Announcements

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing. Over 369,916 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2020. 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 of all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year, the MDPI Top Reviewer Award was announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise and dedication, and their high-quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2020 MDPI Top Reviewer Award:

• Adriana Burlea-Schiopoiu;
• Alban Kuriqi;
• Álvaro González-Vila;
• Alessandro Alaimo;
• Alexey Beskopylny;
• Alexander Yu Churyumov;
• Alberto Fernández-Isabel;
• Andrea Mastinu;
• Antonios N. Papadopoulos;
• Anton Rassõlkin;
• Antonio Humberto Hamad Minervino;
• Arkadiusz Matwijczuk;
• Artur Słomka;
• Baojie He;
• Bartłomiej Potaniec;
• Bojan Đurin;
• Camilo Arturo Rodriguez Diaz;
• Carmelo Maria Musarella;
• Chiachung Chen;
• Chiman Kwan;
• Cristian Busu;
• Danil Pimenov;
• Dan-Cristian Dabija;
• Delfín Ortega-Sánchez;
• Demetrio Antonio Zema;
• Denis Butusov;
• Elena Lucchi;
• Gaurab Dutta;
• Livia Anastasiu;
• M. R. Safaei.

For more information about how to become a reviewer of MDPI journals, please see: www.mdpi.com/reviewers.

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

We are excited to welcome the following recognized researchers to the Editorial Board of Symmetry (ISSN: 2073-8994). They will be working on the following five sections: 

• “Computer and Engineering Science and Symmetry”
  Dr. Giampaolo Bella: security protocols and policies; digital security; online privacy;
• “Physics and Symmetry”
  Prof. Dr. Davide Pagano: particle physics; BSM physics; cosmic rays; muon tomography; muon radiography; cosmic-ray neutron sensing; machine-learning;
• “Chemistry and Symmetry/Asymmetry”
  Prof. Dr. Guohui Li: methodology development for molecular modeling; theoretical and computational studies on biomolecules;
• “Mathematics and Symmetry”
  Prof. Dr. Jun Wu: complex network; complex system; big data; group decision; game theory;
• “Biology and Symmetry”
  Prof. Dr. Gustav Kuhn: perception; visual illusion.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

MDPI will be attending the CPS Fall Meeting 2021 in Lanzhou, China, on 21–24 October 2021. The theme of the conference is to enhance the academic exchanges of the domestic physics community, improve the academic level, promote the overall development of physics, and improve the quality of talent training. The conference was established 20 years ago, and the number of participants has gradually grown from the initial scale of 200 people at the first conference to the current scale of more than 5000 people. The Autumn Conference has also become the largest and most comprehensive brand academic event in China’s physics community. 

The following MDPI journals will be represented: 

• Mathematics;
• Sci. 

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth B39. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.lzu2021.cpsjournals.cn/.

We are excited to welcome the following recognized researchers to the Editorial Board of Symmetry. They will be working on the following five sections: 

• Computer and Engineering Science and Symmetry Section
  Prof. Dr. Firdaus E. Udwadia: applied mechanics and applied mathematics; earthquake engineering; dynamics and control; computational methods; engineering management and decision systems; collaborative engineering design.
  Prof. Dr. Guoyan Zheng: computer-aided surgery; multimode image segmentation; registration and reconstruction; computer-aided diagnosis; machine learning; deep learning. 

• Physics and Symmetry Section
  Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Bianchini: particle physics; high-energy physics; hadron colliders; LHC; Higgs boson; electroweak precision measurements.
  Prof. Dr. Andre Sopczak: Higgs boson physics and physics beyond the Standard Model; LEP; Tevatron; LHC; NLC. 

• Chemistry and Symmetry/Asymmetry Section
  Prof. Dr. Anthony Harriman: molecular photophysics; electronic energy transfer; electron transfer; photochemistry.
  Prof. Dr. Luigi Nicolais: material characterization of advanced materials; polymers; biomaterials; polymerization; composites; materials engineering; nanocomposites; sintering; composite material; biomaterial science; rheology; polymer composites; polymer blends. 

• Mathematics and Symmetry Section
  Prof. Dr. Marisa Fernandez: differential geometry; symplectic geometry; G2 manifolds; Einstein manifolds; formality; Sasakian and 3-Saskian geometry.
  Prof. Dr. Zhenya Yan: soliton theory; integrable systems; inverse scattering; nonlinear waves; symmetry reduction; rogue waves; symbolic-numerical computation. 

• Biology and Symmetry Section
  Prof. Dr. Stefan Van Dongen: evolutionary ecology; developmental instability; fluctuating asymmetry; biostatistics; fitness; stress.
  Dr. Fabrizio Vecchio: cognitive neuroscience; neurodegeneration; cognitive rehabilitation; electroencephlogram (EEG); functional connectivity.

Symmetry will attend this online workshop virtually, 30–31 August 2021. 

The plan is to bring together experimentalists and theorists to review the present status of charged Higgs searches at the LHC and assess new theoretical developments and ideas at the LHC and beyond. We will review analysis methods, theory/phenomenology developments, generator-level simulations, and strategies for future experimental data analysis. We are aiming at a lively, instructive and fruitful workshop. 

The proceedings and invited papers will be published in the Special Issue "Symmetry, Collider Phenomenology and High Energy Physics" of the “Physics and Symmetry” Section of Symmetry, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal of MDPI.

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.