Announcements

We are pleased to inform you that Marine Drugs (ISSN: 1660-3397) has received an updated CiteScore of 9.6, an increase of 18.5% compared with the 2021 metric. The 2022 CiteScore™ was released recently, making an assessment of the scientific influence of journals in the 2019 to 2022 period.

Marine Drugs’ CiteScore ranks as follows:

• Q1 (3 out of 32) in the "Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (miscellaneous)" category;
• Q1 (23 out of 171) in the "Pharmaceutical Science" category;
• Q1 (24 out of 156) in the "Drug Discovery" category.

For more journal statistics, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs/stats.

Excellent performance is inseparable from the support and dedication of all journal editors, reviewers, authors, and readers. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have contributed to the journal.

This conference organized by the British Pharmacological Society and International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacologists (IUPHAR) will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from 2 July to 7 July 2023. The topic of the conference focuses on pharmacology and drug discovery, research, and development, and the conference will include six days of symposia, keynote lectures, workshops, and debates. Discover the latest in pharmacology research and developments across 10 content themes.

Pharmaceuticals (ISSN: 1424-8247) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal of medicinal chemistry and related drug sciences, published monthly online by MDPI. Pharmaceuticals will participate in this event as an exhibitor together with nine other MDPI journals, among which Pharmaceuticals, Journal of Personalized Medicine and Biomedicines will have journal representatives at our booth.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Pharmaceuticals (leading journal);
• Biomedicines;
• JPM;
• JCM;
• Marine Drugs;
• Children;
• Current Oncology;
• BioMedInformatics;
• JoX;
• Rheumato.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us at our booth #A22. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit https://wcp2023.org/ or contact the Pharmaceuticals Editorial Office at pharmaceuticals@mdpi.com.

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Bill J. Baker has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Marine Drugs (ISSN: 1660-3397). Under Prof. Dr. Baker’s stewardship, Marine Drugs will continue to provide the best editorial services and contribute to the development of the marine drugs community.

Prof. Dr. Baker earned his Ph.D. studying with the renowned Prof. Paul Scheuer at the University of Hawaii, where he learned the fundamentals of the chemical analysis of marine organisms. He broadened his natural products skills by studying biosynthetic analysis with Prof. Ron Parry at the Rice University and Prof. Carl Djerassi at the Stanford University before establishing his own research program in Florida. He currently maintains a laboratory at the University of South Florida that focuses on chemical ecology, drug discovery and biosynthesis. For the last 30 years, he has applied these interests to studies of marine invertebrates and algae from Antarctica, and for nearly 10 years, he has conducted similar studies of deep-sea invertebrates from the Irish continental margin. Prof. Dr. Baker has published more than 180 peer reviewed manuscripts and has been awarded over a dozen patents. His research is highly collaborative, involving colleagues with expertise in field work, ecology, systematics, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology, among others. An international cohort of more than 60 graduate students, postdocs and visiting scientists from two dozen countries have worked in his lab. He has edited two books on the topic of marine chemistry. Prof. Dr. Baker derives considerable satisfaction from field work and solving new structures.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Bill J. Baker, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and Open Access publishing:

1. What is your vision for the journal?

Marine Drugs has rapidly advanced as a leading outlet for cutting-edge chemistry, ecology, pharmacology and related contemporary areas of marine research. To reach its pinnacle, the journal will continue to attract innovative and significant work through engagement with the community, including the publication of topical Special Issues, exchanges at professional meetings and empowering a diverse and committed Editorial Board.

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

The multifaceted science comprising the marine drugs community is poised for continued discovery and development. Advances in omics techniques, the broader availability of samples and the recruitment of younger researchers with new ideas and new approaches promise innovative new research in the future.

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

I see Open Access (OA) literature as the future of scientific publishing. The old model of institutions supporting expensive publishing packages resulted in significant restriction of scientific research to those with access. That resulted in limited diversity and breadth of research. Widespread acceptance of OA literature by funding organizations and institutions has the potential to produce a renaissance in research as the global community gains advantage from the increased dissemination of their work.

4. Do you have any suggestions for young researchers in this field?

This is such a great time to be entering scientific research. With a large number of global issues that science can contribute to, advances in technology and instrumentation you can use to solve global issues and so much public interest in scientific solutions, the opportunities for achievement are myriad. With smart work habits and a sharp focus, young scientists today can look forward to rewarding careers.

We warmly welcome our new Editor-in-Chief and wish the journal every success in the future.

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

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

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

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

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

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

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

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

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

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!