Announcements

Membranes is launching a new position—Topic Editor. The main responsibilities of Topic Editors are as follows:

1. Setting up at least one Special Issue (SI) within the first two years of the journal opening, and proposing a detailed strategy plan for the SI (including soliciting papers, promoting the SI, etc.);
2. Promoting the journal during conferences (adding 1–2 slides into your presentation, distributing flyers, recommending the journal to your colleagues, etc.);
3. Facilitating a collaboration between the journal and related institutions/societies/conferences, etc.;
4. Providing support for Special Issues on topics related to your expertise or when the Guest Editor(s) is/are not available, including SI promotion via social media, pre-checking new submissions, making decisions, giving advice on particular scientific cases, etc.

Benefits:

1. 50% discounts on the article processing charge (APC, 1800 CHF) for papers published in Membranes per year in the Special Issues you supervise, and special discounts on any additional papers from your group or by your invitation;
2. Travel grants per year if you lead a successful Special Issue and would like to promote it at conferences that you attend or organize;
3. Additional sponsorships for conferences organized by Topic Editors.

If you are interested in this role or if you have any suggestions, please feel free to contact us (membranes@mdpi.com).

For more information about Membranes, please visit the website:

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

It is our pleasure to welcome the following recognized researchers, who recently joined the Editorial Board of Membranes:

Prof. Dr. Akihiko Tanioka, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Prof. Dr. Kew-Ho Lee, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, Korea

Prof. Dr. Marek Bryjak, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Poland

Prof. Dr. Michael Zharnikov, Heidelberg University, Germany

Prof. Dr. José Villalaín Boullón, Universitas “Miguel Hernández”, Spain

Prof. Dr. Bart Van der Bruggen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Prof. Dr. César Valderrama, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)-BarcelonaTECH, Spain

Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Stamatialis, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Ivo F.J. Vankelecom, KU Leuven, Belgium

Prof. Dr. Michael Stoukides, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Prof. Dr. Yung Chang, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan

Prof. Kamalesh K. Sirkar, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA

Prof. Dr. Sangho Lee, Kookmin University, Korea

Prof. Dr. Eric Guibal, Institut Mines Telecom—Mines Ales, France

Prof. Dr. Hongyang Ma, Stony Brook University, USA

Dr. Mazeyar Parvinzadeh Gashti, Research and Development Laboratory, Canada

Prof. Dr. Moon-Sung Kang, Sangmyung University, Korea

Prof. Dr. Nidal Hilal, Swansea University, UK

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.

We are pleased to announce that Membranes has passed the milestone of having published 1000 papers since its inception in 2011. On behalf of the editorial team, we would like to express our gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief of Membranes Prof. Dr. Spas D. Kolev, and Section Editors-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Shiro Suetsugu, Prof. Dr. Giulio C. Sarti, Prof. Dr. Benjamin S. Hsiao, Prof. Dr. Wojciech Kujawski, and Prof. Dr. Clàudia Fontàs. Our gratitude extends to all the Editorial Board Members, Topic Board members, and Guest Editors of Special Issues. Together, they have ensured the continued success of the journal through their hard work and diligence. In addition, we also acknowledge the many valuable publications from our authors and the important contribution of our dedicated reviewers. We wish to thank you all for your support, and we look forward to receiving more quality submissions from you in the future.

Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375) is an open-access journal published monthly online by MDPI, covering all aspects of science and technology of both biological and non-biological membranes. It is now covered in the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and Scopus. With a 2019 Impact Factor of 3.094, it ranks 53th out of 143 (Q2) titles in the ‘’Engineering, Chemical’’, 129th of 314 (Q2) titles in the ‘’Materials Science, Multidisciplinary’’, and 23rd out of 89 (Q2) titles in the ‘’Polymer Science’’ categories.

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.

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.

MDPI will be attending the China Materials Conference and Exhibition 2020, Qingdao, Shandong, China, November 19–21, 2020.

CMC's 19th annual meeting is the premier venue for the presentation in the field of materials sciences, where one can learn from experts, forge collaborations with peers, explore new tools and technologies, and advance their career.

The purpose of the conference is to build an exchange platform for experts, scholars, professors, scientific and technological workers, relevant government management departments and leaders, entrepreneurs, and related personnel, engaged in the scientific research, development, and industrialization of new materials in China to exchange and share the latest materials research achievements, in order to achieve the purpose of mutual promotion and common improvement.

There are many outstanding people in the committee of the meeting, such as Professor Boyun Huang and Academician Lian Zhou of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Professor Bingbo Wei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Coatings (leading journal);
• Materials;
• Crystals;
• Energies;
• Molecules;
• Metals;
• Nanomaterials;
• Polymers.
• Actuators
• Sustainability
• Membranes
• Technologies
• Gels
• ASI

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth C13). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://cmc2020.medcon.net.cn/cn/web/index/

It is our pleasure to welcome the following 35 recognized researchers to join the Editorial Board of Membranes. We look forward to their contributions to the journal.

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 helen.dobson@jisc.ac.uk.

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 ioap@mdpi.com.

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

Updated Impact Factors