Announcements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

We are pleased to inform you that the open access journal Membranes is now covered in the "Chemistry Physical" category in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)—Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics). 

Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal. The journal covers broad science and technology related aspects of both biological and non-biological membranes. Membranes provides a forum for publishing papers that advance our understanding of membrane structure, performance, processes, and applications that cover membrane chemistry, physics, engineering, and biology. The journal publishes original reviews, research articles, and short communications. Authors are encouraged to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. Thus, there is no restriction on paper length. Full experimental, theoretical, and computational details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. 

We ask you to consider Membranes as the platform for publishing your work. 

Membranes Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that 24 new scholars were recently appointed Editorial Board Members for the journal Membranes.

Prof. Dr. Slav W. Hermanowicz (University of California, USA)
Dr. Sébastien Déon (Univ Bourgogne Franche Comte, France)
Prof. Dr. Anthony Gordon Fane (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Dr. Vítor Geraldes (Univ. Lisbon, Portugal)
Prof. Dr. Jean-Christophe Remigy (Université de Toulouse, France)
Dr. Sabrina Morelli (Institute on Membrane Technology, Italy)
Dr. Geelsu Hwang (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Prof. Dr. Jack Gilron (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
Prof. Dr. Xiaodong Wang (North China Electric Power University, China)
Prof. Dr. John Fraser (University of Queensland, Australia)
Prof. Dr. Jiahua Zhu (Nanjing Tech University, China)
Prof. Dr. Xinsheng Peng (Zhejiang University, China)
Dr. David Alfredo Pacheco Tanaka (Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Spain)
Dr. Vitaly Gitis (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
Dr. Laura Donato (Institute on Membrane Technology, Italy)
Prof. Dr. Hyung Chul Ham (Inha University, Korea)
Prof. Dr. Yu Tian (Harbin Institute of Technology, China)
Prof. Dr. Weifeng Li (Shandong University, China)
Prof. Dr. Hongjun Lin (Zhejiang Normal University, China)
Prof. Dr. Huaqiang Chu (Tongji University, China)
Prof. Dr. Masahiko Matsukata (Waseda University, Japan)
Prof. Dr. Jiangnan Shen (Zhejiang University of Technology, China)
Dr. Mariano Andrea Scorciapino (University of Cagliari, Italy)
Prof. Dr. Alexander Toikka (St. Petersburg State University, Russia)
We wish them every success in developing the journal. 

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/membranes/editors.

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 29 new scholars were recently appointed as Editorial Board Members for the journal Membranes.

Prof. Dr. Kwang Jin Kim (University of Southern California, USA)
Prof. Dr. Seunghyeon Moon (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea)
Prof. Dr. Jonathan Soboloff (Temple University, USA)
Prof. Dr. Petros Samaras (International Hellenic University, Greece)
Prof. Dr. Gyula Vatai (Szent István University, Hungary)
Prof. Dr. Byung Joo Kim (Pusan National University, Korea)
Prof. Dr. Maxime Pontié (Angers University, France)
Prof. Dr. Shihe Yang (Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, China)
Prof. Dr. Udo Kragl (University of Rostock, Germany)
Prof. Dr. Fu Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
Prof. Dr. Huanting Wang (Monash University, Australia)
Prof. Dr. Xiaomao Wang (Tsinghua University, China)
Dr. Carme Güell (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain)
Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Stamatialis (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Dr. Aaron Thornton (CSIRO Manufacturing, Australia)
Prof. Dr. Anastasios J. Karabelas (Centre for Research and Technology—Hellas (CERTH), Greece)
Prof. Dr. Zhaoxiang Zhong (Nanjing Tech University, China)
Prof. Dr. Karel Friess (University of Chemistry and Technology (UCT) Prague, Czech Republic)
Prof. Dr. Hong Wu (Tianjin University, China)
Prof. Dr. Rebecca Green (University of Reading, UK)
Prof. Dr. Zhi Wang (Tianjin University, China)
Dr. Dinis Reis Miranda (Erasmus University Medical Center, The Netherlands)
Prof. Dr. Gheorghe Benga (Romanian Academy, Romania)
Prof. Dr. Liyuan Deng (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway)
Dr. Byungchan Bae (Korea Institute of Energy Research, Korea)
Dr. Hyung Keun Lee (Korea Institute of Energy Research, Korea)
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schuster (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria)
Dr. Alessandra Criscuoli (Institute on Membrane Technology (ITM-CNR), Italy)
Dr. Jean Chemin (Universités de Montpellier, France) 

We wish them every success in developing the journal. 

Further details about the Editorial Board can be found at:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/membranes/editors.

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)