Announcements

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to [email protected].

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

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

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)

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Founded in 1996, MDPI was one of the first fully Open Access publisher. Over 25 years MDPI has grown to become the largest Open Access publisher globally, publishing over 160,000 articles across more than 350 journals in 2020. At the core, MDPI was founded in response to a pressing need of fast publication and inclusion. The scholar was set at the centre of the publication process for the first time. Acting as a service provider, rather than a product provider, MDPI exists to help scientists achive their objective to disseminate research results. At MDPI, we believe scientists deserve a better service from the publishing world.

The International Open Access Week (Open Access Week), founded by the SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Alliance and student partners in 2008, has been successfully running for 13 years. As an advocate and pioneer of open access publishing, MDPI actively responds to the call of International Open Access Week. This year’s theme of “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity” highlights the Recommendation’s call for equitable participation from all authors and readers.

For the last 25 years, MDPI has been committed to disseminating open research. Here is a video showing MDPI’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for More than 25 Years.

International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress in the building of more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. MDPI has always aimed to provide professional and efficient publishing services to scholars around the world.

Our mission is to make scientific research accessible to everyone; this year, we interview and hold discussions with open science ambassadors on how to build an equal and inclusive environment for open science. Academic editors help us collaborate with more institutions to advocate for open access ideas.

Read our anniversary blog post: "Sharing 'Collective Human Knowledge': The Benefits of Open Access Publication"

Besides this, our scientific community is a key driver of our success and MDPI’s remarkable growth. Despite the pandemic, we have prepared online conferences and workshops to gather scholars from different communities.

The Basel Sustainable Publishing online forum provides an equal opportunity for stakeholders and researchers from multi-cultural environments to exchange ideas and eliminate barriers to participation.

Conference date: 25 October 2021, online
Conference website: https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/
Main topics: MDPI discusses the current dilemma of open access science from various perspectives such as governments, libraries, and publishers, and related measures on how to change the status quo of discrimination from a global perspective.

We aim to support equality, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications. We collaborate with universities and key laboratories and have scholarly communications with researchers, teachers, and students on open access workshops.

• 25 October 2021
  Energies journal and Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• 28 October 2021
  Machines journal and State Key Laboratory of Traction Power, Southwest Jiaotong University

• 29 October 2021
  Processes journal and Beijing Institute of Technology

• 29 October 2021
  Coatings journal and Wuhan University of Technology

MDPI is committed to providing open access and high-quality publishing services for scholars and promoting rapid dissemination of academic achievements. We hope to promote the practices and policies of open access publishing and diversify the dissemination of academic achievements.

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
[email protected]

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

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.

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

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.

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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.

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected].

Tourism and Hospitality is currently recruiting Editorial Board Members.

Tourism and Hospitality (ISSN 2520-2520) is an international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal that provides an interdisciplinary forum for publishing papers that advance the fields of (i) tourism business and industry; (ii) tourism policy, planning, and development; (iii) connected fields with other social sciences, such as anthropology, economics, psychology, and sociology; and (iv) tourism and culture, history, heritage, environment, technologies, and hospitality. Research articles, review papers, and short communications are all welcome.

As an Editorial Board Member, you would be responsible for the following:

• Providing suggestions for the development of the journal;
• Prescreening submissions and making decisions on whether they should be rejected or accepted for processing;
• Recommending timely topics and suggesting potential Guest Editors;
• Supervising at least one Special Issue related to your research field per year (you are then entitled to publish an additional paper free of charge);
• Promoting Tourism and Hospitality and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences.

More details regarding the Editorial Board of Tourism and Hospitality are available via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/tourismhosp/editors.

If you are interested in this position or have potential candidates to recommend, please contact the Tourism and Hospitality Editorial Office [email protected].

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

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.

The advantages of the open access model of scientific publishing are being increasingly recognized in the scientific community. It allows new scientific evidence to be accessed from the moment of publication for free by anyone around the globe, boosting the impact of new research. In response, many funders, libraries and universities have been adopting new principles to accelerate the transition to open access.

Recently, “transformative agreements” have been negotiated between traditional publishers and various institutions. While increasing the number of open access papers, these agreements lack binding commitments to a full transition to open access, their conditions vary across different regions, and access is still limited for many users.

MDPI is a co-signatory of the recent position statement raising concerns about potential downsides of transformative agreements and how they may delay a full transition to open access. The statement highlights that these models “risk perpetuating current limitations on access, transparency and market competitiveness, while simultaneously facilitating excessive charges on the public purse”.

As a pioneering open access journal publisher, MDPI is the first to promote the importance of science being made available to everyone. Our peer-reviewed journals, covering diverse academic disciplines, are fully accessible to the public free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This is why, along with other open access publishers, MDPI is a proud signatory of the position paper and is committed to contributing to the replacement of weak transitional agreements with “agreements with publishers that are already fully committed to open science and who offer full, immediate and transparent Open Access”.

Read the position paper here

We are pleased to announce that Encyclopedia will be awarding five Outstanding Contributor Awards for researchers in 2020. The nominations and applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee consisting of senior scholars from the Encyclopedia Editorial Board.

Prize for Winners

1. An official certificate;
2. A cash award of 500 CHF or an MDPI discount voucher of 800 CHF.

Application Deadline

31 December, 2020 (Please send your application email with a list of all entries you contributed to our office before the deadline: [email protected])

Candidate Requirements

1. Have a Ph.D. degree;
2. Have more than three qualified entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020.

Evaluation Standards

1. Number of entries published in Encyclopedia in 2020;
2. Quality of entries online (including length, figure quality, and novelty);
3. Impact of entries (including the number of likes, discussion contents, views, and downloads).

If you are a researcher and have not yet contribute entries to Encyclopedia, please do not miss this chance to highlight your research results.