Announcements

The editorial team of Mathematics (ISSN: 2227-7390) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Outstanding Reviewer Award:

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Mathematics (ISSN 2227-7390).

Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana received his B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Granada (UoG, Spain) in June 1989. He was awarded a young researcher scholarship to work in the Department of Statistics and Operational Research at the UoG for the academic year 1989–1990. In July 1990, he took the Spanish public examination to become part of the government civil service as a secondary school teacher. He worked full time as a Mathematics secondary school teacher from September 1990 until July 2003. In 1996, he enrolled as a part-time student in the Doctoral Training Program of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (UoG) and, on 24th March 2000, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Distinction Cum Laude), which the UoG recognized, on 27th November 2002, with the Outstanding Award for a Ph.D. in Mathematics for the academic year 1999/2000.

Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana joined De Montfort University (DMU, UK) in August 2003 as a Senior Lecturer. In August 2006, he became a Principal Lecturer, and in October 2007 he was awarded the title of Reader in Computational Intelligence. On 29th May 2012, he has conferred the title of Professor of Computational Intelligence and Decision Making at DMU. During the period 2015–2018, Prof. Dr. Chiclana was an Honorary Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Leicester (UoL, UK), and since 2018, he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (UoG).

Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana has been recognized by Clarivate Analytics as a Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Sciences (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana who shared his vision for the journal with us as well as his views on the research area:

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

This was a role I still have not had had the full experience. Therefore, it appealed to me because it would mean that I would be able to complete the research journey from the starting point of the inception of research ideas, their scientific development and presentation in the form of a research manuscript, to its final submission and publication for my research peers to share/use in their own research through the different stage roles managing research: research student, research author, research reviewer, research journal Editorial Board Member/associate editor/section Editor-in-Chief/Editor-in-Chief.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

My vision of the journal Mathematics is to maintain high standards of publication to attract the dissemination of quality research findings on the field of mathematics and close related fields of research that continuously influence and impact mathematicians and scientists in developing new products and services that ultimately enhance society, environment, and quality of life.

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

Mathematics pervades all aspects of life, with many research fields depending heavily on it. Thus, the future of this field of research has no end in sight and the days will come when current science fiction ideas will be realized in one way or other thanks to advances based on mathematics.

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

The rapid development of the Internet has made possible the development of Open Access in the publishing field as we know it now. Open Access format of publishing research is here to stay, with many countries currently requesting their funded research to be disseminated in this form. Obviously, new future ways of communication could impact how Open Access develops. I only hope that the future development of Open Access provides equal opportunities to all researchers to disseminate their research findings and to help them achieve their full potential as researchers.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Francisco Chiclana in taking up his role as Editor-in-Chief and look forward to his leadership which will help Mathematics to achieve many milestones.

It is our pleasure to welcome the following 13 recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Mathematics (ISSN: 2227-7390).

Name: Dr. Jesús Martín Vaquero
Affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Institute of Fundamental Physics and Mathematics, Universidad de Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain
Interests: the development of Runge–Kutta methods for solving nonlinear PDEs; approximation theory and mathematical education based on projects and competencies

Name: Prof. Dr. Lixin Shen
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA
Interests: applied and computational harmonic analysis; optimization; mathematical imaging processing

Name: Prof. Dr. Maria Isabel Berenguer
Affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Interests: applied mathematics; numerical analysis; fixed point theory; inverse problems; functional analysis

Name: Prof. Dr. Alberto Lastra
Affiliation: Departamento de Física y Matemáticas, Universidad de Alcalá, Ctra. Madrid-Barcelona, Km. 33,600, Facultad de Ciencias, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
Interests: partial differential equations; q-differential equations; formal solutions; summability

Name: Prof. Dr. Florin Leon
Affiliation: Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering, "Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iași,700050 Iași, Romania
Interests: artificial intelligence; machine learning; multiagent systems; software design

Name: Prof. Dr. Max-Olivier Hongler
Affiliation: School of Engineering (STI), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Interests: stochastic processes; applied probability; queueing systems; multi-agents systems; mean field games

Name: Prof. Dr. Rade Vignjevic
Affiliation: Structural Integrity Theme/Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK
Interests: finite element and meshless methods; material models for metals and composites; impact mechanics; applied mathematics 

Name: Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Lorin
Affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
Interests: numerical analysis; scientific computing; mathematical modeling in quantum physics and chemistry; laser physics; partial differential equations

Name: Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Samaras
Affiliation: Department of Applied Informatics, School of Information Sciences, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia Str., 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: complexity of algorithm analysis; algorithmic operations research; constraint programming; scientific computing; machine learning; data mining

Name: Dr. André Nicolet
Affiliation: Institut Fresnel, Aix-Marseille Université, 13013 Marseille, France
Interests: mathematical methods for electromagnetic theory; numerical methods for partial differential equations; computational electromagnetics and photonics

Name: Prof. Dr. Francesca Rapetti
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Côte d´Azur University, F-06108 Nice, France
Interests: scientific computing; numerical analysis; finite element analysis

Name: Prof. Dr. Vissarion Papadopoulos
Affiliation: Engineering Simulations Lab, Institute of Structural Analysis and Antiseismic research, National Technical University of Athens, 15780 Zografou, Greece
Interests: computational mechanics; nonlinear finite elements; stochastic finite elements; high performance computing; data driven methods

Name: Prof. Dr. Efstratios Tzirtzilakis
Affiliation: Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of the Peloponnese, 1 M. Aleksandrou Str, Koukouli, 263 34 Patras, Greece
Interests: computational fluid mechanics; biomagnetic fluid dynamics; applied mathematics; ferrohydrodynamics; magnetohydrodynamics 

We look forward to their contributions to the journal.

We are pleased to announce that Mathematics (ISSN: 2227-7390) is now inviting nominations for the Mathematics 2021 Young Investigator Award. This prize will be given to one young investigator in recognition of their excellence in the field of mathematics. All nominations will be assessed by an Award Committee of Mathematics.

Prizes for Winners:

• CHF 2000 (Swiss Francs);
• Option to publish one paper free of charge in Mathematics after peer review before the end of 2022;
• An engraved plaque.

Nomination Deadline:

• 30 April 2022

Candidates Are Required to:

• Hold a Ph.D. degree and be below 35 years of age prior to 31 December 2020;
• Have ground-breaking research and a significant contribution to the advancement of mathematics;
• Be nominated by senior researchers, research directors, or department heads.

List of Documents for Nomination:

• Detailed Curriculum Vitae including an updated publication list and a list of the researcher’s own research grants;
• Birth certificate or other proof of age;
• Scanned copy of doctorate certificate;
• Signed nomination letters from two established senior scientists.

If you or anyone you know are qualified for the Award, do not miss the chance to apply.

Find more details and apply for the Award at:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/mathematics/awards.

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.

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.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Professor Manabe and Professor Hasselmann for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming, according to the Nobel Prize committee, while the other half of the prize went to Professor Parisi for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales. The three physicists contributed to the understanding of chaotic and apparently random phenomena.

 Manabe, Hasselmann, Parisi (from left to right) © Nobel Media

"The discoveries being recognised this year demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on a rigorous analysis of observations. This year’s Laureates have all contributed to us gaining deeper insight into the properties and evolution of complex physical systems", said Thors Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Manabe and Hasselman laid the foundations for the climate models used by scientists today. They were among the first to distinguish between climate phenomena on the one hand and random occurrences of the weather on the other hand, and to assess the impact of human activities on the climate from the beginning of the 20th century.

Parisi's novel studies involved identifying hidden patterns in disordered complex materials called spin glasses, a special type of metal alloy in which iron atoms, for example, are randomly mixed into a grid of copper atoms. He constructed a mathematical description of the apparently random behavior of spins. His findings not only impacted physics, but also mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning, because these felds include problems which are related to so-called geometrical frustration.

We send our congratulations to the Nobel Laureates, especially to Giorgio Parisi, who was a one-time author in Entropy (with Juan J. Ruiz-Lorenzo et al.): “Spin Glasses in a Field Show a Phase Transition Varying the Distance among Real Replicas (and How to Exploit It to Find the Critical Line in a Field)”.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com