Announcements

1. Could you please briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Nico Jehmlich, and I work at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ in Leipzig, Germany. My scientific background is in environmental microbiology. I am particularly interested in how microorganisms function in complex environments, where many different factors interact at the same time.
In my own research, I use molecular approaches to better understand microbial communities and their role in environmental processes. As Chair of ECM2027, I am very happy to help bring together colleagues from different areas of microbiology and from many different countries. For me, this exchange is one of the most valuable parts of a conference.

2. What were the important turning points or challenges in your academic career, and how did you overcome them?
I would not point to only one single turning point. It was more a series of moments where I had to learn that research rarely follows a straight line. At the beginning of an academic career, you often hope that experiments will give clear answers. Later, you understand that unexpected results, failed experiments, and changes in direction are also part of the process.
One important step for me was learning to work across disciplines. This can be very rewarding, but it is also demanding. You have to explain your own work clearly, and at the same time, you have to be open to the language and way of thinking about other fields.
I overcame these challenges by staying curious, asking questions, and not being afraid to rethink an idea. Good colleagues, mentors, and collaborators were also very important. In science, you rarely move forward completely alone. Often, a good discussion at the right moment helps more than you expected.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important qualities of an outstanding researcher?
For me, an outstanding researcher needs curiosity, honesty, patience, and flexibility. Curiosity is important because you really have to want to understand something. Honesty is essential because we must be careful with our data, with our interpretation, and with the way we communicate results.

4. In an environment with an impetuous academic atmosphere and heavy pressure on research output, how do you maintain your original aspiration and focus on research?
The pressure is there, and I do not think we should pretend otherwise. There is pressure to publish, to get funding, to be visible, and to move quickly. What helps me is to come back to the scientific question itself. Why is this question interesting? What do we really want to understand? Does the work add something meaningful?
Publications are important, of course, but they should not be the only motivation. I try to focus on solid work, careful experimental design, and honest interpretation. Good science needs time, discussion, and sometimes also the courage to slow down and think again. Working with students and young researchers also helps me keep this focus. Their questions and enthusiasm are a good reminder of why research is exciting in the first place.

5. What was the primary goal or inspiration for establishing this year’s conference theme?
The main inspiration behind the conference theme is to show how broad and important microbiology is today. Microorganisms are everywhere. They are important for the environment, for health, for biotechnology, for agriculture, for climate-related processes, and for many other areas.

6. Beyond the presentations, what are the key opportunities for professional development and community building?
For me, one of the most important parts of a conference happens outside the lecture hall. Talks are important, of course, but many ideas start during poster sessions, coffee breaks, lunches, or informal discussions.
ECM2027 should offer many opportunities to meet people (online), to ask questions, and to start collaborations. This is especially important for young researchers. Presenting your work, receiving feedback, and talking to more experienced scientists can be very valuable.

7. What exclusive gains can people get nowhere else but in this event, and why should young researchers and first-time attendees join in?
I am always a bit careful with the word “exclusive” because science is built on exchange and openness. But what ECM2027 can offer in a very special way is the combination of scientific breadth, international community, and direct discussion with people from many different areas of microbiology.
For young researchers and first-time attendees, this can be especially important. They get the chance to present their work, to become visible, and to meet people (online) whom they may only know from publications. It is also a good place to see the diversity of microbiology and to think about where their own research could go in the future. I would really encourage young scientists to join. ECM2027 will be a place to learn, to connect, and to be inspired. And perhaps most importantly, it is a place where they can become part of an international microbiology community.

Introduction of ECM 2027

Conference date: 7–9 April 2027
Deadline for abstract submission: 7 December 2026
Deadline for registration: 2 April 2027
Conference chair: Dr. Nico Jehmlich (Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Department of Molecular Systems Biology, Leipzig, Germany)

For more details, please visit the following link: https://sciforum.net/event/ECM2027.

For any enquiries regarding the event, please get in touch with ecm2027@mdpi.com.

We are pleased to share that Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607) was awarded an increased Impact Factor of 4.7 in the 2025 Journal Citation Reports™ released by Clarivate™ in June 2026. Microorganisms ranks in Q2 (50 among 167 titles) in the “Microbiology” category.

The 2025 Journal Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations received in 2025 to all publications in the journal from 2023 and 2024 by the total number of citable publications from those same years.

To learn more, visit our journal statistics website for detailed metrics.

The support and dedication of all the editors, reviewers, authors, and readers are an integral part of the journal’s performance. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have contributed to the journal.

We cordially invite you to attend this event organized by the MDPI journal Microorganisms (ISSN: 2076-2607, Impact Factor 4.7). It will take place online from 7 to 9 April 2027, and is free of charge for all participants.

Conference Chair:
Dr. Nico Jehmlich, Department of Molecular Toxicology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany

Topics of interest:

S1. Gut Microbiota and Health and Disease;
S2. Foodborne Pathogens and Food Safety
S3. Antimicrobial Resistance: Mechanisms and Control Strategies;
S4. Emerging Infectious Diseases and Pathogen Dynamics;
S5. Soil Microbiomes and Microbial Ecology;
S6. Microbe–Plant Interactions:
S7. Biodegradation and Environmental Microbiomes:
S8. Microbial Physiology, Metabolism and Evolution.
Important dates:
Deadline for abstract submission: 7 December 2026;
Notification of acceptance: 7 January 2027;
Deadline for registration: 2 April 2027.

Guide for authors:
To submit your abstract, please click on the following link:

https://sciforum.net/user/submission/create/1774.

To register for the event, please click on the following link:

https://sciforum.net/event/ECM2027?subscribe&section=#registration.

Note: We only accept abstracts for this conference. To publish a conference proceedings paper for free and submit a full manuscript to the organizing journal Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607, Impact Factor 4.7), please refer to the “Publication Opportunities” section.

Best Presentation Award and Best Poster Award:
There will be six winners selected for these awards. The winners will receive a certificate and CHF 200 each.

For any enquiries regarding this event, please contact ecm2027@mdpi.com.

We look forward to seeing you at the 4th International Electronic Conference on Microbiology!

Impact Factors measure how often articles in scientific journals are cited—specifically, the average number of citations received in a given year by articles published in that journal over the previous two years, as tracked in the Web of Science. For researchers, the number answers a practical question: how often is work published in this journal being picked up and built upon?

The metric is assigned to the journal as a whole, not to individual articles. A high Impact Factor tells you something useful about a journal's place in its field; it tells you less about any single paper within it.

For a complementary, article-level view, MDPI lists an Altmetric score on each article page. Where the Impact Factor tracks academic citations, the Altmetric score captures broader online attention: how an article is being shared, discussed, and referenced beyond the journal literature. Together, they offer two different ways of asking the same question: is this research reaching people?

With 2025 CiteScores from Scopus published a few weeks ago, Clarivate has now released this year's Journal Impact Factors in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

254 MDPI Journals Saw a Rise in Impact Factor

This year's JCR include 330 MDPI journals across a wide range of disciplines. Of these, 231 journals are placed in the top 50% (Q1 or Q2) of their respective subject categories, a result that spans fields as different as materials science, public health, environmental studies, and mathematics. 78 journals hold a top-quartile position (Q1), and 33 journals have a JIF of 5.0 or above.

• 330 journals earned a Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
• 29 journals earned a first JIF
• 254 journals had an increase in JIF
• 71% of ranked journals are in Q1 or Q2

For the full metrics on any MDPI journal, visit our Web of Science journals overview page or a journal's individual statistics page.

29 MDPI Journals Received Their First Journal Impact Factor

A first Impact Factor is a confirmation for an emerging journal. It marks the point at which a journal has been publishing long enough, and cited broadly enough, to enter the formal record of scientific influence. For the research communities those journals serve, it signals that the work being published is being read and built upon.

This year, 29 MDPI journals received a Journal Impact Factor for the first time, across a range of emerging and established research areas. Each represents years of editorial development and peer review—recognized in 2026 for the first time in the JCR.

This is also part of a longer shift in how science gets indexed. When the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) launched in 2016, 24 MDPI journals were included. By 2024 that number had grown to over 200, reflecting a broader change in the visibility of open access publishing within major citation tracking systems, not just at MDPI but across the sector.

Open Access with Impact

MDPI journals have received a total of 25.2 million citations in Web of Science. That figure matters less as a measure of MDPI's reach and more as a measure of what happens when research is freely available: it gets found, read, and used. Open access is only meaningful if the work actually travels and citations are one indicator that it does.

More than 4.6 million authors have published with MDPI. That breadth, across disciplines, institutions, and geographies, is what makes open access at this scale worth doing.

Thank You to the MDPI Scholarly Community

These results belong to the people who do the actual work: the Editors-in-Chief who set the standards, the Editorial Board Members and reviewers who hold them, and the authors who choose open access for their research. The numbers in the Journal Citation Reports are the downstream effect of decisions made at the desk, in the review, and at submission. Thank you for making them.

Data: 2025 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports™ (Clarivate, 2026)

1. Could you introduce yourself to our readers? What is your current research area?

My name is Riccardo Scotti, and I am a researcher at Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops. I mainly focus my activity on the area of soil microbiology and microbial ecology. My main research interests are plant–microbe interactions, soil microbial communities, and the role of beneficial microorganisms in sustainable agriculture. In particular, I am interested in how microbial communities in soil and plant roots respond to different agronomic practices and microbial treatments. I also work with sequencing-based approaches to better understand the structure and function of the plant and soil microbiome. My general goal is to support more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems through a better understanding of microbial processes.

2. How was your experience reviewing for Microorganisms, and what motivated you to participate actively in the peer review process?

My experience reviewing Microorganisms has been very positive. I had the opportunity to evaluate manuscripts from different areas of microbiology, and this was both interesting and professionally rewarding. What motivates me most is the idea that peer review is an important service to the scientific community. Good reviews can really help improve a manuscript, not only in terms of scientific quality, but also in terms of clarity and impact. I also believe that reviewing helps me as a researcher, because it keeps me updated and pushes me to think critically about experimental design, interpretation of results, and scientific writing.

3. In your opinion, what key qualities should an excellent manuscript have? From what perspectives will you help authors improve the quality of their papers?

In my opinion, an excellent manuscript should first have a clear research question and a solid experimental design. The methods should be appropriate and described clearly, the results should be presented in a logical way, and the conclusions should be fully supported by the data.

As a reviewer, I usually try to help authors from different perspectives: scientific soundness, clarity of presentation, interpretation of results, and overall structure of the paper. I pay attention to whether the conclusions are balanced, whether the discussion is well connected to the data, and whether the manuscript can be made clearer and more useful for readers.

4. How do you balance the comprehensiveness and efficiency of review? Can you share some specific methods or principles for reviewing?

I try to be thorough, but also practical. Usually, I first read the manuscript to understand the general objective, the main findings, and the overall quality of the work. Then I go back more carefully to evaluate the study design, methods, results, and interpretation. I normally focus first on the major points that affect the scientific value of the paper, and then on minor points such as clarity, wording, or formatting.

5. How do you view the role of a reviewer in shaping the quality and integrity of newly submitted research?

I think reviewers have an important role in protecting the quality and integrity of scientific publishing. A good reviewer helps make sure that the research is sound, that the interpretation is fair, and that the conclusions are not overstated. Reviewers also help improve transparency, clarity, and reproducibility. At the same time, I believe the reviewer’s role should be constructive, not punitive. The aim should not be only to judge a manuscript, but also to help improve it when possible.

6. What advice would you give to early career researchers who want to become strong peer reviewers, or do you have any suggestions for the current peer-review process? Would you like to recommend that more scholars join us as reviewers to promote the scientific quality of peer review?

My advice to early career researchers is to approach peer review seriously, but also with confidence. Reviewing is a skill that improves with experience. It is important to read the manuscript carefully, stay objective, and focus on science. I would also suggest that early career researchers read good papers critically and compare their own opinions with published peer-reviewed work. This is a good way to build judgement over time.

Microorganisms Editorial Office

On behalf of the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Nico Jehmlich, we wish to acknowledge the reviewers who generously offer their time to Microorganisms by presenting an award to those who have most demonstrated their dedication, professionalism, and timeliness in reviewing manuscripts for Microorganisms (ISSN: 2076-2607).

Eligibility and requirements:

• All of the reviewers for Microorganisms in 2026 will be automatically considered;
• Number of review reports;
• The quality and timeliness of review reports.

The prize:

• CHF 500;
• A free voucher for article processing fees valid for one year;
• A certificate.

Number of winners: 3.
Winner announcement: 31 March 2027.

How can I make myself eligible?
If you have not yet reviewed papers for Microorganisms but would like to do so, you can register as a reviewer at the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer_reviewer_info/update.

We are pleased to share that Microorganisms (ISSN: 2076-2607) has received an increased CiteScore of 8.2 in June 2026. 

Microorganisms’ CiteScore maintains its Q1 ranking across multiple disciplines:

• Q1 (14 out of 86) in the “Virology” category;
• Q1 (25 out of 147) in the “Microbiology (medical)” category;
• Q1 (41 out of 194) in the “Microbiology” category. 

You can find more statistics on our website. 

The current CiteScores measure the average number of citations within a journal over a four-year window (2022–2025). The Scopus database provides a comprehensive suite of metrics that support informed publishing strategies, research evaluation and enable benchmarking of journal performance. 

This encouraging progress would not have been possible without the sincere recognition and ongoing support from all authors, reviewers and scholars. Together we will continue to track the progress of Microorganisms and its growing impact in microbiology research. 

Microorganisms Editorial Office

The 2025 CiteScore metrics have been officially released by Scopus, and the results confirm what has become a consistent pattern for MDPI's journal portfolio: broad recognition across disciplines, steady improvement across the majority of ranked titles, and a growing presence at the top of subject category rankings.

CiteScore, published annually by Elsevier's Scopus database, measures the average citations received by articles published in a journal over a four-year window. As a complement to the Journal Impact Factor, which uses a two-year window based on the Web of Science database, CiteScore provides an alternative, long-term perspective on citation performance.

The 365 MDPI journals in Scopus (as of May 2026) are indexed across a wide range of subject categories, ensuring that open access research remains highly discoverable to a global readership through one of the most widely used platforms in academic publishing.

Data Summary (2025 CiteScores)

• New Additions: 41 MDPI journals received a CiteScore for the first time.
• Trending Upward: 234 of 322 previously ranked journals (73%) saw an increase in their CiteScore compared to last year.
• High Visibility: 314 journals (86%) rank in Q1 or Q2 in at least one subject category.
• Elite Performance: 42 journals rank in the top 10% of their subject categories.

Portfolio Performance

Among the 322 journals that held a CiteScore in 2024, 234 saw an increase this year. Quartile improvements outnumbered declines across the portfolio, with 52 journals moving to a higher quartile and only 20 seeing a decline. Furthermore, no previously ranked journals were removed. The 42 journals now ranked in the top 10% of their subject categories are drawn from a strong foundation of 178 journals holding a Q1 position.

With the large majority of our indexed portfolio ranked in the top half of research fields, researchers can confidently choose MDPI to meet funder mandates for high-quality, fully compliant Open Access publishing.

Exceptional Achievements for Foods and Life

Notably, both Foods and Life achieved a 99th percentile ranking in their respective subject categories for the 2025 CiteScores. This outstanding placement positions them as leading journals in their fields and highlights the high visibility and global impact of the open access research they publish.

Journal Metrics and Beyond

Journal-level metrics describe outlets, not individual articles. An increasing number of funders and institutions—including signatories of DORA and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment—now explicitly encourage evaluation at the article level rather than by the journal in which research appears. MDPI supports this direction: we report CiteScore alongside the Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Indicator, and article-level usage data because no single number captures the full reach and contribution of published research.

Thank You

These results reflect the sustained effort of thousands of editors-in-chief, editorial board members, reviewers, and authors across every field MDPI serves. The metrics are the outcome; the work is yours.

Conference: 2026 KoSFoST International Symposium and Annual Meeting
Date: 1–3 July 2026
Location: Daejeon, Republic of Korea

The Korean Society of Food Science and Technology (KoSFoST), founded in 1968, is one of the leading academic societies in Korea dedicated to advancing food science and technology through research, academic exchange, and industry collaboration.

KoSFoST will hold its International Conference and Annual General Meeting from 1 to 3 July 2026 at the Daejeon Convention Center under the theme “Food Science as a Translational Hub: Bridging Bioresources, Biotechnology, and Human Health”.

MDPI will be attending the conference as an exhibitor and warmly invites researchers to visit our booth to discuss their latest research and publishing opportunities with us.

The following open access journals will be represented at the conference:

• Fermentation;
• Foods;
• Microorganisms;
• Applied Sciences;
• Beverages;
• Molecules;
• Nutraceuticals;
• Processes.

We look forward to welcoming participants to the MDPI booth and discussing the latest research and publishing opportunities together. For more information about the conference, please visit the official website below: 2026 International Symposium and Annual Meeting.