Announcements

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.

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.

Sexes (ISSN 2411-5118) is an international peer-reviewed open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI. It emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of sexuality, with broad coverage of issues related to sexual health and behavior.

It is our pleasure to inform you that Sexes is seeking Associate Editors whose research interests are related to sexual health and behavior. The aims and scope of Sexes may be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sexes/about.

We warmly welcome international scholars who are active and experienced in sexual research. We encourage anyone who is interested in applying to this position or who would like to recommend a potential candidate for this position to contact us by 31 March 2020.

Details regarding current Editorial Board of Sexes are available from the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sexes/editors.

The Associate Editor will have the following responsibilities:

– advising on the Aims and Scope of the journal;

– advising on the strategic development of the journal;

– helping ensure the quality of published content;

– nominating/inviting Guest Editors and optionally delegating to them the authority to make final acceptance decisions for submitted articles;

– nominating/inviting contributors;

– advising on new nominations for the Editorial Board;

- promoting the journal at scientific conferences or through other venues.

To apply or request further information, please contact the Sexes Editorial Office at sexes@mdpi.com.

We are honored and pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. David L. Rowland has been appointed Founding Editor-in-Chief for the new open access journal Sexes.

Professor David Rowland is currently Senior Research Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383, USA.

Professor Rowland has served as co-chair and/or member of the standards committee for a number of professional organizations, provided broad legal and professional consultations, served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Sex Research, co-authored a number of books (including, most recently, Cultural Differences in the Practice of Sexual Medicine, 2020), received grants and awards related to his research endeavors, and been designated a Fulbright Specialist.

Professor Rowland is author of over 215 scientific publications in national and international journals, proceedings and books in the field of behavioral neuroscience and human sexuality, with a research focus on human sexual response, dysfunction, and identity.

Professor Rowland served as dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost until 2014 and subsequently served as the executive director for the Office of Institutional Innovation. He has since returned to the Department of Psychology, where he is Senior Research Professor in Psychology.

We warmly welcome Professor Rowland as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Sexes, and we look forward to the new journal achieving many milestones under his leadership. Further information about the journal can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sexes.

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.

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19

It is our pleasure to inform you that Sexes is recruiting Editorial Board members whose research interests are related but not limited to the following aspects:

• Sexual and reproductive health;
• Sexual behavior;
• Sexually transmitted diseases;
• Sexually transmitted infections;
• HIV (human immunodefficiency virus);
• Sexual orientation;
• Sexual rights;
• Sexual roles and relationships;
• Sexual function and disorders;
• Sexual medicine;
• Gynecology;
• Andrology; and
• Gender roles

We expect to expand the Editorial Board and cover different areas related to the topics listed above to enrich our journal. We welcome scholars who are active, international, and experienced in sexual research, especially candidates with a passion for journal editing, scientific communication, and digital publishing. We encourage anyone who is interested in applying to this position or who would like to recommend a potential candidate for this position to contact us by 30 September 2020.

Sexes (ISSN 2411-5118) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal published online by MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. At present, we are trying best to build international and professional Editorial Board. For editorial practices, we provide an efficient and effective service and publish all the papers in open access format free (Sexes is a new journal and its article processing charge (APC) is fully subsidized by MDPI).

More details regarding the Editorial Board of Sexes are available from the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sexes/editors.

Editorial Board members have the following responsibilities:

• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted or not based on the reports we collect;
• Reviewing a few papers per year;
• Acting as a Guest Editor of a Special Issue on a topic related to your research interests;
• Promoting Sexes and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

As a leading Open Access publisher, MDPI is committed to fostering open scientific exchange in all forms across all disciplines. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many researchers have to stay at home and many academic conferences have been cancelled or postponed. In light of these changes, MDPI has adopted numerous initiatives that may help accelerate scientific exchange and provide support to the academics during this period.

Scholarly Community—Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia 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.

Comprehensive and Free Literature Database—Scilit

Scilit is a comprehensive, free database for scientists that uses a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Our crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis. This means that newly published articles are immediately added to Scilit.

Display Academic Achievements—SciProfiles

SciProfiles is an innovative social network for researchers and scholars that is developed by MDPI. In line with our broad mission, the purpose of SciProfiles is to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and providing opportunities for academic networking.

Organize and Participate in Conferences Online—Sciforum

Sciforum is an event planning platform that supports open science by offering the opportunity to host and participate in academic conferences. It provides an environment for scholarly exchange, discussion of topics of current interest, building of networks, and establishing collaborations.

Post Early Versions of Research Outputs—Preprints

Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. We post original research articles and comprehensive reviews, and papers can be updated by authors at any time. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed, and feedback can be received from readers.

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MDPI remains committed to open science and open data and has signed a statement, along with more than thirty scholarly publishers, showing our intention to facilitate sharing of new research findings as early on as possible. The initiative sees publishers collectively removing barriers to new research, in the face of a global healthcare crisis.

The world is currently suffering from a global pandemic of the corona virus COVID-19. MDPI expresses its sympathies for all of those affected by the virus and stands in solidarity with medical staff and researchers treating patients and searching for scientific solutions.

MDPI has previously published papers covering corona viruses in addition to new papers on the current outbreak, see all papers here. In particular, Viruses has published a number of Special Issues and papers on the topic (see here, here, and here) as well as a forthcoming Special Issue.

Alongside journal articles, MDPI has been a strong supporter of preprints, which are increasingly being used to rapidly disseminate the latest research, and we run the preprint server Preprints.org. Our database of research articles, Scilit, is free to use and covers all publishers including preprint servers. New papers are often in search results within hours of publication and users can set up alerts for new papers.

Our main priority during this period has been the health and safety of staff, and we continue to allow staff to work at home and closely monitor the situation in all locations in which we work. Despite the restrictions, we continue to provide a full publication service and, by close collaboration with our editorial boards and making use our in-house teams, ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in publishing vital research. Fast and open publication has always been at the core of MDPI values and is now more important than ever.

We hope that a solution to the current situation will emerge soon. In the meantime, we will do our best to continue communicating vital research in all fields.