Announcements

MDPI will be attending the European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes (EUROMAT 2019) in Stockholm, Sweden on 1–5 September 2019.

EUROMAT is the premier international congress in the field of materials science and technology in Europe. The visions of EUROMAT2019 are to:

• Facilitate a programme where academia, research institutes and industry can meet and exchange ideas and provide information on the latest scientific development in
• Promote involvement of top universities and researchers in materials science including special contribution from large scale facilities like MAXIV in Lund
• Demonstrate efficient knowledge transfer between research and its application through the active involvement of research institutes in Sweden like RISE and Swerea

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

Materials
Metals
Catalysts
Nanomaterials
Processes
Polymers
Molecules
JFB
Sustainability
Coatings
Inorganics

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#BrB1) in Norra Latin - The Marble Vault. 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://euromat2019.fems.eu/.

MDPI will be attending the 22^nd International Conference on Composites Materials (ICCM 22) in Melbourne, Australia on 11–16 August 2019.

ICCM is the premier international conference in the field of composite materials, and covers polymer matrix composites, metal matrix composites, ceramic matrix composites, natural fibre composites, fibre metal laminates, fibres and resins and all the other classes of composites.

The conference theme for the ICCM 22 is “Advanced Composites: Research to Impact”, with the objective of exploring the latest research into composite materials and how they will be used in the future covering multiple applications including aerospace, construction, wind energy, automotive, electronics and so on.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Aerospace
• Ceramics
• Fibers
• Materials
• Metals

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#08). 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://iccm22.com/.

MDPI will attend WHTC 2019 in Tokyo, Japan from 2–7 June 2019.

The World Hydrogen Technologies Convention, consisting of an exhibition and various sessions, is one of the most authoritative international conferences related to hydrogen technologies. WHTC 2019 aims to provide a forum for scientific, industrial, governmental, and general audiences from all over the world to gather together and present their most recent research findings, and to offer a stimulating atmosphere to discuss and exchange ideas on frontier research topics and future possibilities in hydrogen energy technologies through oral / poster presentations and technology exhibitions. This conference will be a place for the sharing and exchange of information on hydrogen-related technologies and policies and also for deepening international cooperation while discussing the future of a low carbon society.

Our representatives will be exhibiting the open access journals Energies, Catalysts, Processes, Safety, Metals, Applied Sciences, and ChemEngineering.

If you will also be in attendance, please stop by our booth. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and to answering any questions you may have regarding open access publishing or our journals. For more information about this conference, please visit http://whtc2019.jp/index.html.

In December 2018, the Portuguese Society of Materials (SPM) chose to become affiliated to Materials and Metals. As part of this collaboration, all members of the society enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to Materials and Metals.

The Portuguese Society of Materials (SPM) is an association of technical and scientific nature, nonprofit, endowed with legal personality and is governed by its own statutes and general regulations. SPM wants to disseminate around the world what is best made in Portugal regarding Science and Technology of Materials. They work to create a network of contacts worldwide to provide exchange of experiences and knowledge.

SPM works to help introducing new concepts for the use of Materials which are economically attractive and sustainable for future generations. They believe that knowledge is the key.

They work to encourage the active participation of all members of the community of Materials, and strengthen the link between universities, research centers, business and industry, and thereby add value and open new opportunities.

SPM is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Materials and Metals. We look forward to collaborating with SPM 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.

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 ioap@mdpi.com.

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 help@jisc.ac.uk. For any queries about MDPI’s institutional agreements and collaborations, you may get in touch with MDPI’s Institutional Engagement team at ioap@mdpi.com, 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 (constanze.schelhorn@mdpi.com).

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 emedien@obvsg.at, FWF at Katharina.Rieck@fwf.ac.at, or the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

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.