Interview with Dr. Alessio Radice—Water Exceptional Reviewer 2025

We are pleased to share with you a recent interview conducted with Dr. Alessio Radice, Water Exceptional Reviewer 2025.

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your field of research?
I am a professor of hydraulics at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, with 25 years of experience. I am basically a river hydraulician, with a focus on flood risk, river-bridge interaction, sediment transport and morphologic processes. I do both laboratory investigation and numerical modelling.

2. What key aspects do you typically focus on during the review process?
Normally I accept a reviewer position if the abstract is relevant for my area of study, or if I am potentially interested in the topic or if I want to support the journal or editor inviting me (knowing that finding reviewers is quite hard).
In my opinion, it is important that a manuscript is understandable (good organization and smooth reading), complete (not leaving questions on methods and results), and with supported conclusions. Normally it is not so important for me if I agree with all the authors’ statements (unless there are evident mistakes), since a paper conveys the authors’ and not the reviewers’ view.

3. In your opinion, what qualities are essential for a reviewer to possess?
A reviewer needs to be unbiased. I decline reviews if, for example, based on reading previous papers of the authors, I can tell that I will dislike the manuscript.
Also, one should accept a reviewer invitation if their schedule allows for it. At least some hours are needed to review a manuscript, and one should not accept the position with the idea of doing the job too quickly.
Clarity is also important. A review is a written document that will be read by another person, exactly like a paper. The authors need to understand what is written in the review in order for the suggestions to be helpful to improve the manuscript.
Importantly, authors and reviewers play on the same side; that is, towards publishing a strong paper that will be an important contribution to the research community. Is it not a fight between opposite players. Respecting one another is important.

4. As an exceptional reviewer for MDPI, do you have any tips or experiences to share that could help other reviewers improve the quality of their reviews?
Normally I read the paper and write any comment as soon as it comes to my mind, in sequential order. After that, I rearrange everything, possibly adding some new text. I divide a review into four parts: (1) a general introduction that is meant to provide the handling editor with a general description of content, an opinion on the paper fit to the aims and scope of the journal, a summary of major issues, and a recommendation; (2) a detailed explanation of major issues, not following a line-by-line order; (3) a list of additional comments, line-by-line; and (4) a list of typos.
Generally, comments need to be accompanied by proposals for revision, otherwise they will be fruitless.
Normally I write my reviews as plain text, avoiding annotations on the pdf. This helps me synthesize and better organize the comments. I think it is also more convenient for the authors in preparing their rebuttal letters, since this avoids a long copy-and-paste of individual comments. I provide my review as an attachment only if I produce alternative plots that I would consider more effective than the authors’ ones.
In general, the recommendation must be consistent with the review, as in a paper the conclusions must be supported by the findings. Too often, serving as an associate editor for MDPI Hydrology, I find recommendations of major revisions or rejection after a few lines of comments. This does not help the authors improve the manuscript.
I have been reviewing like this for long time now based on early suggestions from my mentors. I think it works; as a matter of fact, this is the second time I have received an acknowledgement of good reviewing (the first one was from ASCE Journal of Hydraulic Engineering in 2012).

5. Based on your experience reviewing manuscripts, what advice would you give to authors?
First, I repeat myself. Authors and reviewers play on the same side. For authors, this means that an author should not think that “this reviewer is just delaying the publication of my manuscript”, but realize that “this reviewer is spending time to help me publish a better contribution”. Then, obviously some comments may be rebutted, but within a general perspective of working for a common objective rather than fighting.
Second, after achieving a relatively finalized draft, a manuscript should be left for some days and then re-read with a reviewer’s eye. We need to be the reviewers of our work first. Does it provide all the needed information to understand how the work was done? Are the results described clearly? Is there a clear link between results, discussion and conclusions? If not, the manuscript should be reworked before submission.

6. Water is an open access journal, as you know, so what is your opinion of the open accsess model of publication?
Generally speaking, open access is obviously a good practice. Indeed, funders ask for it and provide money for article processing charges; readers have an obvious benefit. For the last papers I have published, I opted for open access even though the journals were traditional ones.
The hidden question here is the reputation of some open access publishers that sometimes are even perceived as predatory. Serving as an editor for MDPI, I have been trying to maintain a rigorous standard and have been witnessing other editors doing the same. As a reviewer, I try to reach the same depth irrespective of the publisher for which I am reviewing. This may imply delaying a manuscript’s publication, and sometimes the extremely short publication times targeted by open access publishers cannot be met.