. Loh, Xian Jun Long, Hualou Lund, Henrik Luo, Jingshan Luque, Rafael Lyons, Timothy W. Ma, Jun Ma, Wen-Xiu Ma, Yanming Maeda, Keisuke Makarova, Kira Mantovani, Alberto Martín-Belloso, Olga Martinoia, Enrico Marzband, Mousa Masclaux-Daubresse, Celine Masson, Patrick Mateos, María Victoria Mathiesen, Brian Vad Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof McArthur, Grant A. McCauley, Darren Medlock, Jolyon M. Melero, Ignacio Mezzetti, Bruno Miroshnichenko, Andrey E. Moran, Daniel Mueller, Lukas A. Mueller-Roeber, Bernd Naushad, Mu Nemeroff, Charles B. Nieto, Juan J. O'Donnell, Colm Ogino, Shuji Olabi, Abdul-Ghani O'Regan, Donal Orsini, Nicola Oswald, Isabelle P. Ozcan, Aydogan Pahl-Wostl, Claudia Pang, Huan Payne, James E. Peng, Shushi Perc, Matjaz Perez-Alvarez, Jose Angel Piquero, Alex R. Ploss, Alexander Postolache, Mihai Pradhan, Biswajeet Prinsep, Michele R. Qian, Dong Qu, Xiaogang Reiter, Russel J. Riahi, Keywan Richter, Andreas Rignot, Eric Robert, Caroline Ros, Emilio Rosell, Rafael

Rosen, Marc A. Rossolini, Gian Maria Saad, Fred Saad, Walid Sadorsky, Perry Sakthivel, Rathinasamy Schwab, Matthias Scolyer, Richard A. Serra-Majem, Lluis Sethi, Gautam Seto, Karen C. Settele, Josef Seymour, John F. Shi, Peng Siano, Pierluigi Sillanpää, Mika Simal-Gandara, Jesus Smagghe, Guy Srivastava, Hari M. Stadler, Peter F. Sun, Fengchun Sunderland, Elsie M. Suzuki, Nobuhiro Svenning, Jens-Christian Tan, Weihong Teixeira, José António Thakur, Vijay Kumar Tong, Shilu Tornabene, Francesco Tsao, Rong Tukker, Arnold Turskis, Zenonas Uversky, Vladimir N. van Wesemael, Bas Van Zwieten, Lukas Vangronsveld, Jaco Varma, Rajender S. Varshney, Rajeev K. Vasquez, Juan C. Velicogna, Isabella Vieta, Eduard Wade, Timothy J. Wagner, Wolfgang Wamba, Samuel Fosso Wang, Chunsheng Wang, Guoxiu Wang, Joseph Wang, Qi Wang, Tao Wang, Yuan Wiens, John J. Wu, Hao Bin Wu, Hui Wu, Tom Wu, Zhongbiao Xia, Xinhui Xiao, Wenjiao Xin, Sen Xiong, Rui Xu, Bin Xu, Zeshui Yan, Huaicheng Yang, Bing Yang, Hongxing Yang, Jie Yang, Xiao-Jun Yin, Shen Ying, Guang-Guo Young, Allan H. Yu, Guihua Zarco-Tejada, Pablo J. Zavadskas, EdmundasKazimieras Zeadally, Sherali Zhang, Fan Zhang, Liangpei Zhang, Qichun Zhang, Xian-Ming Zhang, Yue-Jun Zhao, Guochun Zhao, Li-Dong Zhu, Zhe Zhuang, Xiaodong Zou, Quan

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.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Pasquale Stano has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new section “Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology” in Life.

Professor Pasquale Stano joined the Pier Luigi Luisi group in Zürich in February 2002, working on the liposomal drug delivery (of camptothecin derivatives, in collaboration with Sigma-Tau, Pomezia, IT).

In 2004, the group moved to the Department of Biology of the University of Roma Tre (Rome, Italy), where their research focused on the construction and conceptualization of semi-synthetic "minimal cells", thanks to funding from the ‘Enrico Fermi’ Study Center (Rome, Italy), the FP6 European project “Synthcells”, the Human Frontiers Science Program, and the Italian PRIN. Professor Pasquale Stano has significantly contributed to these activities by coordinating research activities together with the group leader P. L. Luisi.

Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy). He mainly promotes a bottom-up approach in synthetic biology, origin of life research, and systems chemistry. Additional interests are green and sustainable chemistry, protein structure and function, and systems thinking and complexity.

He is the author of over 166 scientific international publications, including original research articles, reviews, proceeding papers, and book chapters in the field of synthetic biology, origin of life research, biochemistry, and systems chemistry. He co-edited the book “The Minimal Cell” (Springer, 2011). Moreover, he acted as guest editor for 8 Special Issues.

We warmly welcome Professor Pasquale Stano as the Editor-in-Chief of the section "Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology", and we look forward to Life achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please click:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sections/synthetic_biology_systems_biology

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Nicola Smania has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new section “Physiology and Pathology” in Life.

Professor Nicola Smania is full professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movemen, University of Verona, Italy.

He is Director of the Neuromotor and Cognitive Rehabilitation Research Center at the Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement, University of Verona.

He is Director of the Postgraduate Specialization Program in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the School of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Verona.

He is President of the Bachelors Degree in Physiotherapy of the University of Verona.

He is President of the Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Science in Healthcare Professions.

Professor Smania is author of over 400 scientific publications on national and international journals, proceeding and books in the field of Neuroscience, Neurorehabilitation and Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine.

We warmly welcome Professor Nicola Smania as the Editor-in-Chief of the section "Physiology and Pathology", and we look forward to Life to achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please click https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sections/Physiology_and_Pathology

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Bruce J. Nicholson has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new section “Biochemistry, Biophysics and Computational Biology” in Life.

Dr. Nicholson is a Professor of Biochemistry and Structural Biology, where he served as Chair for 15 years, and Co-Director and Founder of the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery at the University of Texas Health San Antonio. He also serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of Hera Biotech, and has served as President of the Association for Medical and Graduate Departments of Biochemistry, on a number of advisory boards, as Editor-in Chief of Cell Communication and Adhesion and on the Fcaulty of 1000. He is a prior Pew Scholar and recipient of the Max Planck Prize.

His lab has been investigating the permeability characteristics of Connexin channels, which have proven surprisingly selective, and defining the molecular basis of this selectivity and regulation of these channels. Most recently, he has focused efforts on understanding the role of gap junctions in invasive processes in cancer metastasis and endometriosis, a disease affecting 10% of women, and a major contributor to infertility in the world.  

We warmly welcome Dr. Bruce Nicholson as the Editor-in-Chief of the section "Biochemistry, Biophysics and Computational Biology", and we look forward to Life achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please click:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sectioneditors/biochemistry_biophysics_computational

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new section “Medical Research” in Life.

Prof. Dr. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai is a Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of North Texas Health Science Center. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai has long been involved in teaching broad aspects of general and organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and drug discovery & delivery with special emphasis on the central nervous system.

She is a member of the American Chemical Society and has served on the editorial board of numerous journals. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai has been the academic editor of a successful special issue devoted to neuroprotection in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and have long served as journal and grant reviewer.

Also, she is an inventor in several patents pertaining to the field of translational medicine, drug discovery and site-specific drug delivery. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai is an award-winning scientist and pharmacy educator within SCOP; for example, she is the first recipient of UNT SCOP Faculty Achievement Award that was awarded by her peers in recognition  of excellence in academic activities.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Katalin Prokai-Tatrai as the Editor-in-Chief of the section "Medical Research", and we look forward to Life to achieving many milestones under her leadership. For further information on the journal section, please click: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/sectioneditors/Medical

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].

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Stefano Gianni has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the new section “Proteins and Proteomics” in Life.

Dr. Stefano Gianni is a professor at the Department of Biochemical Sciences of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Stefano Gianni complete his undergraduate and PhD studies at the University of Rome, before completing his postdoc at the Centre for Protein Engineering of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge. After this, Prof. Dr. Stefano Gianni returned to Rome, where he established his independent research group and became a professor at the end of 2012. Prof. Dr. Stefano Gianni’s group have solid knowledge of protein engineering and biophysics, with a particular emphasis on protein folding and protein–protein recognition.

Prof. Dr. Stefano Gianni has contributed over 30 talks and seminars in international conferences (including the FEBS annual meeting and two annual Protein Society meetings). Prof. Gianni is the author of over 130 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

We are confident that the strong academic background and connections of Prof. Dr. Stefano Gianni will continue to raise the prestige and quality of Life.

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

Journal	Impact Factor	Rank	Category	Details
Actuators	1.957	31/64 (Q2)	• Instruments & Instrumentation	Link
Agriculture	2.072	25/91 (Q2)	• Agronomy	Link
Biology	3.796	19/93 (Q1)	• Biology	Link
Biomedicines	4.717	30/138 (Q1) 36/270 (Q1)	• Medicine, Research & Experimental • Pharmacology & Pharmacy	Link
Biosensors	3.240	24/86 (Q2)	• Chemistry, Analytical	Link
Chemosensors	3.108	16/64 (Q1) 27/86 (Q2) 13/27 (Q2)	• Instruments & Instrumentation • Chemistry, Analytical • Electrochemistry	Link
Children	2.078	50/128 (Q2)	• Pediatrics	Link
Healthcare	1.916	62/102 (Q3) 45/87 (Q3)	• Health Care Sciences & Services (SCIE) • Health Policy & Services (SSCI)	Link
Journal of Fungi	4.621	5/29 (Q1) 31/135 (Q1)	• Mycology • Microbiology	Link
Journal of Personalized Medicine	4.433	24/165 (Q1) 10/102 (Q1)	• Medicine, General & Internal • Health Care Sciences & Services	Link
Land	2.429	58/123 (Q2)	• Environmental Studies (SSCI)	Link
Life	2.991	26/93 (Q2) 109/267 (Q2)	• Biology • Microbiology	Link
Magnetochemistry	1.947	22/45 (Q2) 109/159 (Q3) 201/314 (Q3)	• Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear • Chemistry, Physical • Materials Science, Multidisciplinary	Link
Membranes	3.094	53/143 (Q2) 129/314 (Q2) 23/89 (Q2)	• Engineering, Chemical • Materials Science, Multidisciplinary • Polymer Science	Link
Pharmaceuticals	4.286	49/270 (Q1)	• Pharmacology & Pharmacy	Link
Photonics	2.140	48/97 (Q2)	• Optics	Link
Separations	1.900	53/86 (Q3)	• Chemistry, Analytical	Link
Toxics	3.271	32/92 (Q2) 92/265 (Q2)	• Toxicology • Environmental Sciences	Link

Updated Impact Factors

Journal	Impact Factor	Rank	Category	Details
Agronomy	2.603	18/91 (Q1) 65/234 (Q2)	• Agronomy • Plant Sciences	Link
Animals	2.323	10/63 (Q1) 14/142 (Q1)	• Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science • Veterinary Sciences	Link
Antibiotics	3.893	23/93 (Q1) 64/270 (Q1)	• Infectious Diseases • Pharmacology & Pharmacy	Link
Antioxidants	5.014	10/139 (Q1) 56/297 (Q1) 7/61 (Q1)	• Food Science & Technology • Biochemistry & Molecular Biology • Chemistry, Medicinal	Link
Applied Sciences	2.474	161/314 (Q3) 32/91 (Q2) 88/177 (Q2) 62/154 (Q2)	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary • Engineering, Multidisciplinary • Chemistry, Multidisciplinary • Physics, Applied	Link
Atmosphere	2.397	48/93 (Q3)	• Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences	Link
Biomolecules	4.082	98/297 (Q2)	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology	Link
Brain Sciences	3.332	113/271 (Q2)	• Neurosciences	Link
Cancers	6.126	37/244 (Q1)	• Oncology	Link
Catalysts	3.520	65/159 (Q2)	• Chemistry, Physical	Link
Cells	4.366	70/195 (Q2)	• Cell Biology	Link
Coatings	2.436	10/21 (Q2)	• Materials Science, Coatings & Films	Link
Crystals	2.404	10/26 (Q2) 165/314 (Q3)	• Crystallography • Materials Science, Multidisciplinary	Link
Diagnostics	3.110	39/165 (Q1)	• Medicine, General & Internal	Link
Diversity	1.402	119/168 (Q3)	• Ecology	Link
Electronics	2.412	125/266 (Q2)	• Engineering, Electrical & Electronic	Link
Energies	2.702	63/112 (Q3)	• Energy & Fuels	Link
Entropy	2.494	33/85 (Q2)	• Physics, Multidisciplinary	Link
Foods	4.092	27/139 (Q1)	• Food Science & Technology	Link
Forests	2.221	17/68 (Q1)	• Forestry	Link
Genes	3.759	53/177 (Q2)	• Genetics & Heredity	Link
Insects	2.220	18/101 (Q1)	• Entomology	Link
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)	2.849	58/193 (Q2) 32/170 (Q1) 105/265 (Q2)	• Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (SCIE) • Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (SSCI) • Environmental Sciences (SCIE)	Link
International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)	4.556	74/297 (Q1) 48/177 (Q2)	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology • Chemistry, Multidisciplinary	Link
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI)	2.239	31/50 (Q3) 18/30 (Q3)	• Geography, Physical • Remote Sensing	Link
Journal of Clinical Medicine	3.303	36/165 (Q1)	• Medicine, General & Internal	Link
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering	2.033	31/66 (Q2)	• Oceanography	Link
Marine Drugs	4.073	16/61 (Q2)	• Chemistry, Medicinal	Link
Materials	3.057	132/314 (Q2)	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary	Link
Mathematics	1.747	28/324 (Q1)	• Mathematics	Link
Medicina	1.205	107/165 (Q3)	• Medicine, General & Internal	Link
Metabolites	4.097	95/297 (Q2)	• Biochemistry & Molecular Biology	Link
Metals	2.117	18/79 (Q1) 185/314 (Q3)	• Metallurgy & Metallurgical Engineering • Materials Science, Multidisciplinary	Link
Micromachines	2.523	56/92 (Q3) 23/64 (Q2)	• Nanoscience & Nanotechnology • Instruments & Instrumentation	Link
Microorganisms	4.152	37/135 (Q2)	• Microbiology	Link
Minerals	2.380	6/21 (Q2) 11/30 (Q2)	• Mining & Mineral Processing • Mineralogy	Link
Molecules	3.267	70/177 (Q2) 141/297 (Q2)	• Chemistry, Multidisciplinary • Biochemistry & Molecular Biology	Link
Nanomaterials	4.324	89/314 (Q2) 42/103 (Q2)	• Materials Science, Multidisciplinary • Nanoscience & Nanotechnology	Link
Nutrients	4.546	17/89 (Q1)	• Nutrition & Dietetics	Link
Pathogens	3.018	65/135 (Q2)	• Microbiology	Link
Pharmaceutics	4.421	44/270 (Q1)	• Pharmacology & Pharmacy	Link
Plants	2.762	58/234 (Q1)	• Plant Sciences	Link
Polymers	3.426	16/89 (Q1)	• Polymer Science	Link
Processes	2.753	59/143 (Q2)	• Engineering, Chemical	Link
Remote Sensing	4.509	9/30 (Q2)	• Remote Sensing	Link
Sensors	3.275	22/86 (Q2) 77/266 (Q2) 15/64 (Q1)	• Chemistry, Analytical • Engineering, Electrical & Electronic • Instruments & Instrumentation	Link
Sustainability	2.576	120/265 (Q2) 26/41 (Q3) 53/123 (Q2) 6/8 (Q3)	• Environmental Sciences (SCIE) • Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SCIE) • Environmental Studies (SSCI) • Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (SSCI)	Link
Symmetry	2.645	29/71 (Q2)	• Multidisciplinary Sciences	Link
Toxins	3.531	21/92 (Q1) 34/139 (Q1)	• Toxicology • Food Science & Technology	Link
Universe	1.752	18/29 (Q3) 42/68 (Q3)	• Physics, Particles & Fields • Astronomy & Astrophysics	Link
Vaccines	4.086	57/158 (Q2) 50/138 (Q2)	• Immunology • Medicine, Research & Experimental	Link
Viruses	3.816	12/37 (Q2)	• Virology	Link
Water	2.544	31/94 (Q2)	• Water Resources	Link

Source: Clarivate 2020, InCites Journal Citation Reports®.

The editors are pleased to inform that Life has received a first Impact Factor of 2.991, as published in the 2019 Edition of the Journal Citation Reports® (Clarivate), released just now. Life ranks 26th out of 93 (Q2) titles in the 'Biology' category.

Thank you to the authors, editorial board members and reviewers for their contribution in achieving this milestone for Life.

To better categorize papers published within the journal Life, a new topical Section “Pharmaceutical Sciences” was recently established. Prof. Dr. Ramón Cacabelos has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of this new section.

Dr. Ramón Cacabelos is Professor of Genomic Medicine at the Continental University Medical School, Huancayo, Peru; and President of the EuroEspes Biomedical Research Center, International Center of Neuroscience and Genomic Medicine, Corunna, Spain. He received his MD from Oviedo University, PhD from Santiago University, and DMSci. (Psychiatry) from Osaka University Medical School, Japan. After a decade at the Department of Psychiatry in Osaka, he returned to Spain and focused his research activity on the genomics and pharmacogenomics of neurodegenerative disorders. He was the founder of the first Chair of Genomic Medicine in Spain at Camilo Jose Cela University, Madrid, where he served as Vice-Rector of Research and Science. He has published over 600 papers and 24 books, and also holds the Presidency of the Spanish Society of Genomic Medicine and the World Association of Genomic Medicine.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Ramón Cacabelos as the Editor-in-Chief of the section “Pharmaceutical Sciences”, and we look forward to Life to achieving many milestones under his leadership. For further information on the journal section, please click here.

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

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Lluís Ribas de Pouplana has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Genetics and Genomics Research” of Life (ISSN 2075-1729).

Prof. Dr. Lluís Ribas de Pouplana
Affiliation: Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Parc Científic de Barcelona, C/Baldiri Reixac 10, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Website: https://www.irbbarcelona.org/en/profile/lluis-ribas
E-mail: [email protected]

Prof. Dr. Lluís Ribas de Pouplana received his B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Barcelona (1988), and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh. After the completion of his doctoral studies he was hired as a postdoctoral scientist at the Department of Biology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993–97). From Cambridge, he moved to San Diego, where he accepted a Senior Research Scientist position and, in 2001, an Assistant Professorship of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute. In June 2003 he accepted an ICREA Research Professorship, and became a principal investigator at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona).

His research is focused on the mechanisms of control of protein synthesis, or gene translation. The transformation of genetic information into protein sequence is the central process of biology; its control is essential for the well-being of the cell, and a large number of human diseases are caused by defects in this control.

He also worked as Guest Editor for the Special Issues

Evolution of tRNA
International Journal of Molecular Sciences: Functions of Transfer RNAs 2.0

The editorial team looks forward to his contribution to the continued success of Life and warmly welcomes Prof. Dr. Lluís Ribas de Pouplana as the Editor-in-Chief of the Section "Genetics and Genomics Research". For further information on the journal sections, please click here.

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.

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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 Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC 2020) in Washington, DC, USA, 22–26 April 2020.
TAGC is a unique conference organized by the Genetics Society of America that gives you both topic-driven and community-specific sessions to foster collaboration and inspire fresh thinking.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Genes
• Life
• Brain Sciences
• Cancers
• IJMS
• Cells
• Healthcare
• Viruses
• Microorganisms

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth 723). 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://genetics-gsa.org/tagc-2020/.

MDPI will be attending the 20th Biennial Meeting for the Society for Free Radical Research International (SFRRI 2020), Taoyuan, Taiwan, 17-20 March 2020.

The Society for Free Radical Research, founded in the United Kingdom in 1982, is an International Society and operates as a charitable voluntary, non-profit institution. The aims and objectives of the International Society are to advance education in free radical processes with particular reference to their industrial and medical importance, informing education for the benefit of the public. The Society promotes interest in all aspects of research into the reactions and properties of free radicals and into their physical, chemical, biological, medical, and industrial roles. Founded in 1982, and now with over 2500 members worldwide, the Society consists of five autonomous regional groups: SFRR Asia, SFRR Europe, SFRR Australasia, Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine (SFRR Americas), and SFRR Africa. A number of regional groups have also been established within these areas.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Antioxidants
• Molecules
• Biology
• International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)
• Medicines
• Biomolecules
• Life
• Metabolites
• Biomedicines

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the website: http://www.sfrri2020.org/.

To expand our offerings to the life science community, Life is recruiting researchers to join the Editorial Board of the new sections:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Proteins and Proteomics
• Genetics and Genomics Research
• Microbiology and Engineering
• Entomology
• Plant Science and Engineering

These sections will expand the scope and editorial board of Life, in order to cover areas that are less well-represented by the current team. If you are interested in this position or know of potential candidates to recommend, please contact us by 31 March 2020.

Life is covered by the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE—Web of Science), BIOSIS Previews, as well as Scopus (CiteScore 3.31). Citations are available in PubMed, with full-text archives available in PubMed Central. The first impact factor for Life is due in June 2020 (JCR—Clarivate Analytics). The website of Life can be accessed here.

Should you decide to serve on the Editorial Board, you would be responsible for some of the following tasks, depending on your availability:

- Reviewing a couple of manuscripts per year;
- Serving as Guest Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research, and making final decisions for submitted papers;
- Recommending Special Issue topics and suggesting potential Guest Editors;
- Identifying appropriate conferences for Editors to attend;
- Promoting the journal.

To apply or request further information, please contact the Life Editorial Office here. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

MDPI is pleased to announce the release of SciProfiles, its social network platform for researchers and scholars.

The purpose of SciProfiles is aligned with MDPI’s broad mission to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and to serve scholars and communities by providing opportunities for academic networking.

SciProfiles also ambitions to serve as a sustainable, transparent and community-driven research evaluation system aligned with the DORA principles (https://sfdora.org/). Through their scientific profiles, academics can highlight their contribution to research communities, and measure their impact on their field, beyond publication numbers and impact factors. SciProfiles is currently a beta version and will enrich to give researchers the possibility to highlight all of their contributions to science and their scientific communities as authors, reviewers, editors, conference organizers, conference panelists, conference keynote speakers, or even as lecturers or student mentors at their University.

The classic components of popular community social networks, including follower/following, classical metrics, endorsements and recommendations (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1690), comments (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1397) are or will be very soon highlighted in SciProfiles as open science contributions.

To help increase the impact and visibility of articles and their authors to an appropriate audience, the platform offers a NewsFeed that includes recommendations of relevant content based on interests, publication history, saved searches or colleagues’ recommendations.

SciProfiles’ avatars are now being integrated on several MDPI platforms, meaning that you will directly access researchers’ profiles from any of the MDPI platforms:

MDPI's journal publishing website: www.mdpi.com
MDPI's conference hosting and management website: www.sciforum.net
MDPI's pre-print website : www.preprints.org
MDPI's knowledge sharing website : www.encyclopedia.pub
MDPI's books store: www.mdpi.com/books
MDPI's literature database : www.scilit.net

SciProfiles aims to serve scientific communities at large. It can be embedded into third-party websites and also welcomes integration of data from third-parties.

Dr. Shu-Kun Lin: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/2
Dr. Franck Vazquez: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/FranckVazquez
Dr. Martyn Rittman: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/martynrittman

We are pleased to announce that Life (ISSN 2075-1729) has been accepted for inclusion in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) in the Web of Science Core Collection. Life is due to receive its 2019 journal metrics in the 2020 release of the Journal Citation Reports^TM (Clarivate Analytics). The Editorial Board of Life currently consists of 81 members.

Thank you to all authors, reviewers, and editors who have contributed to the journals and enabled these achievements!

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2019 MDPI Writing Prize. Entrants were asked to write on the theme "Judging research: How should research and researchers be evaluated and rewarded?" We received a large number of excellent essays from PhD students and postdocs, and the process of shortlisting and choosing winners was not an easy one. The winners demonstrated excellent writing skills alongside interesting and thought-provoking ideas.

As last year, we will begin the process of collating all entries into a book that will be available in open access format. Alongside promoting good writing skills, we see the prize as a way to promote the voices of early career researchers within broader debates and policy discussions.

Congratulations to all of the participants and especially the winners. The winners are:

1st Prize (500 CHF):
Albin Nilsson (National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland)
[Read here]

2nd Prize (250 CHF):
Qi Zhang (Shandong University, Jinan, China)
[Read here]
Igor Ogashawara (Indiana University, Indianapolis, US)
[Read here]

3rd Prize (100 CHF):
Margaret Sivapragasam (Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Perak, Malaysia)
[Read here]
Arvind Sharma (The University of Queensland, Gatton, Australia)
[Read here]
Jose Flores-Guerrero (University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands)
[Read here]

The MDPI Writing Prize is an annual award supported by MDPI Author Services, which provides services including language editing, reformatting, plagiarism checks, and image editing.

MDPI is pleased to announce the release of a new functionality giving the possibility for researchers and scholars to endorse, and formally recommend articles to their colleagues.

MDPI was an early signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (https://sfdora.org/read/) which calls for improvement in how quality and impact of scholarly research outputs are evaluated, especially in moving beyond journal-based citation metrics (journal Impact Factor, Scopus Citescore, etc.).

MDPI supports the establishment of article-level impact metrics, including citations, views, downloads, and Altmetric scores. These measures serve as an impact indicator for research articles on a case–by-case basis, assessing paper on its own merit. However, these metrics are also subjective and can give a biased picture of the article impact: they do not directly reflect the quality or the intrinsic scientific value of the article.

In our view, community engagement with publications based on community-driven metrics can help to overcome this limitation. We have therefore launched an option for scholars to endorse articles, indicating their own assessment of its content and making a recommendation to their community. This follows our implementation of the open source Hypothesis commenting tool, which has been available for all articles published by MDPI for over a year (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/1397). Both endorsement and commenting are available for all previously published and forthcoming MDPI articles.

In addition to potentially serving as a sustainable solution to article assessment, endorsements will help scientific communities to identify the most relevant articles, independently of the journal in which it was published.

The code for the endorsing functionality, which relies on DOIs and ORCIDs, will be made available on GitHub with an open source license.

Dr. Shu-Kun Lin, President and Founder
Dr. Franck Vazquez, Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Martyn Rittman, Publishing Director

Encyclopedia is pleased to announce that certain well-prepared entries are eligible for a 100 CHF voucher, which can be used for paper publication in any journals in MDPI. We believe that your contribution would be a great help in keeping up with scientific developments. Do not miss the chance to publish with us. Please clink here to find the detailed guideline.

Encyclopedia is a free online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as provide a comprehensive record of scientific development. If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact us via [email protected].

We are pleased to announce that Preprints has passed the milestone of 10,000 posted preprints. We are delighted to have reached this after just over three years of operation. Our congratulations and thanks go to our authors and advisory board who have supported growth of the platform and been crucial to its operation.

You can find further details at https://www.preprints.org/announcement/show/37.

Last week, the DeepGreen initiative in Germany started into an advanced test phase with the publishing partners S. Karger AG, SAGE Publishing, MDPI, Frontiers and De Gruyter, as well as 27 universities from all over Germany, from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences to University of Konstanz.

DeepGreen aims at lowering the barriers for open access publishing by automatically delivering metadata and full text publications from participating publishers to authorized repositories at German universities.

In preparation for a later live operation, the advanced test phase serves to gain experience with extensive data deliveries from publishers and also handling different repository software (including OPUS4, DSpace, EPrints, MyCoRe). DeepGreen thereby acts as a sophisticated platform, receiving articles published by authors affiliated with German universities and depositing these articles to respective university repositories, based on the affiliation metadata. For more information about DeepGreen: https://deepgreen.kobv.de

Karger AG has been a close cooperation partner of the DeepGreen consortium since 2016. S. Karger has more than 80 subscription-based and around 20 open access journals covering a wide spectrum in health science. DeepGreen will assign S. Karger articles to authorized institutions on the legal basis of German alliance and national licenses.

SAGE Publishing  was founded by Sara Miller McCune in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE publishes more than 1,000 journals and over 600 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. SAGE Publishing has been a close cooperation partner of DeepGreen since 2016.

MDPI  is a scientific open access publisher and has been a partner of DeepGreen since 2017. MDPI comprises 205 peer-reviewed journals of various disciplines. All articles are published under a CC-BY license and are freely available without embargo period.

Frontiers  is a scientific open access publisher with 61 journals of over 600 academic disciplines. All articles are peer-reviewed and published freely available under CC-BY license.

De Gruyter  is an academic publisher with more than 700 subscription-based and open access journals of 29 disciplines. Articles provided by De Gruyter will be assigned to institutions with German alliance and national licenses.

There is promising communication with other publishers.

DeepGreen is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the consortium comprises six institutions: the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg, Bavarian State Library, Bavarian Library Network, University Library of the Technische Universität Berlin, University Library of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Helmholtz Open Science Coordination Office at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

If you would like to know in more detail which institutions take part in the advanced test phase of DeepGreen, you can find more information here.

The University of Basel and the MDPI Sustainability Foundation are organizing the First Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum on 9th September 2019.

The aim of this event is to provide background and perspectives on Plan S to Learned Societies, which have to make well-informed decisions to transition their journals to Open Access (OA).

The BSPF will bring together several representatives of Learned societies, Plan S architects as well as representatives from various publishers and publishing platforms. After getting the big picture from cOAlition S, panel discussions will allow to better understand the diverse challenges that Learned societies are facing to transition their journals to OA as well as to identify sustainable, implementable and scalable solutions for successful Open Access transition.

For program details and registration, please follow the link below:
https://sciforum.net/conference/SustainableSolutionsToOpenAccess

We will be attending Goldschmidt2019, to be held in the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB), Barcelona, Spain, on 18–23 August 2019. Goldschmidt is the foremost annual, international conference on geochemistry and related subjects, organized by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society. Representatives from the following open-access journals will be attending:

Minerals

Geosciences

Life

Resources

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (booth #35). 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://goldschmidt.info/2019/.

MDPI will be attending the AbSciCon 2019 conference, which will take place in Seattle, Washington, from June 24 to 28, 2019, representing the following open access journals:

     

If you are planning to attend, please visit our Booth #6, to talk to our editors about our journals and open access publishing. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person!

For more information about the conference, please visit: https://connect.agu.org/abscicon/home.

In November 2018, the Astrobiology Society of Britain (ASB) became affiliated to Life. As part of this collaboration, all members of ASB enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to Life.

The Astrobiology Society of Britain (ASB), founded in March 2003, is a learned society for scientists and others interested in the relationship between life and its cosmic environment. This covers a vast diversity of topics and research methodologies, encompassing observational astronomy, theoretical astrophysics, geological expeditions, and laboratory-based microbiology and prebiotic chemistry. The ASB is a highly interdisciplinary forum, with a membership spanning the full spectrum of these topics, and is open to all professional scientists and students interested in the field. Its membership is international. 

In addition to acting as a nexus for its members and running this website, the ASB publishes a quarterly newsletter and runs workshops and conferences. The newsletter provides updates on all aspects of astrobiology, from the latest results and news to activities of our members and up-coming international conferences and meetings of astrobiological interest. The ASB also holds annual workshops for members, as well as its own conference every two years, which acts as a focus for discussion in astrobiology.

ASB is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Life. We look forward to collaborating with ASB and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

We are pleased to welcome more universities from Poland, Italy, Germany, Brazil and other parts of the world to MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). A warm welcome to the institutions listed below, who have joined the Program in February and March this year.

James Madison University (JMU), Harrisonburg	USA
Loughborough University	UK
Lublin University of Technology	Poland
Marquette University, Milwaukee	USA
Massey University, Palmerston North	New Zealand
Medical College of Wisconsin	USA
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń	Poland
Poznań University of Life Sciences	Poland
Robert Koch-Institut, Berlin	Germany
Rothamsted Research, Harpenden	UK
Santa Clara University (SCU)	USA
Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau	Germany
University of Aveiro	Portugal
University of Brasília	Brazil
University of Duisburg-Essen	Germany
University of Greifswald	Germany
University of Molise	Italy
University of Naples Parthenope	Italy
University of São Paulo (USP) - São Carlos Institute of Physics	Brazil
University of Szczecin	Poland
University of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn	Poland
University West, Trollhättan	Sweden
UTP University of Science and Technology, Bydgoszcz	Poland
VTT - Technical Research Centre of Finland	Finland

Authors affiliated with these institutions can now enjoy a discount on the APC for papers accepted for publication in any MDPI journal. If you would like to learn more about our program, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap or email us at [email protected].

We are delighted to announce our participation in Jisc’s Publication Router project, as of March 2019.

Publications Router is a Jisc service that automatically sends notifications about research articles to institutions' systems such as their repositories or CRISs, since May 2015. Through this agreement, MDPI will provide Jisc with daily feeds and information regarding published articles, which will be gathered by their system and delivered to institutions also registered to this service. Nearly all of our articles are published within 15 days of acceptance, so institutions will receive them quite promptly.

The feed will include the full text of the published version of record, with no embargo, so the articles can be exposed immediately for public view. They are accompanied by rich metadata, including confirmation of the immediate CC BY licence, minimising the need for any manual intervention or checking.

For more information about Publications Router, you may contact Jisc’s central helpdesk at [email protected]. For any queries about MDPI’s institutional agreements and collaborations, you may get in touch with MDPI’s Institutional Engagement team at ioa[email protected], which would be very happy to hear from further UK institutions.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high quality academic publishing. Over 97,000 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2018. 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 all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year the “MDPI Top Reviewer Awards” are announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise, dedication, high quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2018 MDPI Top Reviewer Awards:

• Ali Behnood
• Andrea Pezzuolo
• Angela Gorgoglione
• Anna D'Auria
• Antonio D'Andrea
• Azhar Abbas
• Bogdan Zagajewski
• Chunhui Chen
• Dominika Głąbska
• Dominika Guzek
• Dragan Pamucar
• Francisco J. G. Silva
• Frank Li
• Gianluca Serafini
• Gyorgy Szekely
• Haozhi Pan
• Helvi Heinonen-Tanski
• José Manuel Gómez-Soberón
• Kathy Lewis
• Klara Kosova
• Luis N. López De Lacalle
• M. Z. Naser
• Malwina Tytła
• Masoume Amirkhani
• Matteo Ghidelli
• Moretti Laura
• Petra Schneider
• Roberto Cerchione
• Spyros Papaefthymiou
• Ştefan Cristian Gherghina

Since 2010, MDPI has run its own online submission system. More recently, we have made the software, with accompanying publishing services, available to other publishers as JAMS (Journal and Article Management System). We are now delighted to announce the launch of JAMS Journals, a standardized platform for operating open access journals at low cost.

JAMS Journals provides a comprehensive service, including a shared submission website, journal websites hosted at a URL provided by the publisher, and a full production service. There is a small setup fee and the cost for each published paper is just a few hundred Swiss francs.

The platform demonstrates that running an open access journal can be straightforward and affordable. The JAMS Journals platform is suitable for

• small publishers or groups of scholars looking to launch their own journal;
• existing publishers or societies seeking to explore open access options;
• publishers looking to convert an existing subscription journal to open access.

JAMS journals launches with two journals from Canadian-based publisher Etcetera Publications:

• Canadian Journal of Pesticides & Pest Management (http://www.cjppm.ca)
• Nanotechnology in Agriculture, Food & Environment (http://www.nanoafe.ca)

Dr AJ Al-Rajab (President of Etcetera Publications) comments:

“In the past few months, we were working on our project to launch new open access scientific journals in the field of agricultural and environmental sciences. We decided to go with JAMS for this venture because of the high quality of their services, reasonable prices, professionalism and easy communication. Our portfolio is expected to grow rapidly during 2019 to include more titles covering different areas in agriculture and environment. MDPI earned already our complete satisfaction and we are looking for a long term cooperation.”

Alongside the new platform, we continue to provide flexible, tailored journal management solutions for existing publishers. For any questions or to request a quotation, contact Dr. Constanze Schelhorn ([email protected]).

2018 was a great year for preprints, with increasing numbers of authors looking to make their papers available online before peer review. Along with other preprint servers, our platform Preprints.org  saw an increase in the uptake from authors, and more than double the number of announced papers compared to 2017. In fact, we recently passed two important milestones: 8000 preprints online and 30,000 authors. 

We believe that the whole research community has the opportunity to benefit from work being available online as early as possible. We thank and congratulate our authors for supporting us to make this goal a reality.

In 2019, we will be looking carefully at how to provide better value for authors, maintain efficiency while growing in size, and make sure we remain well-connected with the research community. 

If you want to participate, you can consider screening preprints or joining our advisory board. And, of course, posting your own work.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our national Open Access agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (KEMÖ) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Through this national agreement, the Austrian institutions listed below as well as FWF will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by eligible corresponding or funded authors in MDPI journals as long as central funds are available.

All participating institutions have gained access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Funder and Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency. At the same time eligible authors are benefited from an APC discount which comes at no cost for the institutions.

Eligible corresponding 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. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email address. To claim their discount, FWF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript. The institutions will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

Eligible authors that have their APC covered by their institution or funder are advised to include the following sentence in their acknowledgments: "Open Access Funding by the [name of the institution/funder]".

The full text of the agreement is openly available online at: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536007

For any questions about the agreement, please contact the KEMÖ Consortium at [email protected], FWF at [email protected], or the MDPI IOAP team at [email protected]

The Austrian institutions participating in this agreement are:

• Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
• University for Continuing Education Krems
• University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna
• University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
• University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien
• Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences
• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
• Institute of Science and Technology Austria
• MCI Management Center Innsbruck
• University of Graz
• University of Linz
• University of Salzburg
• Graz University of Technology
• TU Wien
• University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
• University of Vienna

This is our first collective agreement with a national library consortium, while the individual institutions around the world participating in our IOAP are now more than 500 - see details here: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap. We would be mostly interested in discussing about possible collaborations with other consortia, funders, and institutions in our mutual efforts to accelerate Open Access.

We are pleased to announce the new platform Encyclopedia, which 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.

We encourage authors of review articles to quote and adapt the content of their published papers to create Encyclopedia entries. You can create completely new entries on topics in which you have knowledge and expertise. There is no limit on the topics or research fields. All of science and the humanities are included. Each entry will be published directly after submission.

We also have prepared a DOI application function in Encyclopedia. Once a DOI application is approved, the entry website will announce the DOI number and a pdf version with DOI information will be automatically created.

We look forward to your contributions and hope you will make use of this service. Find more about the service at: https://encyclopedia.pub/

 

MDPI will be attending the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2018, to be held in Birmingham, UK, 16–19 December 2018.

Over the last 40 years, the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting has grown into Europe’s largest and most influential annual event dedicated to ecology. In 2018, the British Ecological Society staging the Annual Meeting at the ICC in the heart of Birmingham. From 16–19 December 2018, 1600 ecologists—many of them world leaders in their field—representing business, academia, professional bodies, and NGOs from across the world, will converge in the United Kingdom’s second largest city for #BES2018.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Sustainability
Forests
Land
Climate
Life
Challenges

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Stand #F). 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://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/bes2018/.

We are delighted to announce that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is now a participant of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). Authors funded by the BMGF can enjoy discounts on the APC, while the funder covers the costs of eligible articles centrally. BMGF also has access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency.

We hope that funded authors find the programme beneficial and we are happy to offer our IOAP to other funders that need a streamlined workflow of compliance checking and APC coverage. 

To claim their discount, BMGF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript.

For any questions about the BMGF agreement, please contact the funder at [email protected] or the MDPI IOAP team at [email protected].

Recently, it was announced that a group of European funders supported 10 principles that will help to expand open access, known as Plan S. MDPI warmly welcomes this move as a step towards achieving more open and accessible communication of research across all disciplines. Some aspects remain to be clarified, however the details given so far match the aims and values that MDPI has held over the past two decades.

We believe that open access publishers should be active participants in discussions around Plan S, particularly regarding potential new business models and practical aspects of implementation. MDPI supports APCs as a transparent unit of payment for article publishing, however we are committed to exploring other measures and recently signed the Jussieu Call. Sustainability is a key value for MDPI, and future funding models should have at their heart the sustainability of knowledge and research dissemination. Plan S provides an opportunity for funders and publishers to directly discuss funding of open access journals in ways that are beneficial to all parties involved.

We are happy to announce the establishment of an Open Access (OA) agreement with Qatar National Library (QNL). QNL is committed to supporting and helping Qatar authors publish OA at no cost. Through this national agreement, QNL will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by Qatar-based corresponding authors in MDPI journals.

Eligible corresponding authors affiliated with Qatar research centers and universities are prompted to choose QNL as part of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email and/or a computer registered with the institution’s IP range. QNL will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

Qatar authors that have their APC covered by QNL are advised to include the following sentence in their acknowledgments: "The publication of this article was funded by Qatar National Library".

For more information, please visit Open Access at QNL or email the QNL Open Access team at [email protected].

We are pleased to report Life received a CiteScore of 3.16 for 2017. The metric reflects citation activity in 2017 in Scopus for papers published in the period 2014‒2016.

Life ranks 4th out of 94 journal in the 'Paleontology' category.

For the full details in the current CiteScore release, please see the journal's Source profile. To check the full list of MDPI journals receiving CiteScores, please see here.

The 2017 CiteScore™ data is available now, based on citation data in the Scopus® database. The current CiteScore reflects citation activity in 2017 for articles published in 2014‒2016. Please note that the list below includes journals assigned a CiteScore in this year’s release. For a full list of journals indexed in Scopus, please see our journal list.

Thirteen of our journals received a CiteScore which is in the top 10% of the distribution in at least one of the categories (marked with * in the table below), while a further 32 journals exhibit scores that are in the first quartile of the respective categories.

To access the full data for MDPI journals, please see here. More data can also be found in SJR Scimago Journal & Country Rank.

Unlike CiteScores and the widely used Journal Impact Factors, the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) metrics are normalized in order to correct for differences in citation practices between scientific fields. Therefore, the SNIP allows direct comparison between journals specialized in different fields.

According to 2017 data, MDPI publishes six journals with an average citation impact, or SNIP, in excess of 1.500. These journals are Biomolecules, Cancers, Journal of Clinical Medicine (JCM), Marine Drugs, Remote Sensing and Sensors (see the last column in the table below).

CiteScore Data for MDPI Journals

Journal	Rank (Quartile)	Category	Link	CiteScore 2017	2016	2015	SNIP 2017
Aerospace	43/116 (Q2)	• Aerospace Engineering	Link	1.23	-	-	1.152
Agriculture	69/309 (Q1) 91/398 (Q1) 78/255 (Q2)	• Agronomy and Crop Science • Plant Science • Food Science	Link	1.93	-	-	1.133
Agronomy	46/309 (Q1)	• Agronomy and Crop Science	Link	2.38	-	-	1.115
Algorithms	22/46 (Q2) 61/125 (Q2) 60/107 (Q3) 64/114 (Q3)	• Numerical Analysis • Computational Mathematics • Computational Theory and Mathematics • Theoretical Computer Science	Link	1.03	1.15	1.07	0.749
Animals	12/154 (Q1) * 48/367 (Q1)	• General Veterinary • Animal Science and Zoology	Link	2.02	1.46	1.66	1.099
Antibiotics	6/68 (Q1) * 62/263 (Q1) 55/230 (Q1) 31/108 (Q2) 47/134 (Q2) 139/398 (Q2)	• General Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics • Infectious Diseases • Pharmacology (medical) • Microbiology (medical) • Microbiology • Biochemistry	Link	2.85	1.65	-	0.975
Antibodies	43/143 (Q2) 61/164 (Q2) 85/189 (Q2)	• Drug Discovery • Immunology and Allergy • Immunology	Link	2.85	-	-	0.844
Antioxidants	23/119 (Q1) 35/169 (Q2) 100/398 (Q2) 119/367 (Q2) 102/264 (Q2)	• Clinical Biochemistry • Physiology • Biochemistry • Molecular Biology • Cell Biology	Link	3.42	-	-	1.361
Applied Sciences	48/270 (Q1) 15/66 (Q1) 31/116 (Q2) 18/53 (Q2) 151/434 (Q2) 186/535 (Q2)	• General Engineering • Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes • Instrumentation • Process Chemistry and Technology • General Materials Science • Computer Science Applications	Link	1.90	-	-	0.801
Biology	12/177 (Q1)* 32/186 (Q1) 10/40 (Q1)	• General Agricultural and Biological Sciences • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology • General Immunology and Microbiology	Link	3.48	3.02	2.78	0.961
Biomolecules	31/398 (Q1) * 41/367 (Q1)	• Biochemistry • Molecular Biology	Link	5.72	1.67	3.08	1.542
Biosensors	20/119 (Q1)	• Clinical Biochemistry	Link	3.59	2.83	2.37	1.122
Brain Sciences	47/111 (Q2)	• General Neuroscience	Link	2.56	-	-	0.695
Cancers	26/323 (Q1) * 23/191 (Q1)	• Oncology • Cancer Research	Link	5.82	5.02	4.07	1.567
Catalysts	32/151 (Q1) 21/46 (Q2)	• Physical and Theoretical Chemistry • Catalysis	Link	3.23	3.44	3.45	0.954
Crystals	76/272 (Q2) 140/434 (Q2) 127/398 (Q2) 26/64 (Q2)	• General Chemical Engineering • General Materials Science • Condensed Matter Physics • Inorganic Chemistry	Link	1.97	1.89	1.47	0.745
Diagnostics	49/119 (Q2)	• Clinical Biochemistry	Link	2.43	-	-	0.788
Diversity	30/124 (Q1) 14/52 (Q2) 83/306 (Q2) 11/29 (Q2)	• Nature and Landscape Conservation • Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) • Ecology • Ecological Modelling	Link	2.15	2.03	1.96	1.300
Electronics	109/644 (Q1) 26/148 (Q1) 42/224 (Q1) 50/259 (Q1) 23/96 (Q1)	• Electrical and Electronic Engineering • Hardware and Architecture • Control and Systems Engineering • Computer Networks and Communications • Signal Processing	Link	2.97	-	-	1.227
Energies	6/73 (Q1) * 31/192 (Q1) 103/644 (Q1) 4/16 (Q1) 47/140 (Q2)	• Control and Optimization • Energy Engineering and Power Technology • Electrical and Electronic Engineering • Energy (miscellaneous) • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment	Link	3.11	2.50	2.87	1.340
Entropy	35/202 (Q1)	• General Physics and Astronomy	Link	2.41	1.87	1.99	1.189
Forests	17/129 (Q1)	• Forestry	Link	2.31	2.06	1.76	0.990
Future Internet	132/259 (Q3)	• Computer Networks and Communications	Link	1.25	-	-	-
Games	132/187 (Q3) 78/110 (Q3) 305/418 (Q3)	• Statistics and Probability • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty • Applied Mathematics	Link	0.61	0.87	0.57	1.038
Genes	21/91 (Q1) 74/311 (Q1)	• Genetics (clinical) • Genetics	Link	3.49	3.62	3.18	0.374
Geosciences	32/182 (Q1)	• General Earth and Planetary Sciences	Link	1.97	1.67	1.29	0.856
Information	143/251 (Q3)	• Information Systems	Link	1.16	0.78	0.94	1.146
Insects	27/135 (Q1)	• Insect Science	Link	1.85	1.81	1.38	0.719
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)	80/478 (Q1) 34/106 (Q2)	• Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health • Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis	Link	2.41	2.38	2.42	0.931
International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)	7/69 (Q1) * 61/535 (Q1) 20/163 (Q1) 9/64 (Q1) 26/151 (Q1) 89/367 (Q2) 17/46 (Q2)	• Spectroscopy • Computer Science Applications • Organic Chemistry • Inorganic Chemistry • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry • Molecular Biology • Catalysis	Link	3.86	3.73	3.37	0.998
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI)	79/605 (Q1) 22/82 (Q2) 13/36 (Q2)	• Geography, Planning and Development • Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) • Computers in Earth Sciences	Link	2.10	1.62	1.52	1.062
Journal of Clinical Medicine (JCM)	10/841 (Q1) *	• General Medicine	Link	7.07	-	-	1.535
Journal of Functional Biomaterials (JFB)	43/199 (Q1) 23/77 (Q2)	• Biomedical Engineering • Biomaterials	Link	3.47	-	-	1.344
Journal of Low Po- wer Electronics and Applications (JLPEA)	301/644 (Q2)	• Electrical and Electronic Engineering	Link	1.12	0.98	0.83	0.367
Journal of Personalized Medicine (JPM)	54/189 (Q2)	• Medicine (miscellaneous)	Link	2.61	-	-	0.944
Land	50/124 (Q2) 129/306 (Q2) 36/65 (Q3)	• Nature and Landscape Conservation • Ecology • Global and Planetary Change	Link	1.44	-	-	0.658
Life	4/94 (Q1) * 70/561 (Q1) 40/186 (Q1) 20/80 (Q2)	• Palaeontology • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology • Space and Planetary Science	Link	3.16	2.95	1.68	0.935
Marine Drugs	17/146 (Q1)	• Drug Discovery	Link	4.58	3.83	3.66	1.537
Materials	83/434 (Q1)	• General Materials Science	Link	3.02	3.26	3.11	1.285
Membranes	5/18 (Q2) 15/53 (Q2) 4/10 (Q2)	• Chemical Engineering (miscellaneous) • Process Chemistry and Technology • Filtration and Separation	Link	2.69	2.19	2.95	0.880
Metabolites	47/209 (Q1) 103/398 (Q2) 127/367 (Q2)	• Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism • Biochemistry • Molecular Biology	Link	3.35	-	-	0.925
Metals	155/434 (Q2)	• General Materials Science	Link	1.87	-	-	0.955
Micromachines	105/554 (Q1) 154/644 (Q1) 64/224 (Q2)	• Mechanical Engineering • Electrical and Electronic Engineering • Control and Systems Engineering	Link	2.31	1.83	1.78	0.987
Minerals	33/175 (Q1) 45/208 (Q1)	• Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology • Geology	Link	2.21	2.13	1.77	1.149
Molecules	4/25 (Q1) 25/172 (Q1) 18/104 (Q1) 31/163 (Q1) 30/151 (Q1) 31/146 (Q1) 55/160 (Q2)	• Chemistry (miscellaneous) • Pharmaceutical Science • Analytical Chemistry • Organic Chemistry • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry • Drug Discovery • Molecular Medicine	Link	3.27	3.09	2.65	1.146
Nutrients	11/255 (Q1) * 9/112 (Q1) *	• Food Science • Nutrition and Dietetics	Link	4.35	4.29	4.07	1.403
Pathogens	38/263 (Q1) 20/108 (Q1) 9/40 (Q1) 40/164 (Q1) 110/367 (Q2)	• Infectious Diseases • Microbiology (medical) • General Immunology and Microbiology • Immunology and Allergy • Molecular Biology	Link	3.52	-	-	1.166
Pharmaceuticals	14/172 (Q1) * 33/160 (Q1)	• Pharmaceutical Science • Molecular Medicine	Link	4.12	4.90	3.64	1.370
Pharmaceutics	21/172 (Q1)	• Pharmaceutical Science	Link	3.68	3.83	2.68	1.092
Photonics	30/116 (Q1) 80/270 (Q2) 53/160 (Q2)	• Instrumentation • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and Imaging • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics	Link	1.96	-	-	0.817
Plants	73/561 (Q1) 48/389 (Q1) 44/306 (Q1)	• Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics • Plant Science • Ecology	Link	3.13	-	-	0.969
Polymers	17/142 (Q1) 63/359 (Q1)	• Polymers and Plastics • General Chemistry	Link	3.30	3.74	3.37	1.213
Religions	26/389 (Q1) *	• Religious Studies	Link	0.56	-	-	0.676
Remote Sensing	13/182 (Q1) *	• General Earth and Planetary Sciences	Link	4.03	3.56	3.76	1.559
Resources	19/142 (Q1) 39/261 (Q1)	• Nature and Landscape Conservation • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law	Link	2.69	-	-	1.387
Scientia Pharmaceutica	92/172 (Q3)	• Pharmaceutical Science	Link	0.86	-	-	0.513
Sensors	9/116 (Q1) * 25/160 (Q1) 100/644 (Q1) 19/104 (Q1) 113/398 (Q2)	• Instrumentation • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics • Electrical and Electronic Engineering • Analytical Chemistry • Biochemistry	Link	3.23	2.78	2.21	1.550
Social Sciences	81/213 (Q2)	• General Social Sciences	Link	0.60	-	-	0.445
Sustainability	61/605 (Q1) * 55/261 (Q1) 60/140 (Q2)	• Geography, Planning and Development • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment	Link	2.37	1.96	1.78	1.030
Symmetry	44/327 (Q1) 17/45 (Q2) 16/40 (Q2) 14/25 (Q2)	• General Mathematics • Computer Science (miscellaneous) • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) • Chemistry (miscellaneous)	Link	1.32	1.12	0.95	0.802
Toxins	18/106 (Q1) 21/111 (Q1)	• Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis • Toxicology	Link	3.32	3.34	3.76	1.136
Vaccines	5/230 (Q1) * 13/263 (Q1) * 18/302 (Q1) * 11/146 (Q1) * 32/189 (Q1)	• Pharmacology (medical) • Infectious Diseases • Pharmacology • Drug Discovery • Immunology	Link	4.88	1.23	3.76	1.255
Viruses	29/263 (Q1) 16/68 (Q1)	• Virology • Infectious Diseases	Link	3.88	3.60	3.74	1.130
Water	66/605 (Q1) 37/191 (Q1) 43/199 (Q1) 193/398 (Q2)	• Geography, Planning and Development • Water Science and Technology • Aquatic Science • Biochemistry	Link	2.29	2.05	1.96	1.007

We are pleased to announce the results of the first MDPI Writing Prize. We received a large number of entries from across the globe on the theme of “The Global Benefits of Open Research”. It was a pleasure to read so many original, well-researched and well-presented ideas, and the final choice was not an easy one. We are pleased to announce that the winners are as follows:

1st prize (500 CHF, Swiss knife and certificate)

Edmond Sanganyado, Shantou University, China

2nd prizes (250 CHF, Swiss knife and certificate)

Kamala T. Rajahgopal, Asia e University, Malaysia
Yin Zhixuan, Qingdao University of Technology, China

3rd prizes (100 CHF, Swiss knife and certificate)

Alexandra Ticea, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania
Ankur Sarker, University of Virginia, USA
Daniel Attoye, United Arab Emirates University, UAE

Congratulations to all of them! The winning entries can be downloaded by clicking on the names above. A compilation of all entries will soon be available as an open access book.

The writing prize is sponsored by the MDPI English editing service.

At MDPI, we always want to keep you up to date. Even for already published articles, some corrections or minor changes may occur. To prevent you from missing any updates, from now on you will be able to access the latest version of any manuscript by clicking on the “check for updates” logo that you can find in the PDF file, even if you have saved the file on your computer.

The Oregon Academy of Science has selected Dr Niles Lehman as the 2018 Outstanding Oregon Scientist. The Oregon Academy of Science promotes scientific research and education in Oregon; the annual award acknowledges an Oregon scientist who has made outstanding contributions in their field.

Professor Lehman is being recognized for his ground-breaking research in molecular evolution and the origins of life.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Antonio Lazcano has been appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). Antonio Lazcano is a Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a member of the Colegio Nacional. A distinguished Latin American evolutionist and a world-leading authority on the study of the origins and early evolution of life. He has worked on prebiotic synthese, and has pioneered the use of databases in the reconstruction of very early stages of cell evolution. His book Origins of Life (in Spanish) has sold more than 800,000 copies, and after being the first to call attention to the growing risk of creationism in Latin American countries, he is working on ways of improving education in evolutionary biology.

We warmly welcome Prof. Lazcano as our Editor-in-Chief and look forward to his valuable input for the continued success of Life.

We are proud to announce that MDPI is now a member of UKSG, the UK´s largest scholarly communications community. Through UKSG, different stakeholders share their knowledge and experience in order to improve the knowledge and information environment for researchers. UKSG´s members include universities, publishers, content providers, intermediaries, and other similar organisations. Members participate in discussions and events on issues around scholarly communications.

The UKSG Annual Conference and Exhibition is a flagship initiative from the UKSG and one of the most stimulating events in the scholarly communications calendar. It is held annually and attracts a large number of delegates. More information is available at https://www.uksg.org/events/annualconference

MDPI is delighted to be a part of this active community and we look forward to making our own contribution. We will continue to support organisations and initiatives that boost collaboration and vision within scholarly communication.

More information about UKSG can be found at https://www.uksg.org/. The full membership list is available at: https://www.uksg.org/members.

The DORA initiative addresses the need for advanced approaches in the evaluation and measurement of the quality of scientific research outputs. It is a worldwide initiative covering all scholarly disciplines. MDPI proudly joins a list of more than 400 organizations around the world which support DORA’s recommendations for improving the way the quality of research results is evaluated.

More info can be found at http://www.ascb.org/dora/

 

The competition is still open until end of March! Please check out the banner for more details: https://mdpi-res.com/data/english-prize.pdf

We are delighted to announce that UCL Press has adopted MDPI's Journal Article & Management System, JAMS, including production services. JAMS is a modular, integrated editorial platform for academic publishers. It offers flexibility, ease-of-use, and is a fully integrated solution for the end-to-end management of scholarly journals. JAMS is based on the software used to publish MDPI’s portfolio of journals. 

Ian Caswell, UCL Press Journals Manager, says he is "excited to see UCL Press and MDPI partner together to implement the JAMS submission system for all UCL Press journals. The system offered a flexible, efficient and straightforward solution for our processes from author submission to ready for publication. I am grateful for the valuable experience and support MDPI have offered and look forward to developing our programme with an effective submission system in place.” Dr Martyn Rittman, MDPI’s Publishing Services Manager, adds, “We are proud to support one of the UK’s premier university presses in their publishing operation. This is an excellent way for us at MDPI to share our experience and knowledge, and benefit the research community beyond our own journals.”

JAMS combines services that are kept separate for many publishers. The entire editorial process, production and invoicing (e.g. for open access article processing charges) are fully integrated into a single platform. This allows for efficient, fast manuscript processing. For further information about JAMS, see https://www.mdpi.com/publishing_services. 

We are pleased to welcome new participants to MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP), designed to help institutions manage the transition to the Open Access publishing model. Researchers affiliated with participating universites benefit from a 10% discount on the Article Processing Charges (APC) for any paper published in an MDPI journal, while the participating library or university incurs no basic fee for participating in the program.

The IOAP set of free services, provided by MDPI to institutions that sign up, include:

• No fee for participants and no obligation to prolong after the initial 12 months. The participants may withdraw from the programme at any time, and we will also keep it free for the library for as long as they continue in the programme.
• Authors affiliated with the university will receive a 10% discount on the APC.
• The institution is granted free access to the MDPI submission system and can receive free alerts of new submissions to our journals.
• By default, authors from the institution will continue to be invoiced directly unless the institution opts for central billing.
• Auto-archiving of papers into the institutions´ repository as long as it supports SWORD 1.3.

More details about the programme and a list of our current participant institutions can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap

Institutions which are interested to participate may do so online at: https://www.mdpi.com/ioap-form

The following North American universities have signed up to the IOAP program recently:

Connecticut College, USA
Emory University, USA
Florida International University, USA
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Mississippi State University, USA
Northeastern University, USA
Rice University, USA
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
University of Rhode Island, USA
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA
University of Toronto, Canada
University of Windsor, Canada
University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
Wellesley College, USA
West Virginia University, USA

Many prestigious institutions from Europe and Asia have joined as well:

Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Malaysia
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Gdansk University of Technology, Poland
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
Newcastle University, UK
Northumbria University, UK
Southwest University, China
Technical University of Crete, Greece
University Malaya, Malaysia
University of Antwerp, Belgium
University of Cyprus, Cyprus
University of Manchester, UK
University of Reading, UK
University of Sussex, UK
University of Warwick, UK
West Pomeranian University of Technology Szczecin, Poland

We offer a warm welcome to the new participants!

In order to reward the academic community, especially young researchers, and enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals regularly offer various awards to researchers in specific fields, for example, Young Investigator Awards, Travel Awards, Best Paper Awards, and Best Poster Awards, etc. The awardees range from PhD students to junior scientists.

Currently, the following 44 awards given by MDPI journals are accepting applications. Please click on the award title below to check whether you are eligible for it and start the application process.

Subject	Journal	Award	Intended Awardee
Biology & Life Sciences	Animals	Travel Award 2018	PhD students or postdoctoral researchers
	Antioxidants	Travel Awards 2018	Postdoctoral researchers or PhD students
	Biology	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Forests	2019 Travel award	Postdocs or PhD students
	International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)	Outstanding Contribution Awards 2018	Ground-breaking contribution in the fields of Molecular Biology, and Molecular Pathology
	Journal of Fungi (JoF)	Travel Awards 2018	PhD graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows
	Life	Travel Award 2018	PhD students or postdoctoral fellows
	Metabolites	Travel Award 2018	PhD students
	Pharmaceuticals	Travel Award 2018	PhD students
	Toxins	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral fellows
	Viruses	Best Oral Presentation Award 2018	Viruses 2018 participants
	Viruses	Best Poster Award 2018	Viruses 2018 participants
	Water	2018 Young Investigator Award	Young investigators
Chemistry & Materials Science	Biomimetics	Travel Award 2018	Graduate Student or Postdoctoral Trainee / Research Associate
	Catalysts	Travel Award 2018	PhD students
	Chemosensors	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Entropy	Young Investigator Award 2018	Young investigators
	Fibers	2018 Travel award	Postdocs or PhD students
	Magnetochemistry	Travel Award 2018	Postdocs
	Materials	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Metals	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Minerals	Travel Awards 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Sensors	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Sensors	Outstanding Reviewer Awards 2017	Sensors' reviewers in 2017
	Sensors	Young Investigator Award 2018	Young investigators
	Technologies	Travel Award 2018	PhD students
Computer Science & Mathematics	Multimodal Technologies and Interaction (MTI)	Travel Awards 2018	Postdoctoral researchers or PhD students
	ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information(IJGI)	2018 Travel Award	Postdocs
	Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks (JSAN)	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral fellows and PhD students
	Journal of Imaging	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral fellows and PhD students
Engineering	Actuators	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Remote Sensing	Best Paper Awards 2019	Authors
	Machines	Travel Award 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Micromachines	Travel Awards 2018	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Fluids	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral fellows and PhD students
	ChemEngineering	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral researchers and PhD students
Environmental & Earth Sciences	Diversity	Travel Awards 2018	Postdoctoral fellows
	International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)	Best Paper Award 2018	Authors who submit from 1 Nov 2017 to 31 Oct 2018
	Resources	Travel Award 2018	Postdocs or PhD students
	Geosciences	Travel Award 2018	Postdoctoral fellows and PhD students
Physical Sciences & Astronomy	Galaxies	Travel Award 2018	Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, or lecturers in cosmology or galaxies physics
	Applied Science	Travel Award 2018	Postdocs
Medicine & Pharmacology; Public Health & Healthcare	Journal of Clinical Medicine (JCM)	2018 Travel Award	PhD or postdoctoral fellows
	Medicines	Travel Award 2018	Postdocs