CEO's Letter
Insights
7 August 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #14 - New Headquarters, Marketing, Poland
Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.
In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.
Opening Thoughts
MDPI Moves to New Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland
I am excited to share that MDPI has moved to a new state-of-the-art office space in Basel, Switzerland. This move consolidates our operations by bringing together our two previously separated Basel offices into one central location.
We are always growing our talent pool and encourage you to view our Careers Page for the positions available in Basel and across our offices.
New Address: Grosspeteranlage 5, CH-4052 Basel, Switzerland
Effective Date: 1 July 2024
This new chapter in our company’s journey is designed to continue our mission of positioning MDPI as a leader in Open Access (OA) publishing, highlighting our commitment to making scholarly research accessible to everyone.
Boasting modern amenities, improved meeting and event spaces designed to support our growing needs, the new location provides a more collaborative and efficient working environment for our employees. The location offers convenient accessibility to public transportation and is situated near the Basel SBB railway station, with a variety of nearby services and amenities.
In fact, I can see the trains right outside of my window as I write these lines!
This move marks an exciting milestone in MDPI’s development, and I am confident that the new headquarters will serve as an inspiring and productive space for everyone. We also very much look forward to welcoming visitors here. You can read more about MDPI's history here.
“This new chapter continues our mission of positioning MDPI as a leader in OA publishing”
For Those New to MDPI
A pioneer in scholarly, Open Access publishing, MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996. MDPI is leading the transition to Open Science by making a greater proportion of the research conducted worldwide free and accessible to everyone. To date, over 3.5 million researchers have entrusted MDPI with publishing their scientific discoveries. MDPI’s editorial process is bolstered by a network of dedicated reviewers, a team of 6,000 professional, well-trained staff members, and an in-house article submission platform designed to ensure efficient processes within its 440 fully Open Access titles. MDPI supports more than 800 academic institutions worldwide, helping them adhere to national mandates while facilitating authors’ publication in fully compliant (CC BY) Open Access journals.
Impactful Research
New and Emerging MDPI Journals Making an Immediate Impact
Unpacking some of the Impact Factor updates from the June CEO Letter, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the 137 MDPI journals which received Impact Factor for the first time.
Academic authors highly value efficient publishing processes, robust editorial support, and the opportunity to publish in high-impact journals. We are proud that our newly launched journals typically achieve coverage in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) of the Web of Science within just a few years, with a median time of only three years from release to inclusion.
As part of our commitment to advancing academic research and providing high-quality OA publishing, we actively seek new research areas to expand our portfolio of journals. We have a proven track record of successfully establishing new journals.
Our dedicated teams excel in fostering dynamic editorial boards and working closely with Editors-in-Chief (EiC) to define the precise scope and focus of each new journal. Our expertise extends to collaborating with indexing services, ensuring that our journals comply with best practices and are indexed promptly in all relevant databases.
Emerging Titles Ranked for the First Time
Our commitment to excellence is reflected in the annual impact metrics released this past June. The latest edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) showcases the integration of journals from the ESCI in the new unified category rankings, providing a simplified and more complete view of all journals within each subject category, including newly established titles.
Out of 137 new and developing MDPI journals ranked in the 2024 release, 79 are in the top half (Q1 or Q2) of their categories. Here is a breakdown of the number of MDPI’s ESCI-indexed journals by quartile in the JCR:
| Quartile | No. of journals |
| Q1 | 17 (12.4%) |
| Q2 | 62 (45.3%) |
| Q3 | 43 (31.4%) |
| Q4 | 15 (10.9%) |
| Not ranked (humanities-related journals) | 2 |
These rankings highlight our success in rapidly establishing high-impact new journals. Among those that made it directly into the top 25% of their category are the International Journal of Neonatal Screening, Journal of Xenobiotics, Polysaccharides, Smart Cities, and thirteen other journals.
You can browse MDPI journals by Indexing. Simply visit our Journals page and select from the list of Indexing bodies in the top left-hand corner.
Inside MDPI
MDPI Corporate Marketing Strategy and Team Meeting 2024
In July, I hosted the annual Corporate Marketing strategy and team-building activity with 15 of our team members.
The aim was to align the Corporate Marketing strategy with MDPI's goal of becoming the world's most trusted OA publisher. While we provide a high-level publishing experience for our authors, as seen from our surveys, we need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community and continue enhancing our reputation.
The Corporate Marketing team plays an important role as the mouthpiece for all our major activities within MDPI, especially those that model what it means to be a trusted partner. The purpose of the strategy meeting was to develop a feeling of trust in one another and an understanding of how to inspire trust in the stakeholders with whom we interact.
“We need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community”
We conducted a set of activities to facilitate that sense of mutual trust and trustworthiness. Examples of some activities we worked on during this strategy-building event include:
- Exploring what trust means
- ‘Letter to self’
- ‘The brand I most trust’
- Most Trusted Academic Publisher
- ‘The brand I would like MDPI to become’
- ‘The 2029 MDPI Annual Report’
- Voice of Customer and Share of Voice – survey/data update on MDPI Brand Experience and Brand Perception
- Integrate Trust-Based Objective into Marketing Plan
- ‘Becoming the MDPI experience’
- ‘Trusting the next steps’
While two days is not enough to finalize a marketing strategy, it is sufficient to get everyone who attended into the mindset of the direction in which we are working. From here, we will develop a program with next steps on main projects, update communications, and collaborate with team leads to incorporate this approach into our work going forward.
As a marketing team, we can communicate our messages, but trust has to be built at every touchpoint in the stakeholder journey. Just talking about it isn’t enough. We need to be about it. That’s a role each of us plays, from editorial to IT, from marketing to HR. We must build trust from the inside out. It starts with each manager and resonates out via every team member.
As a company, our goal is to give all stakeholders with whom we interact – whether internal or external – the experience of working with an organization it can trust.
Coming Together for Science
MDPI in Poland: Krakow Office
In July, I had the pleasure of visiting our Krakow office, following my recent trip to Warsaw to meet with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
During these visits, I prioritized meeting with our Office Manager, Editorial Director, Group Leads, and members from various teams, including editorial, production, marketing, and journal relationship specialists, to understand their roles and current challenges. Instead of a formal presentation, I opted for an open discussion, sharing updates from headquarters to engage with colleagues in a more personal way.
Our Krakow office has many things to be proud of, including a large number of PhD colleagues (over a third of its staff holds a PhD degree). Krakow provides an opportunity for expanding beyond the 100 colleagues we currently have, by adding new hires in departments including editorial, production and marketing, among others.
About our Krakow office
- Opened in 2020
- 99 staff members as at 1 August 2024
- Main Departments include Editorial, Production, English Department, JRS, PR
Our Krakow office participates in international conferences, conducts author trainings and scholar visits, and engages in local market outreach. The office is also a member of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology (IZTECH) and is working on expanding its local engagement.
Krakow is the second-largest city in Poland, with a population of about 800,000. It also has a large student population of around 128,000, with seven universities. This means that roughly one in every eight residents is a student.
Poland and MDPI
Poland is a crucial market for MDPI. From 2020 to June 2024, Poland ranked 7th in submissions and 5th in publications for MDPI research articles. As at 31 July 2024, Poland ranks 7th in total MDPI publications, with approximately 70,000 research papers.
Between 2020 and June 2024, 61,500 authors from Poland published with MDPI. As at 30 June 2024, there are 1,205 active Editorial Board Members (EBMs) from Poland, with 661 EBMs (55% of the total) having an H-index over 25.
We also have four Editors-in-Chief (EiC) from Poland leading our journals: Coatings, Venereology, Advances in Respiratory Medicine, and Limnological Review, along with six Section EiC.
In 2023, we received approximately 21,000 submissions from Polish-affiliated authors, of which 12,032 were published.
“Poland is a crucial market for MDPI”
Meeting with Ministry of Education
On 22 July, we visited Warsaw to meet with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
We were pleased to learn that they are strong supporters of the OA publishing model and value MDPI’s approach to the peer-review process, including our high ethical standards for quality control.
In 2023 Polish authors predominantly published their papers in OA, with MDPI holding the largest market share in OA publications within the country.
Our commitment to collaborating with Polish institutions is evident through our 33 Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreements with prestigious institutions such as the University of Warsaw, the University of Wroclaw, the Jagiellonian University, and Gdańsk University of Technology. Through IOAP discounts, a healthy waiver rate, and our peer-review voucher system, we provide the Polish scholarly community with significant savings in OA publishing. The Minister greatly appreciated these efforts and our commitment to offsetting some of the APC costs.
We discussed industry concerns about the threat of papermills and presented the preventive measures MDPI has in place to mitigate this risk and uphold high ethical standards. We informed them of our commitment to combating papermills, including our involvement with United2Act and the STM Research Integrity Hub, as well as our efforts to expand our research integrity team and explore proactive measures.
Closing Thoughts
MDPI Thought Leadership Op-ed on Open Access is Now Live on Politico
I am pleased to share that our thought leadership Op-ed piece on Open Access (OA) is now live on Politico. This is a nice push for continued influence and support of OA among policymakers and industry leaders.
Why Politico?
Politico's reputation as a highly credible and influential news platform makes it an important venue to reach key opinion leaders (KOL) from academia, policymakers, and thought leaders from many industries. This visibility helps promote the OA philosophy.
Open Access: A Moral Imperative for Progress
In this piece, I discuss the necessity of making scientific research freely available to all. I argue that publicly funded research should be publicly accessible, highlighting how OA democratizes scientific knowledge, accelerates research availability, and fosters collaboration.
“Open Access is a fundamental right for all citizens”
Democratizing scientific communication
The impulse to democratize scientific communication is nothing new. OA may seem like a recent innovation, but its principles have historical roots traceable to Europe in the 15th century. Just as the printing revolution accelerated the dissemination of new ideas, OA publishing unlocks new scientific insights that would otherwise only be accessible to a few.
Benefits for scholars: amplifying impact through Open Access
Authors publishing in an OA journal can expect more citations of their work, increasing its potential impact. Research findings that are freely available are more likely to be cited than those hidden behind a paywall. Freedom of access greatly increases the potential audience for each paper, fostering a sense of community among researchers worldwide. Heightened visibility can attract prospective collaborators and employers for young scientists. At MDPI, we believe that all these factors can only accelerate the advance of science. Additionally, authors retain copyright in their work instead of signing it away, permitting broader dissemination under Creative Commons licenses and increasing its capacity for impact.
The moral imperative
OA is not just a matter of scientific policy; it is a fundamental right for all citizens and a prerequisite for a brighter, more informed future. Publicly funded research should be a top priority, and I am pleased to see policy moving in this direction. Our capacity to generate transformative scientific insights has to be democratized. The question today is no longer whether we can afford to embrace OA; rather, it is whether we can afford not to.
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG
