Announcements

Once over 10 papers have been received for this Special Issue, one of the published papers will be selected to receive an SI Best Paper Award by an Evaluation Committee.

Eligibility for the Award:

• Paper published within the Special Issue: Noncovalent Interactions and Supramolecular Complex Formation
• Original research articles and reviews will be considerd

Selection Criteria:

The papers will be selected by the Guest Editor and invited panel members from the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting (2019) organising committee, according to the following criteria:

• Originality and novelty
• Career stage
• Importance of work to the supramolecular community

Prize Details:

The award will consist of a certificate and an invitation for the corresponding authour to present their work at the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting 2019, to be held at the University of Kent (UK) on the 16th–17th of December 2019. Funding of up 400 Swiss Francs will also be provided to support travel to and accommodation at the conference. It has also been agreed that the conference registration fee for the recipient of this award also be waived by the conference organisers. To be the recipient of this award, the author must be free to attend the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting detailed above.

Timeline:

The submission deadline is 1 August 2019. The issue will be closed at the end of October. The successful applicant will be notified by the 15th of November 2019.

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.

In September 2018, two societies chose to establish a cooperation with MDPI journals.

As part of this collaboration, the members of these affiliated societies will enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to the corresponding journals. The collaboration goes beyond the discount benefit offered to members and includes other services as well as cross-promotions.

Further information about these societies:

The Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT) is a multidisciplinary, non-profit body created in 1977. It integrates all Professionals, Companies, and Organizations whose activity is related to Spanish Pharmaceutical R+D.

The goals of the SEQT are to promote the development of this field through the organization of scientific meetings that will stimulate professional contacts at both national and international levels and to contribute to the training of advanced graduate students in the field.

The SEQT is incorporated within the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC, www.efmc.info), which groups the majority of graduates and professionals working in Pharmaceutical R+D.

The SEQT has honorary members, foundation members, full members, and protective members (pharmaceutical companies) that belong to the academic milieu, to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC, national research centers), and to private companies.

International Coenzyme Q10 Association (ICQ10A) is a nonprofit association, which aims to promote basic and applied research on the biomedical aspects of coenzyme Q10 in order to diffuse knowledge on basic biochemistry and genetics, and on the preventive and/or therapeutic effects of coenzyme Q10. The Association is motivated by a general interest in the biochemical, genetics, medical, and pharmaceutical fields worldwide, relating to the peculiar collocation of coenzyme Q10 in cellular bioenergetics, the pathogenesis and therapy of coenzyme Q10 deficiency syndrome, the field of antioxidant defense, and other fields where coenzyme Q10 has demonstrated functions. It is therefore important for the Association to coordinate international efforts aimed at furthering knowledge on these subjects and optimizing the use of coenzyme Q10 in preventive and therapeutic fields.

We are pleased to announce the new platform Encyclopedia, which is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

We encourage authors of review articles to quote and adapt the content of their published papers to create Encyclopedia entries. You can create completely new entries on topics in which you have knowledge and expertise. There is no limit on the topics or research fields. All of science and the humanities are included. Each entry will be published directly after submission.

We also have prepared a DOI application function in Encyclopedia. Once a DOI application is approved, the entry website will announce the DOI number and a pdf version with DOI information will be automatically created.

We look forward to your contributions and hope you will make use of this service. Find more about the service at: https://encyclopedia.pub/

In September 2018, the Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT) chose Molecules as its preferred journal and became an affiliated society member of the journal. As part of this collaboration, all members of SEQT enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to Molecules.

The Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT) is a multidisciplinary, non-profit body created in 1977. It integrates all Professionals, Companies, and Organizations whose activity is related to Spanish Pharmaceutical R+D.

The goals of the SEQT are to promote the development of this field through the organization of scientific meetings that will stimulate professional contacts at both national and international levels and to contribute to the training of advanced graduate students in the field.

The SEQT is incorporated within the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC), which groups the majority of graduates and professionals working in Pharmaceutical R+D.

The SEQT has honorary members, foundation members, full members, and protective members (pharmaceutical companies) that belong to the academic milieu, to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC, national research centers), and to private companies.

We are delighted to announce that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is now a participant of our Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). Authors funded by the BMGF can enjoy discounts on the APC, while the funder covers the costs of eligible articles centrally. BMGF also has access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency.

We hope that funded authors find the programme beneficial and we are happy to offer our IOAP to other funders that need a streamlined workflow of compliance checking and APC coverage. 

To claim their discount, BMGF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript.

For any questions about the BMGF agreement, please contact the funder at support@chronos-oa.com or the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.