Announcements

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize the winners for the year 2021 in the “Social Sciences & Humanities” category for their outstanding contributions among the extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners on their achievements. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Administrative Sciences:

• Joana Costa, University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Behavioral Sciences:

• María Napal, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain.

Education Sciences:

• James Russo, Monash University, Australia;
• Luis Manuel Sánchez Ruiz, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain;
• Lasse Christiansen, University College Northern Denmark, Denmark.

Humanities:

• Brad Prager, University of Missouri, USA.

Journal of Intelligence:

• André Kretzschmar, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Journal of Risk and Financial Management:

• Paulo Ferreira, Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre, Portugal;
• Sorin Anton, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania;
• Peter Moffatt, University of East Anglia, UK;
• Francisco Guijarro Martínez, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain;
• João Leitão, University of Beira Interior, Portugal;
• Mirela Panait, Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, Romania;
• Błażej Prusak, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland;
• Jakub Horák, The Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, Czech Republic;
• Magdalena Ziolo, University of Szczecin, Poland;
• Tobias Basse, NORD/LB and Touro College Berlon, Germany;
• Ching Torng Lin, Da-Yeh University, Taiwan;
• Dean Fantazzini, Moscow State University, Russia;
• Doojin Ryu, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea;
• Douglas J. Lamdin, University of Maryland, USA;
• Maria Luisa Esteban Salvador, University of Zaragoza, Spain;
• Masao Nakamura, University of British Columbia, Canada;
• Michael A. Talias, Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus;
• Sotiris Kotsiantis, University of Patras, Greece;
• Ryo Okui, Department of Economics, Seoul National University, South Korea;
• Grzegorz Mentel, Rzeszow University of Technology, Poland.

Religions:

• Daniel Boscaljon, Independent Scholar and Life Coach, USA;
• Dan Bradley, Gonzaga University, USA;
• Silvio Ferrari, University of Milan, Italy;
• Yu Tao, U4niversity of Western Australia, Australia;
• Aldona Piwko, Vistula University, Poland.

Social Sciences:

• Márcio Oliveira, School of Education and Social Sciences of Leiria, Portugal.

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Social Sciences & Humanities” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Journal of Intelligence:

• Okan Bulut, University of Alberta, Canada.

Religions:

• Kathryn Johnson, Arizona State University, USA.

The purpose of our best paper awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the “Social Sciences & Humanities” category, who were selected amongst the extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Administrative Sciences:

• “Entrepreneurship Education in a Multidisciplinary Environment: Evidence from an Entrepreneurship Programme Held in Turin”
  by Eleonora Fiore, Giuliano Sansone and Emilio Paolucci
  Adm. Sci. 2019, 9(1), 28; doi 10.3390/admsci9010028
• “A Systematic Mapping Study on Customer Loyalty and Brand Management”
  by Andrea Moretta Tartaglione, Ylenia Cavacece, Giuseppe Russo and Giuseppe Granata
  Adm. Sci. 2019, 9(1), 8; doi 10.3390/admsci9010008

Journal of Risk and Financial Management:

• “Refined Measures of Dynamic Connectedness based on Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregressions”
  by Nikolaos Antonakakis, Ioannis Chatziantoniou and David Gabauer
  J. Risk Financial Manag. 2020, 13(4), 84; doi 10.3390/jrfm13040084
• “Digitalization of the EU Economies and People at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion”
  by Aleksy Kwilinski, Oleksandr Vyshnevskyi and Henryk Dzwigol
  J. Risk Financial Manag. 2020, 13(7), 142; doi 10.3390/jrfm13070142
• “Assessment of Bankruptcy Risk of Large Companies: European Countries Evolution Analysis”
  by Nicoleta Bărbuță-Mișu and Mara Madaleno
  J. Risk Financial Manag. 2020, 13(3), 58; doi 10.3390/jrfm13030058

Risks:

• “Nagging Predictors”
  by Ronald Richman and Mario V. Wüthrich
  Risks 2020, 8(3), 83; doi 10.3390/risks8030083
• “A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Distance Driven on the Probability of Car Accidents”
  by Jean-Philippe Boucher and Roxane Turcotte
  Risks 2020, 8(3), 91; doi 10.3390/risks8030091
• “Financial Bubbles: A Study of Co-Explosivity in the Cryptocurrency Market”
  by Arianna Agosto and Alessia Cafferata
  Risks 2020, 8(2), 34; doi 10.3390/risks8020034
• “A Generative Adversarial Network Approach to Calibration of Local Stochastic Volatility Models”
  by Christa Cuchiero, Wahid Khosrawi and Josef Teichmann
  Risks 2020, 8(4), 101; doi 10.3390/risks8040101
• “Machine Learning in Least-Squares Monte Carlo Proxy Modeling of Life Insurance Companies”
  by Anne-Sophie Krah, Zoran Nikolić and Ralf Korn
  Risks 2020, 8(1), 21; doi 10.3390/risks8010021

Our current Board Members can be seen here. If you are interested in applying for this position, or if you would like to recommend potential candidates, please contact the Religions Editorial Office (religions@mdpi.com) for more details.

Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal on religions and theology, published monthly online by MDPI. It is indexed within Scopus, AHCI (Web of Science), ATLA Religion Database, Religious and Theological Abstracts, and many other databases.

Religions has risen to the 4^th place in the “Religion” category in the latest release of the Google Scholar Metrics. We will continue to strive to achieve an even better result in the future. For full details regarding the current rank release, please see Google Scholar’s news. Religions also received a 2021 CiteScore of 1.0.

The benefits of being an Editorial Board Member include the following:

• Publishing one paper free of charge per year in Religions, and potential discounts for additional papers you invite;
• A recognition certificate as an Editorial Board Member of Religions;
• Religions offers additional sponsorships for conferences organized by Editorial Board Members.

Responsibilities of Editorial Board Members include the following:

• Supervising the editorial process, including pre-screening submissions and making final decisions on whether to accept or reject papers;
• Contributing your work and inviting three papers to Religions (the Editorial Office will prepare the list of potential authors and the invitation template);
• Choosing to edit a Special Issue on a topic related to your research or recommending potential topics and Guest Editors.

If you are interested in becoming an Editorial Board Member of Religions, please send your application, including a full academic CV, to the Religions Editorial Office (religions@mdpi.com). We look forward to working with you in the future.

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

Religions (ISSN: 2077-1444) will be attending the Fifth Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion (#EuARe2022) as an exhibitor. This conference will be held from 20 to 23 June 2022.

The European Academy of Religion (EuARe) will bring together scholars from all the scientific disciplines studying religions from all over the world for one meeting. The EuARe aims to offer an exchange forum where scientists can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of religions.

As stated by EuARe’s Statute, each year, the Academy convenes an annual conference that combines working sessions (panels, working groups, round tables, and book presentations) with four keynote lectures offered by internationally renowned scholars. While the subjects of the working sessions reflect the variety of disciplines embraced by the Academy, the lessons are focused on a specific topic, which is different each year. This year, the overarching topic of the Conference will be Religion and Diversity.

The questions that will be addressed by this year’s overarching topic are:

• How the past of diversity has been re-elaborated to deny or boost violence;
• How diversity has become, since the classical cultures, a reason to close or open the divide between public power and the religious understanding of it;
• How religious diversity can be detected and critically identified through indirect sources such as international treaties, constitutions, laws, and artistic representations from the antiquity onward;
• What role education has had throughout its history and with the most different paradigms in shaping and/or managing religious diversity;
• What linguistic paradigms are (de)coded to manage diversity in given cultural areas;
• How theologies and doctrines have developed towards the shaping of languages and practices of diversity.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Religions;
• Social Sciences;
• Laws;
• Societies.

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start an on-site conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have.

For more information about our booth, please visit here.

Religions (ISSN: 2077-1444) is currently recruiting Editorial Board Members for the following three Sections:

• “Religions and Theologies”;
• “Religions and Humanities/Philosophies”;
• “Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences”.

Our current Editorial Board Members can be seen at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/editors. If you are interested in applying for this position, or if you could recommend potential candidates, please contact the Religions Editorial Office (religions@mdpi.com) for more details.

Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and open access journal on religions and theology, published monthly online by MDPI. It is indexed within Scopus, A&HCI (Web of Science), the ATLA Religion Database, Religious and Theological Abstracts, and many other databases.

Religions has risen to the rank of fourth in the category of “Religion” in the latest release of Google Scholar Metrics. We will strive to achieve a greater result in the near future. For full details of the current rank release, please see the following Google Scholar news: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=hum_religion. The CiteScore in 2021 Scopus data was 0.7, ranked Q1 in the "Religious Studies” category.

The benefits of being an Editorial Board Member include the following:

• Publishing one paper free of charge per year in Religions, and potential discounts for additional papers you invite;
• A recognition certificate as an Editorial Board Member of Religions;
• Religions will offer additional sponsorships for conferences organized by Editorial Board Members.

Responsibilities of Editorial Board Members include the following:

• Supervising the editorial process, including prescreening submissions and making final decisions on whether to accept or reject papers;
• Contributing your work and inviting three papers to Religions (the Editorial Office will prepare the list of potential authors and invitation template);
• Choosing to edit a Special Issue on a topic related to your research, or recommending potential topics and Guest Editors.

If you are interested in becoming an Editorial Board Member of Religions, please send your application, including a full academic CV, to the Religions Editorial Office (religions@mdpi.com). We look forward to working with you in the future.

We are now accepting Special Issue proposals for the Section “Religions and Theologies” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/sections/Religions_Theologies) of the journal Religions (ISSN: 2077-1444). If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about publishing cutting-edge research, please do not hesitate to contact the Managing Editor, Ms. Daphne Liao (daphne.liao@mdpi.com).

Religions is an international, peer-reviewed, and open access journal advancing knowledge in the field of religious studies. Religions aims to serve the interests of a wide range of thoughtful readers and academic scholars of religion, as well as theologians, philosophers, social scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and others interested in the multidisciplinary study of religions.

The Section “Religions and Theologies” has the following topics for your consideration:

• Exploration of esotericism;
• Intersection of ecumenism and ecclesiology;
• Theologies, science, and technology;
• Theologies of religious pluralism in a comprehensive way;
• New directions in hermeneutics.

The following information should be provided in a proposal:

• A 400–600-word summary that clearly states the significance, novelty, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed topic;
• A list of 5–10 keywords on the topic;
• A proposed submission deadline (a Special Issue will usually be open for submissions for 6–8 months);
• A list of at least eight planned papers.

As a Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting your peers to submit papers to be published in your Special Issue;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making precheck decisions on whether a manuscript can be sent out for peer review;
• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A certificate of recognition as a Guest Editor of Religions;
• Publishing one paper free of charge in your Special Issue;
• Inviting senior authors to submit high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue with certain discounts;
• Contingent on the publication of ten or more papers in this Special Issue, a hard copy of a Special Issue book published by MDPI.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Section Managing Editor, Ms. Daphne Liao (daphne.liao@mdpi.com), for further information. We look forward to receiving your proposals.

The 8th European Conference on Religion, Spirituality and Health is organized by the Research Institute for Spirituality and Health (RISH), Switzerland, in collaboration with the European Board on Religion, Spirituality, and Health and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference will be held as a hybrid event combining in person and online participation. The main focus is on mental healthcare integrating religious, spiritual, and existential aspects. European and international keynote speakers from a wide variety of disciplines will contribute to the topic. Invited symposia and selected presentations allow researchers to discuss their research projects and findings. The social and online interactive program promotes exchange and networking among researchers, health professionals, and other experts from many disciplines and nations.

Combined participation in ECRSH22 and the research workshop is possible.

For further information, please contact: rene.hefti@rish.ch or info@rish.ch.

This webinar will include the following experts:

• Dr. James Sterba, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame;
• Dr. Louise Antony, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts;
• Dr. Dean Zimmerman, Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University;
• Dr. Peter van Inwagen, Professor of Philosophy, Duke University.

Disagreements between atheists and theists manifest themselves in many different ways. In this webinar, Prof. Dr. Dean Zimmerman’s argument that religious experience can be a form of perception will be challenged by Prof. Dr. Louise Antony, and Prof. Dr. Peter van Inwagen’s argument which claims to show that God is logically compatible with all the evil in the world will be challenged by Prof. Dr. James Sterba. Zimmerman and van Inwagen will then respond to these challenges, after which the session will be open to questions from the audience.

The webinar will take place on 19 January 2022 at 2:00 pm CET | 8:00 am EST | 9:00 pm CST Asia.