Announcements

31 January 2024
Acknowledgment of the Reviewers of Genes in 2023

In recognizing the exceptional efforts of our reviewers in 2023, we express our sincere gratitude for upholding the high standards of Genes. Their commitment ensured the rigorous peer review that is integral to quality academic publishing.

In 2023, Genes received 6364 review reports, from 4390 reviewers. This past year, we worked with reviewers from 96 countries and regions, reflecting the diversity in our collaboration with research communities. Their dedication shapes scholarly discourse and advances global research. The editorial team expresses gratitude for the vital role played by each reviewer in the Genes family throughout 2023, and we look forward to their continued support in 2024.

The following are the reviewers who have consented to show their names:

A. Abdul Kader Jailani Kusumadewi Yulita
A. Z. M. Salem
Ladislav Paule
A.K. Thiruvenkadan Laima Česonienė
Abdallah Hassanin Lalu Muhammad Irham
Abdallah Tageldein Mansour Larisa Fedoreyeva
Abdul Ghafoor Larry Croft
Abdullah Assiri Laszlo Bodai
Abdullah Gibriel Laura Kvist
Abhik Ghosh Laura-Marinela Ailioaie
Abhinav Jain Laurence Lebaron-Jacobs
Abhirup Shaw Leandro Castro
Ada Wróblewska Lei Guo
Adam Whisnant Leire Pedrosa
Adarsh K. Gupta Leon Higley
Adina Stoian Leonard Koolman
Aditya Sharma Leonid Bystrykh
Adrian Man Leonor Jacobo-Albavera
Adrian Marciszak Letizia Bernardo
Afshan Fathima Nawas Liliya Doronina
Agata Zmijewska Liming Hou
Aggeliki Vervenioti Lin Huang
Agnieszka Dąbrowska Linda Peters
Agnieszka Owczarczyk-Saczonek Linda Petijová
Agnieszka Rusak Lindsay Michalovicz
Ahlam Alhusaini Lionel Frangeul
Ahmed Aioub Liton Saha
Ahmed Ateya Liudmila Lysenko
Ahmed Bakillah Livia Cosentino
Ahmed Elmasry Livija Šimičević
Aida Petca Liyun Liu
Aiman Hina Ljiljana Kuzmanovic
Aisha Farhana lmansour Mansour
Akinori Morita Logan Cole
Akio Masuda Lord Gowans
Akiyoshi Takami Lorena Ciumărnean
Alba Rodríguez-Meira Lorenzo Franceschetti
Aldo Ferreira-Hermosillo Lothar Brecker
Alejandro Saettone Loukas Chatzis
Aleksandar Rakic Luca Bertolaccini
Aleksandra Jovanović Galović Luca Ermini
Aleksandra M Pavlovic Luca Fontanesi
Aleksandra Starosz Luca Magistrelli
Alessandra Crisá Luca Potestio
Alessandra Maria Vitale Luca Redaelli De Zinis
Alessandro Lucchesi Lucas Doretto
Alessia Faggian Lucia Vieira Hoffmann
Alex Merrick Luciano Marasco
Alexandr Ceasovschih Lucie Tamisier
Alexandre Gaspar-Maia Lucky Poh Wah Goh
Alexandros Tsakogiannis Ludmila Kazdova
Alexei Slepzof Luigi De Masi
Alexey Kotov Luis G. Celis-Regalado
Alexey Morgounov Luis Jacinto-Alemán
Alexis Murillo Carrasco Luis Rey
Alexsandra Christianne Malaquias Luis Soto-Rojas
Ali Abu Almaaty Luísa Carvalho
Ali Dehshahri Luiz Miletti
Ali El-Raghi Luka Clarke
Ali Raza Lukas Lacina
Ali Waryah Lukasz Dobrek
Alicia Ayerdi Gotor Lusi Zhang
Alicia Romero-Lorca Lyubov Getmantseva
Alina Popp Lyudmila Khrabrova
Alina Stachurska-Swakoń M. Gonzalo Claros
Aline Fernanda de Souza M. Miftahudin
Alireza Tarinejad Maciej Frant
Allen Titus Madankumar Ghatge
Alma Del Villar-Martínez Madhab Sen
Alok Sahu Madhusmita Panigrahy
Alsu Saifitdinova Madya Dr. Nur Faeza Abu Kassim
Alvaro Gallego-Martinez Magdalena Hurkacz
Álvaro Plaza Reyes Magdalena Mroczek
Amalio Santacruz-Varela Magdalena Rys
Amelia Ramon-Lopez Magdalena Stachnik
Amir Ariff Magdalena Szymanska
Amir Shemirani Mahmoud Khalifa
Amira Goma Mahmoud Younis
Amira Ibrahim Mai Mostafa
Amirreza Haghighi Maikel Castellano-Pozo
Amit Singh Maja Lazarevic
Amjad Hussain Majida Charif
Amritlal Mandal Makoto Takei
Ana Buzaleh Małgorzata Godala
Ana Carla Santos Malkhan Gurjar
Ana Catarina Torres Mamoru Yamada
Ana Florencia Vega-Benedetti Manikandan Samidurai
Ana Leticia Fornari Caprara Manish Kumar
Anastasia A. Anashkina Manman Shen
Anastasia Nijnik Manohar Kugaji
Anastasiya Kazantseva Manoj K. Sekhwal
Andre Pasqua Tavares Manoj Saxena
André Pereira Manosh Biswas
Andrea Bianconi Manouchehr Khazandi
Andrea Brancaccio Mansoor Hussain
Andreas Brodehl Mansoor-Ali Vaali-Mohammed
Andrei Gradinaru Manuela Lanzafame
Andreia Garces Manuela Rabaglio
Andrej Belančić Marc Girondot
Andrey Markov Marcelo Moura
Andrey Sudarikov Marcin Różewicz
Andrii Gorash Marco Antonio López-Carlos
Andrzej Kasperski Marco Dolci
Angel Arturo Guevara Garcia Marco Zedda
Angela Alleyne Marcos Herkenhoff
Angela Riveroll Marcus Mareel
Angeliki Katsafadou Marek Pieszka
Aniello Maiese Margarita Terentjeva
Anikó Bozsik Margherita Bernardeschi
Anil Kumar Vijjamarri Maria Calado
Anilkumar C. Maria De Fatima Oliveira
Ankit Dwivedi Maria de la Paz Santangelo
Anna Barbaro Maria Fomicheva
Anna Hurst Maria Greabu
Anna Kasprzyk María Islas-Osuna
Anna Papadopoulou María Jesús Costas
Anna Paradowska-Stolarz Maria Julia Lamberti
Anna Rita Rossi Maria Llambi
Anna Szakiel Maria Luisa Dettori
Anna Timofeeva María Luna Luna
Anna Wysokińska Maria Michela Pallotta
Annabelle Lewis María Pérez-Fernández
Anne Chiaramello Maria Pia Ferraz
Anne-Sophie Van Laere Maria Pina Concas
Anoop Kumar Maria Radanova
Anthony Kusalik Maria Rubtsova
Anton Tyurin Maria Spletter
Antonella Minelli Maria V. Chatziathanasiadou
Antonio Blanco Maria V. T. Lobo
Antonio Marco Mariana Floria
Antonio Pazos Mariann Harangi
Anuradha Singh Marianna Domán
Aobo Huang Mariella D'Angiò
Apoorv Tiwari Marie-Louise Kampmann
Arancha Llama-Palacios Mariia Ivanova
Ardha Apriyanto Maristella Mastore
Ari Meerson Mariusz Hartman
Aris Kaltsas Mariya Smetanina
Arley Camargo Marja Steenman
Arman Rahimmi Mark Samuels
Arong Gaowa Marko Spasic
Arrigo Cicero Markus Wolfien
Arsen Arakelyan Marloes Dekker Nitert
Arthur Lustig Marta Pawłowska
Artur Gurgul Martin Svoboda
Arun De Martina Torricelli
Arun Kumar Hanumana Gouda Patil Masaaki Wachi
Arun Renganathan Masahiro Kaneda
Arun Sridhar Masashi Mizuguchi
Asad Shah Masayuki Takeda
Asher Ornoy Massimiliano Ammirabile
Ashis Mondal Matea Zajc Petranović
Ashish Jain Mati Pääsuke
Ashvinkumar Katral Matteo Lener
Asmaa Abdella Matthias Müller
Asmat Ullah Maurice van den Hoff
Atsushi Fukushima Maurizio Badiani
Attila Zsolnai Mauro Lago-Docampo
Atul Chander Mayra Eduardoff
Atul Pandey Md Ashraful Islam
Babak Pakbin MD Mazharul Islam
Babar Usman Md Mustafizur Rahman
Bacem MNASRI Megan Tesch
Bakhytzhan Bekmanov Mehdi Moghanibashi
Balázs Egyed Mehmet Boz
Baojun Tang Mehmet Bülbül
Barbara Jagosz Mehmet Karaca
Barbara Ruaro Mehmet Sezgin
Barbara van Asch Mehmet Yaman
Barry Palmer Mehraju Lone
Bartłomiej Górski Meiji Soe Aung
Bartosz Jan Płachno Mel Camelo
Basveshwar Gawali Meng Wu
Beatrice Paradiso Mengdi Bao
Beatrice Turcq Meng-jia Lau
Beatriz Puisac Mengqi Ma
Bed Prakash Bhatta Mengxi Shen
Beenu Moza Jalali Michael Kim
bekir kabasakal Michael S. Adamowicz
Benjamin Cull Michael Sticherling
Benjamín Floran Garduño Michele Costanzo
Benjamin Rolles Michelle Lowe
Berit Hippe Miguel A. Ortega
Bert Ely Miguel Angel Alcántara Ortigoza
Bert Hoeksema Mihaela Niculae
Bertrand Kaeffer Mihai Cristian Dumitrascu
Bharat Bhusan Patnaik Mihajlo Erdeljan
Bhargav Patel Min Li
Bijayalaxmi Mohanty Min Wook Joo
Bin Wu Ming Gao
bin yu Mingsong Kang
Bindiya Sachdev Mingxing Cheng
Bing Liu Mirna Jovanović
Bingxian Xie Miroslaw Tyrka
Bo Zhou Mitchell Holland
Bogna Grygiel-Górniak Mohamed Ali
Bogomir Milojevic mohamed attia
Bohao Fang Mohamed El-Soda
Bojin Bojinov mohamed gaballa
Boleslaw T. Karwowski Mohamed Mohamed kamara
Brenda Lopez Ruiz Mohamed Sharaf
Brian Babigumira Mohammad Athar
Brigitte Bruijns Mohammad Bagher Hassanpouraghdam
Brunella Franco Mohammad Mobashir
Bruno Rossini Mohammad Sadat-Hosseini
Cai Chen Mohammadreza Mohammadabadi
Caio Carlos Mohammed Ali
Candan Hizel Mohammed Elmogy
Carla Maria Calò Mohit k Midha
Carlos Calderon-Ospina Mohsen Niazian
Carlos Loncoman Mona Batish
Carlos Prada Quirogaa Monica Mendoza-Rodriguez
Carlos Sanz García Monika Łopuszańska-Dawid
Carmen Callejas Monika Peshevska-Sekulovska
Carsten Carlberg Monika Ruszala
Cecilia Bender Monirul Islam
Cees Noordam Monther Sadder
Celal Bulgay Mouna Ghorbel
Celestino Quintela-Sabaris Muhammad Abdel Ghafar
Cesare Danesino Muhammad Afzal
Chang-Hyun Kim Muhammad Faisal Nadeem
Chan-Yen Kuo Muhammad Fasih Khalid
Chao Shen Muhammad Hassan
Charles Hensel Muhammad Mahmood
Cheng Liu Muhammad Sattar
Cheng Wang Muhammad Sohail
Chenghao Chen Muhammed Batir
Chengquan Ma Mukesh Choudhary
Chetta Massimiliano Nader Cohan
Chiara Moltrasio Nader Tanideh
Chiew-Yen Wong Nadim Tayeh
Chih-Po Chiang Nadine Darwiche
Chin Jian Yang Nagehan Desen Köycü
Chinnamani Prasannakumar Naman Vatsa
Chris DeVera Nan Yang
Christian Barbato Nancy E. Lozoya-Pérez
Christof Albert Bertram Narongchai Autsavapromporn
Christophe Escudé Naser Alsharairi
Christopher Bellas Natalia Garcia-Giralt
Chryssanthi Antoniadou Natalia Repkina
Chunce Guo Nataliya Babyshkina
Chung Lin Lee Navid Abedpoor
Chuntian Zhang Navid Ghavi Hossein-Zadeh
Cintia Fridman Nazar Shapoval
Cinzia Volonté Neal Davies
Clara Valero Nebi Bilir
Claudia Bita-Nicolae Nebuchadnezzar Akbar
Cláudia Gomes Neda Baghban
Claudia Melis Neeraj Chauhan
Claudia Villicaña Nejc Umek
Claudiu Popescu Neluwa-Liyanage Indika
Claus Børsting Nenad Bukvic
Clesivan dosa Sntos Nerivania Godeiro
Clint Rhode Netty Salindeho
Concha (Concepción) Gómez-Mena Nicola Marziliano
Cong Fei Nicolas Bourmeyster
Corina C.G. Benschop Nicoletta Coccaro
Corina Ene Nicoletta Cordani
Corina Hayano-Kanashiro Nikee Awasthee
Coro Paisan-Ruiz Nikola Štoković
Corrado Zengarini Nikolaos Remmas
Cosimo Cumbo Nikolaos Solomakos
Costas Batargias Nikolay Barashkov
Cristian Canales-Aguirre Nikoletta Nagy
Cruciat Gheorghe Nirmalya Dasgupta
Crystel Bonnet Noélia Custódio
Csaba Bojtor Noemi Salmeri
Csaba Hancz Noman Shakoor
Cydne Holt Nutricati Eliana
Cyril Bauland Nycolas Levy-Pereira
Dae-Wui Yoon Olga Baranova
Dajana Kučić Grgić Olga Echeverri
Daniel Lindegger Olga Shchagina
Daniel Meier Olga Uphyrkina
Daniel Potaczek Ömer Faruk Coskun
Daniel Vogt Onur Yilmaz
Daniela Iancu Orsolya Borsai
Daniela Piancatelli Ottmar Distl
Daniela Zuccarello Oumaima Ammar
Danuta Januszkiewicz-Lewandowska Özhan Şimşek
Daria Budzyńska Ozkan Kaya
Dario Giorgio Pablo Ezequiel Flores-Kanter
Dariusz Piwczyński Pablo Luna-Nevarez
David Groth Pablo Octavio-Aguilar
David Haymer Pablo Serrano-Lorenzo
David Higgs Padmanaban Mohanan
David P Lin Pan Zhang
David Ramiro-Cortijo Panagiotis Katsonis
David Varillas Delgado Pankaj Kaushal
Dawei Zhou Paolo Biagi
Dayna Dreger Paolo Compagnucci
Debasish Dey Paolo Fattorini
Debbie Guest Paolo Zambonelli
Debdeep Dutta Paride Rizzo
Débora Meira Parviz Heidari
Deborah Good Pascal Escher
Dediu Lorena Pasquale Scarcia
Deen Mohammad Deepo Patricia Wadowski
Deepak Kumar Patrick Arbuthnot
Deepika Yadav Patrik Viana
De-Li Shi Paula Ludovico
Demin Cai Paulina Mertowska
Denilce Lopes Paulo Ricardo Gazzola Zen
Desire Casares Marfil Pavel Marozik
Deyong Jia Payam Behzadi
Deyvid Marques Pedro Lorite
Deze Kong Pedro Piedras
Dhananjay Pandey Pei Li
Dhananjay Yadav Pei-Cheng Huang
Diana Paiva Perumal Renukadevi
Diego Estrada-Luna Pervin Elvan Tokgun
Dillon Mintoff Peter Lunt
Dimitri Kakabadse Peter Piko
Dimitrina Miteva Peter Sharp
Dimosthenis Kizis Péter Szentesi
Dimosthenis Lykouras Petr Masliukov
Dinesh Gawande Philip Chilibeck
Dingze Mang Philip Hublitz
Dipto Sinha Photini Mylona
Dirk Montag Pia Moller Martensen
Dmitry Verbenko Pierluigi Scalia
Dmitry Zhdanov Pierre-Simon Jouk
Doaa Zineldeen Piotr Androsiuk
Do-Hwan Lim Piotr Szymczyk
Domagoj Vidosavljevic Pir Noman Ahmad
Domenico Di Raimondo Pirola Carlos
Donald A. Hunter Polina Drozdova
Dong-Gwan Kim Ponti Donatella
Dongrui Ma Poonam Sharma
Dongsheng Lei Pradeepa Silva
Doytcho Dimov Prajish Iyer
Dragica Selakovic Prashant Kaushik
Durmuş Koç Pratibha Gopalkrishna
Dzmitry Shcharbin Praveen Rajendran
ebrahim Asadi Preeti Dabas
Edith Claros Priyojit Das
Eduardo Larriba Przemysław Chmielewski
Edward C. Webb Pu Xue
Ekaterina Ilgisonis Pushpa Joshi
Ekaterina Sheshukova Qi Guojun
El Chérif Ibrahim Qibin Yu
Elena Apostolova Qifei Li
Elena Carra Qin Xiang Ng
Elena Drosopoulou Qingming Fang
Elena Panizza Qingxiang Guo
Elena Tchetina Qiqi Tian
Eleni Mavrogonatou Qiusheng Yuan
Elenko Popov Qiuwang Zhang
Eleonóra Spekker Quan Pan
Elina Yankova-Tsvetkova Radmila Jankovic
Elisa Azuara-Liceaga Radu Tamaian
Elisabeth Liebler-Tenorio Rafael Baltiérrez-Hoyos
Elizabeth-Barbara Tatsi Rafael Kretschmer
Elnaz Pashaei Rafael Lemos
Előd Nagy Rafael Rivera-Bustamante
Elpidius Rukambile Rafał Świechowski
Elsayed Mansour Raffaele Pellegrino
Elżbieta Krzęcio-Nieczyporuk Raghuveera Goel
Emanuele Berrilli Ragionieri Lapo
Emanuelle Farias Rahul Mannan
Emilia Severin Raja Singh Paulraj
Emilio Di Maria Rajan Iyyappan
Emina Sudar-Milovanovic Rajendra Acharya
Emrah Güler Rajkishor Pandey
Emre Yörük Raju Balaji
Enas El-Ballat Rakesh Chandra Joshi
Enrico Ruiz Rakesh Kumar
Eric Ramirez Raminderjit Kaur
Erifili Nika Ramya Ravindranathan
Erika Albuquerque Rana Youness
Erika Guerrero Ranjeet Kumar
Erna Karalija Rasmieh Hamid
Esmaeil Miraeiz Rathnakumar Kumaragurubaran
Estela Sanguesa Raveendar Sebastin
Ettore Randi Razeghian-Jahromi Iman
Eugenio Minguet Rebecca Creamer
Eun-Ji Ko Rebecca Tallmadge
Eva-Maria Packeiser Reka Varnai
Evgeny Mavrodiev Renata Tobiasz-Salach
Evžen Korec Rhewter Nunes
Ewa Moliszewska Riccardo Moretti
Ewa Robaszkiewicz Richard Gallon
Ewa Tomaszewska Rina Bandopadhyay
Ewelina Semik-Gurgul Rob Hoeben
Eyal Seroussi Robert Thangjam
Fanfan Hao Roberta Milone
Fangchao Bi Roberto Contreras
Fangfeng Yuan Roberto Steri
Farzad Kianersi Robin Cooper
Fatemeh Khatami Rodger Elble
Fathurrahman Lananan Rodis Paparodis
Fatma Eldemery Rodrigo Machado
Federica Scarfì Rodrigo Madurga
Felipe Chaves Roman Nazarov
Ferdinand Nanfack Minkeu Ronan Murphy
Fernanda Nunes Rosa María Oliart-Ros
Fernando Cardona Rossella Cacciola
Fernando Martínez-Moreno Roua Popescu
Fernando Sanchez Lasheras Rúben Fernandes
Fernando Vazquez-Alaniz Rustem Ilyasov
Ferran Fece de la Cruz Sabrina Micali
Filip Varga Sabrina Oliva
Filippo Torrisi Sabrina Ravaglia
Fiorella Colasuonno Sachin Chaugule
Fiorenzo Moscatelli Sadaruddin Chachar
Fleischer Kotey Saddam Saqib
Florence Carrouel Saeed Afsharzadeh
Florin Tripon Sagarika Mishra
Fortuna Iannuzzo Sahiti Chukkapalli
Fortunato Lonardo Said Ezrari
Fouad El Mansouri Saikat Mukhopadhyay
Francesca Bosco Sajeevan Radha Sivarajan
Francesca Paola Luongo Sajid Ali
Francesca Tonelli Sajjad Pourmozaffar
Francesco Tarantini Salima Machkour-M’rabet
Francisco Cortes-Benitez Salvador Mirete
Francisco Curate Salvatore Saccone
Francisco Marco samantha sharma
Francisco Rubén Badenes-Pérez Samir Casseb
François Héricourt Sampath Vemula
Frank Dean Sandip Ghuge
František Marec Sandra Brosda
Frédéric Marsolais Sandra Woolfolk
Gabriela Coux Sandrine Laurance
Gabriela Goujgoulova Sankha Bhattacharya
Gabriela Iancu Santhosh Kumar Pasupuleti
Gabriele Toietta Sara Busechian
Gagandeep Singh Sara Frias
Galina Smolikova Sarah Rennie
Ganesh Nikalje Sasitaran Iyavoo
Gáspárdy András Satish Sagar
Ge Xiang Satoru Munakata
Gema Navarrete Satoshi Kishigami
Gemma Marfany Saumya Anang
Genki Terashi Saumya Shah
Gennaro Mariano Lenato Saurabh Singh
Geonildo Disner Scott Ness
George Duncan Sebastian Demyda Peyrás
George Kontogeorgos Sebastián Martínez Kopp
George Sangster Sebastian Pita
George Thompson Seham Elkassas
Georgy Romanov Sena Ardicli
Gerardo Cazzato Senthilkumar Palanisamy
Gerhard Steger Sergei Tshernyshev
German Perez Sergei Turanov
Germana Meroni Sergio Argento
Ghassan Ghssein Seyed Abbas Rafat
Gianandrea Pasquinelli Seyed Mohammad Nasir Mousavi
Gilbert Nchongboh Chofong Shakeel Ahmad
Giovanna Lattanzi Sharath Gaddelapati
Giovanna Linguiti Shasha Yin
Giovanni Buonaiuto Shedrach Pewan
Giovanni Levi Sheikh Nizamuddin
Giulio Vicini Sheng Qin
Giuseppe Iacomino Shengshuai Shan
Giuseppe Petito Sherif Karam
Giuseppe Pizzolanti Shibani Mohapatra
Glauco Chisci Shifeng Xue
Gningnini Alain Kone Shihan Huo
Gokce Toruner Shilpa Sonti
Gonzalo Aranda-Abreu Shilpi Agrawal
Graeme Bolger Shin-ichi Ito
Grazia Maria Virzì Shiva Hemmati
Grażyna Nowicka Shixiang Sun
Gregory A. Pozhvanov Shiyi Yin
Gregory M. Kelly Shruthi Mohan
Grzegorz Panasiewicz Shuang Niu
Grzegorz Zurek Shuyun Li
Guadalupe Rojas-Sanchez Sigit Prastowo
Guanglin Zhang Silas Avicor
Guillermo Raúl Pratta Silvia Dossena
Gun Temeeyasen Silvia Kalantari
Guo Hu Silvica Padureanu
Guoliang Yuan Simon Lashmar
Györgyi Műzes Simona D'Aguanno
Ha Chu Simona Errico
Habib Ali Sinian Char
Hafiz Ahmad Siniša Đurašević
Haifei Wang Siqi Liang
Haina Huang Siroj Bakoev
Hajar Mehdizadeh Sirous Naeimi
Hajnalka Lőrincz Sladjana Jevremovic
Hakim Manghwar Sławomir Michałek
Hala Abdelmigid Slobodan Davidović
Hala El-Bassyouni Snæbjörn Pálsson
Hamdy Abdel-Shafy Snehal Nirgude
Hamid Reza Esmaeili Snježana Kaštelan
Hamid Reza Ghanavi Sofia Bhatia
Han Peng Solaleh Emamgholipour
Hanna Hübner Sophie Alvarez
Hanna Moczulska Soumya Basu
Hanying Chen Soumya Panda
Harald Niederstaetter Sounak Sahu
Harshpreet Chandok Sowmyalakshmi Subramanian
Haruhiko Sugimura Spiros Paramithiotis
Haruto Nishida Srijit Das
Hasan Önder Srinivasan Palani
Hasan Zulfiqar Stefana Moisa
Hassan Rasouli Stefan-Gregore Ciornei
Hazwani Oslan Stefanie Flunkert
He Zhang Stefano Bacci
Heather D. Durham Stefano Castellani
Hei Sung Kim Steffen Maak
Hela Chikh Rouhou Stéphane Fremont
Heliana Dundarova Steven Esworthy
Henry Alba Subhadeep Das
Henry Sutanto Subhajit Giri
Hidekazu Hiroaki Subir Kumar Juin
Hideo Wada Sujata Jana
Himadri Biswas Sulev Kõks
Himanshu Khajuria Sumeet Nayak
Himanshu Soni Sumit Mukherjee
Himashu Singh Sung-Soo Kim
Hind Alsharhan Suong Tuyet Thi Ha
Hiroyuki Awano Suresh Varsani
Hoang Nam Pham Susan Motch Perrine
hoda El-garhy Susana Belén Bravo López
Hongdou Li Susanna Lopez-Legentil
hongen xu Sushil Kumar
Honghe Liu Sushil Shakyawar
Hongyan Xu Sutonuka Bhar
Hossain Firoz Svetoslav Dimov
Hossam Rushdi Swati Megha
Hossein Sabouri Swee-Suak Ko
Hrvoje Karninčić Syed Azmal Ali
Hu Li Syed Mohd Faisal
Hua Zhong Szilvia Kisvarga
Huang Li Tae Sung Jung
Huang Lin Tae-Ho Ham
Hubert Sytykiewicz Takayuki Nakagomi
Hugo Costa Paes Takemichi Fukasawa
Hugo Martiniano Takeshi Chujo
Huixin Yang Takumi Ishizuka
Hussein M. El-Husseiny Tamás Major
Ibrahim Al-Ashkar Tania Santos
Ibrar Khan Tanushree Dangi
Iftekhar Alam Tao Chen
Ighli di Bari Tao Zhou
Ignacija Vlašić Tarana Arman
Igor Iskusnykh Tariq Pervaiz
Igor Lebedev Társis Vieira
Igor Oscorbin Tatsuo Kanda
Igor Ovchinnikov Tatyana Petrova
Ilaria Girolami Taufiq Nawaz
Ildikó Szatmári Teemu Teeri
Ileana Farcasanu Teresa Tellez Santana
Ilias Giannenas Thayne Kowalski
Iman Mirmazloum Theo Kantidakis
Indrikis Krams Thimios Mitsiadis
Ing-Ming Chiu Thorsten Kuczius
Innocent Afeke Tianjie Pu
Ioan Hutu Tianqi Li
Ioanna Stergiou Tianxiao Zhang
Ioannis Giantsis Tim Sit
Ioannis Kanakis Tingming Liang
Ioannis Maroulis Tiziana Maria Sirangelo
Ionescu Dan Traian Tom Goldammer
Iram Murtaza Tomas Vyhnanek
Irene Madrigal Tomasz Gębarowski
Irina Bakloushinskaya Tomasz Kubrak
Irina Bogolyubova Tomasz Maciag
Irina Golovleva Tomasz Płoszaj
Isabel Marques Tomasz Szablewski
isabelle Brun Heath Tong Zhao
Isain Zapata Toshiaki Tameshige
Iskander M. Ibrahim Toshko Ljubomirov
Islam Elkholi Tosso Leeb
Itziar Chapartegui-González Trevis D. Huggins
Ivan Vnučec Trond Løvdal
Ivana Plavšin Tsuyoshi Yoda
Ivana Škrlec Tulasiger M. Totiger
Ivo Bozovic Tulio L. Campos
Ivonne Loeffler Tuomo Mantere
Iwona Melosik Ujjawal Sharma
Izolda Pašakinskienė Ulises de la Cruz-Mosso
Jaana Lahdetie Ulyana Zubairova
Jacek Rybka Umar Farouk Mustapha
Jack Ren Urmila Sehrawat
Jacqueline Donoghue Uros Bumbasirevic
Jacqueline Stephens Vadim Lebedev
Jahad Soorni Valentina Di Nisio
Jaime Rau Valentina Favalli
James B. Gibson Valentina Gineviciene
James G. Hecker Valentina Ginevičienė
James MacLean Valentine Usongo
James Solomon Valeria Blanda
Jan Bocianowski Valeria Di Dato
Jan Ševčík Valerio Ricci
Janitschke Daniel Vasfiye Kader Esen
Janja Trček Vasile Musteata
Jaroslav A. Hubacek Vasile Valeriu Lupu
Jarosław Przybył Vasileios P. Papadopoulos
Jazmin calyeca Vasiliki Evangelou
Jean-Marie Exbrayat Venkata Rajesh Yella
Jeanne Wilson-Rawls Vicente Eliezer Vega-Murillo
Jennifer Leonard Victoria Sanchez-Martin
Jennifer Thomson Vignesh Muthusamy
Jeongim Kim Vikas Jhawat
Jer-Ming Chang Vimalraj Mani
Jerzy A. Lis Vinaya Shetty
Jessica Petersen Vinaykumar Rachappanavar
Jessie Poquérusse Vincenza Gragnaniello
Jesús Berdugo Vishal Mevada
Jia Di Wen Vishnuprabu Durairaj Pandian
Jian Zhang Vittoria Lucia Barile
Jianhai Chen Vivek Yadav
Jianyuan Chai Vjekoslav Peitl
Jiawen Yong Vladan Bogdanović
Jie Yang Vladimir Aleksandrov
Jiekai Yin Vladimir Babenko
Jieqiang Zhong Vladimir Bilim
Jin Xu Vladimira Boyadzhieva
Jinchuan Xing Walaa El-houseiny
Jindong Xie Wankui Gong
Jing Zhang Weerachai Saijuntha
Jinlong Liu Wei Guo
Jiri Hejnar Wei Ma
Jitendra Kumar Wei Shi
Joana Damásio Wei Wang
Joanna Bartkowiak-Wieczorek Wen Chen
Joanna Czerwińska Wenlong Zhao
Joanna Zarzyńska Wenpan Dong
João Manuel da Gonçalves Wenxin Liu
Joao Paulo Guilherme Wilhelm Mistiaen
Joao Pessoa William Terzaghi
João Simões Wladimir Bocca Vieira de Rezende Pinto
Joel Ellwanger Wolfram Kunz
Johannes Hofer Won Kyong Cho
Johannes Schenkel Xavier Llor
John Bernat Xian Zhang
John Strouboulis Xiang Li
Jonathan Rayner Xiao Fei
Jordi Pijuan Xiaodong Wang
Jose A. Tapia Xiaofan Jia
José Aguilar-Velázquez Xiaohan Ning
Jose Antonio Miron-Canelo Xiaojing Mao
José C. De La Flor XiaoLong Kang
José Hernández-Marín Xiaoning Zhang
Jose Malaquias Xiaoyu Zhang
José Rafael de Almeida Ximiao He
Jose Vasquez Xin Bi
Josefat Gregorio Jorge Xin Lai
Josué J. Da Silva Xin Liu
Juan Carlos Caicedo Xinghua Pan
Juan Carlos Fernandez-Lopez Xinru Qiu
Juan Guillen-Muñoz Xinyu Ling
Juan Hernández Rivera Xiuling Li
Judit Bene Xuan Li
Juhi Uttamani Xueqin Gao
Julian Nevado Xuhui Zheng
Julio Escribano Yagiz Alagoz
Jun Ueda Yanpeng Zhao
Junfeng Gao Yanying Huo
Junhao Chen Yanzhe Xu
Junichi Inaba Yaoxiang Li
Junke Wang Yaping Tian
Junquan Liu Yasemin Bektas
Kadir Akan Yasmin Heikal
Kai Wang Yavar Vafaee
Kaimeng Huang Ye Gao
Kaloyan Petrov Yin Zhao
Kamal Hussein Ying Liu
Kamil Nelke Yingpeng Xie
Kamrul Hasan Yinwen Zhang
Kanat Gürün Yoav Kohn
Kangfu Chen Yongda Zhong
Kangkang Chen Yongil Yang
Kang-Mo Ku Yong-Moon Lee
Karolina Chodkowska Yongqing Zhang
Karolina Gołąbek Yongwang Miao
Karthik Kanagaraj Yong-Xin Liu
Katalin Komlosi Youakim Saliba
Katalin Sipos Younes Zaid
Katarzyna Krawczyk Youri Pavlov
Katerina Nikolouli Yubao Wang
Katherina Walz Yu-Chuan Liang
Katherine Theken Yu-Feng Jiang
Katrin Schäfer Yunfeng Zhao
Kaushik Sengupta Yunyun An
Kazi Lutful Kabir Yury Rubtsov
Kazuyuki Matsushita Yusen Zhou
Ke Cong Yusheng Liang
Keitaro Kanie Yutaka Oono
Kenji Saitoh Yutao Liu
Keren Xu Yutian Zou
Kevin Kiesler Zachary McCaw
Khairul Syahputra Zahid Parvez Sukhan
Khaled Saad Zangbéwendé Guy Ouedraogo
Khaleel Jawasreh Zdenka Girek
Khurram Liaqat Zehu Yuan
Ki Hyun Nam Zehui Zhang
Kirk Stephenson Željana Prijić
Kishor Pant Željko Antić
Klaus Fortschegger Zheng Yuan
Kok Lun Pang Zhengfei Wang
Kostas Ioannidis Zhengwei Huang
Koyeli Girigoswami Zhenyong Du
Krishna Kumar Zhenyu Zhang
Krishnamoorthy Srikanth Zhigang Li
Kristian Linnet Zhi-Gang Zhou
Kristina Gagalova Zhihui Lyu
Kristina Mlinac-Jerković Zhijie Qi
Krisztián Frank Zhiying Deng
Krisztina Martha Zhiyuan Yang
Krzysztof Gomułka Zhong Wu
Kuldeep Gupta Zibo Chen
Kumara Swami Konda Zissis Mamuris
Kun Chen Zsolt Galla
Kun Lyu Zulqurnain Khan
Kunhua Qin Zuzana Krupová
Kushi anand
 

2 January 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #7 - Nobel Laureates Entrust MDPI with Their Research

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

Nobel Prize Laureates Entrust MDPI with Their Research

The Nobel Prize stands as a hallmark of distinction, honouring ground-breaking research across disciplines. Annually, the Nobel Prizes are awarded in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences.

Through the years, renowned scholars have entrusted MDPI with their work. As at December 2023, 26 Nobel laureates have contributed to more than 75 articles across 25 MDPI journals, including: Antibiotics, Applied Sciences, Biology, Biomedicines, Cancers, Catalysts, Cells, Crystals, Entropy, Games, IJMS, Life, Materials, Micromachines, Molecules, Pharmaceuticals, PharmaceuticsPhotonics, Quantum Beam Science, Remote Sensing, Sensors, Solids, Universe, Vaccines, and Viruses.

The best of the best trust us with their work.

Nobel Prize Laureates Who Have Published with MDPI

We are proud to list the names of Pierre Agostini, Hiroshi Amano, Werner Arber, Aaron Ciechanover, Robert H. Grubbs, Oliver Hart, Gerard ‘t Hooft, Michael Houghton, Harald zur Hausen, Katalin Karikó, Jean-Marie Lehn, Gérard Mourou, Ferid Murad, Shuji Nakamura, William Nordhaus, Kostya S. Novoselov, Giorgio Parisi, Charles M. Rice, Alvin E. Roth, Donna Strickland, K. Barry Sharpless, George F. Smoot, Anne L’Huillier, Drew Weissman, Kurt Wüthrich, Ada Yonath.

The privilege of hosting such contributors resonates deeply with our editorial teams. For instance, in this interview, the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of Universe speaks on the significance of publishing a paper by Nobel laureate Gerard ’t Hooft within the journal.

2023 Nobel Prize Winners Published by MDPI

Nobel Prize Winners, 2023: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Anne L’Huillier (Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach)

Three laureates from the 2023 Nobel Prize cohort have trusted MDPI as their publishing platform. Notably, in a 2022 Pharmaceutics paper, molecular biologist Katalin Karikó and her team presented a methodology for evaluating mRNA capping efficiency, pivotal for therapeutic applications. Pharmaceutics had previously dedicated a Special Issue to “mRNA Therapeutics: A Themed Issue in Honor of Professor Katalin Karikó”, spotlighting ten articles from August 2021 to February 2022.

In the journal Vaccines, Professor Drew Weissman, collaborating with scholars from Pennsylvania University and George Mason University, contributed an influential review titled “Nanomaterial Delivery Systems for mRNA Vaccines”. His collaborative efforts spanned five papers across MDPI journals between 2021 and 2023.

Furthermore, Anne L'Huillier of Lund University, only the fifth female recipient of the Physics Prize, co-authored an article in Applied Sciences focusing on "Advanced EUV and X-Ray Optics". Similarly, Pierre Agostini, an Emeritus Professor from Ohio State University, co-authored an article featured in the special issue "Attosecond Science and Technology: Principles and Applications".

We extend heartfelt congratulations to all Nobel Prize laureates and express sincere gratitude for their confidence in MDPI as a platform for their scholarly contributions.

Read more:

Impactful Research

MDPI Journals Newly Indexed in 2023

The aim of indexing is to enhance the quality and credibility of published research, ensuring that researchers access the most credible resources available. While the principle behind citation indexing is straightforward, it remains one of the most dependable methods for tracking an idea's evolution across various scientific disciplines.

Throughout the year, MDPI works to expand the reach of our publications across premier multidisciplinary databases like Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCO, and ProQuest. This initiative is spearheaded by MDPI's Indexing team, under the leadership of Dr. Constanze Schelhorn.

In 2023, MDPI achieved 54 new acceptances in Scopus, 29 in Web of Science, 52 in EBSCO, and 83 in DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals.

The team prioritizes ensuring that our journals feature in numerous specialized databases, including PMC, PubMed, MEDLINE, Inspec, CAS, and FSTA, among others. Currently, MDPI collaborates with over 65 renowned international databases, consistently enhancing our database affiliations annually.

MDPI’s journals are indexed in all major global databases.

Furthermore, we collaborate with universities and government organizations to list our journals in country-specific ranking lists and relevant institutional repositories. This ensures compliance with requirements often set by funders or institutions for authors to publish in specific journals.

Web of Science Adds 24 MDPI Journals to Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)

Clarivate recently analysed MDPI’s new journals, resulting in 24 journals, mainly established in 2020, being added to the ESCI in November and December 2023. Additionally, five journals passed this assessment earlier in the year. For a complete list of our journals in Web of Science, refer here. Journals in the ESCI meet 24 quality criteria, ensuring editorial rigor. They may be considered for inclusion in broader indices like the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), based on four impact criteria.

Read more:

Inside MDPI

MDPI Appoints New Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Alistair Freeland returned to MDPI and assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer in November 2023, a position he previously held from 2013 to 2019. He succeeds Dr. Yu Lin, who will remain a member of MDPI’s Board of Directors, overseeing significant financial decisions for the company. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Yu Lin for his service as COO.

Alistair brings extensive experience not only in scholarly publishing but also in technology and business management. Prior to rejoining MDPI, he was associated with SIX Group, the entity responsible for Switzerland's financial market infrastructure. There, he played a pivotal role in developing the blockchain-based platform SDX (SIX Digital Exchange), which has gained traction among major Swiss banks and the Swiss National Bank.

As COO, Alistair will collaborate with the MDPI management team to improve the practices and services we offer to scholarly communities. I am pleased to welcome Alistair back to MDPI and look forward to his contributions going forward.

Coming Together for Science

MDPI’s 2024 In-Person Academic Events Schedule

MDPI's Conference Team is dedicated to organizing and hosting in-person academic events across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America. We recognize conferences as invaluable platforms for scientific collaboration, scholarly exchange, discussions on contemporary topics, networking, and forging collaborations.

Here's a glimpse of the notable events we currently have scheduled for 2024:

14–16 February, 2024
Viruses 2024 – A World of Viruses
Location: Barcelona, Spain
We are honoured to feature Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Charles M. Rice and ‘Distinguished Senior Virologist’ Prof. Luis Enjuanes as keynote speakers for this 5th edition.
Event details

24–26 April, 2024
4th MMCS – Harnessing the Power of New Drug Modalities 
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Esteemed speakers include Prof. Arun K. Ghosh, the mind behind the Darunavir molecule, and Prof. Paul Brennan, CSO of Alzheimer's Research UK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute.
Event details

28–31 May, 2024
Polymers 2024 – Polymers for a Safe and Sustainable Future
Location:
Athens, Greece
We look forward to welcoming renowned experts like Prof. Damià Barceló, Prof. Minna Hakkareinen, and Prof. Armando J. D. Silvestre to this event.
Event details

1–4 August, 2024
The 1st International Conference on AI Sensors & The 10th International Symposium on Sensor Science
Location: Singapore
The AI Sensors 2024 Conference will unite innovators and experts in the realms of sensors, sensing technology, and artificial intelligence.
Event details

Upcoming events with details to be announced:

  • September 2024, Materials 2024 – Basel, Switzerland
  • 1921 September 2024, International Conference on Nanomaterials Sciences 2024 – Beijing, China
  • October 2024, ncRNA 2024 – Basel, Switzerland
  • November 2024, Pharmaceuticals 2024 – Barcelona, Spain
  • 2226 November 2024, International Conference on Science of Electronics – Wuhan, China
  • Stay tuned for more details on the Sustainable Publishing Forum 2024.

Click here for all upcoming MDPI events.

Organize Your Event with MDPI’s Sciforum

Sciforum is MDPI’s platform dedicated to the organization of scientific events. In line with our mission to promote science, Sciforum supports scholars, societies, research networks, and universities at all stages of organizing in-person events, virtual events and webinars. Our platforms are efficient, user-friendly, and cost-effective. We handle all steps related to event management. Contact us for details.

Closing Thoughts

Reflecting on 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024

As we approach 2024, I reflect on the incredible journey we’ve had together at MDPI this year. The past 12 months have been marked by ambitious projects and initiatives to improve our internal processes, and a commitment to continue delivering top-notch services to our stakeholders. I’d like to thank each and every one of our staff members for contributing to the positive experiences our stakeholders have reported in our surveys. Your dedication to speed, efficiency, and effective communication with our stakeholders is very much recognized and appreciated.

Becoming a stronger organisation

While we have encountered challenges in 2023, it’s important to understand that these are a part of our growth process. Difficulties provide us with opportunities to reflect, address problems at their roots, and ultimately evolve into a stronger organization. Our stakeholders expect us to overcome tough times, and it’s an expectation that we have for ourselves.

I extend my sincere appreciation to every MDPI employee, from our editorial office and IT department to marketing, indexing, IOAP, societies, Scientific Office board, products, production, conferences, finance, operations, admin, and beyond. To our newest team members, a warm welcome; to our longstanding colleagues, your dedication is invaluable.

“I am committed to taking MDPI to a new level of excellence.”

Interacting with many of you during my visits to our offices and representing MDPI at external events has been a personal highlight. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Lin for entrusting me with the role of CEO of MDPI. Looking forward, I am committed to working closely with our management team to lead MDPI and take it to a new level of excellence, aiming to establish it as the most trusted publisher in open access worldwide. This is a collective endeavour, with each of us shaping MDPI’s reputation. I therefore encourage us to take pride in our work, as it represents not only our craft but also MDPI as a whole.

Accountability and communication

As we look forward to 2024, there’s a lot to be excited about. Together, we’ll navigate challenges, seize growth opportunities, and refine our practices. To solidify MDPI’s position as the premier open access publisher globally, we must bolster accountability, improve stakeholder communication, share MDPI’s best practices, champion the open access philosophy, and educate stakeholders about our mission, methodologies, and motivations.

Thank you for engaging with the CEO Letter over the past six months of 2023. I will continue to release this newsletter as a method of sharing the great work being done at MDPI. Please feel free to connect directly with any insights or questions.

Here’s to a joyous and prosperous 2024!

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

30 November 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #6 - MDPI Spain Summit and ResearchGate

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 Spain Summit


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) gives the opening speech at the MDPI Spain Summit.

On Friday 10 November 2023 I was in Barcelona, Spain, to deliver the opening presentation and participate in a panel at MDPI’s Spain Summit, a two-day event, inspired by our salon events in China.

With 16 Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) and 20 Editorial Board Members (EBMs) in attendance, the event, organized by our conference team and Barcelona office, featured presentations on open access (OA), MDPI, and publishing market trends in Spain.

The event provided a great opportunity to engage with stakeholders from various MDPI journals, including Nutrients, Vaccines, Buildings, IJMS, and others. We were able to gather feedback and have open conversations around manuscript quality, the peer-review process, and journal development, as well as accreditation agencies.

The main objective of this Summit was to bring together Editors representing MDPI journals across various disciplines within Spanish universities and research centers, primarily from the Barcelona area. The aim was to facilitate an open and fruitful discussion regarding the development of their journals, the future of OA in Spain, and to provide meaningful interactions and networking opportunities.

Connecting with Editorial Board Members


Stefan Tochev in conversation with Summit participants: "Our EBMs are passionate about the journals they serve."

Interacting with our EBMs in person provides a valuable opportunity to show how important it is to us to connect with them, hear their perspectives on their journals and learn more about their own experience collaborating with MDPI.

From my conversations, it was clear that our EBMs are passionate about the journals they serve. I know the advice they provide may sometimes involve just small tweaks, but these can lead to important improvements. As the saying goes, small hinges swing open big doors.

As at November 2023, MDPI has over 6,300 EBMs affiliated with Spanish institutions, with more than 30 of them serving as EiCs or section EiCs. Furthermore, over 68,000 Spanish scholars have contributed as reviewers in MDPI journals.

Open Access in Spain

In 2023, Spain implemented legislation mandating immediate OA for all publicly funded research, aligning with the EU’s Plan S initiative to expedite the transition to OA. The Spanish government also approved a four-year, €23.8 million annual budget for the first national OA strategy, aiming to make publicly funded research freely accessible upon publication. This strategy aims to strengthen the quality and transparency of research in Spain, and to help promote movement towards a digital, low-carbon economy.

For further details of Spain's OA policy and the history of government mandates, click here.

Spain has already seen a notable decline in subscription-only articles, decreasing by 62% over a 10-year period, while gold OA increased by 42%. Green OA slightly decreased, suggesting a shift towards publishing in gold OA journals rather than traditional subscription-based ones. Here are some statistics from Scopus. 

A big thank-you to the various MDPI teams, including our conference team and the Barcelona office, for organizing this very successful event!


MDPI colleagues from various offices gathered to host and support the first MDPI Spain Summit, in Barcelona, Spain.

I think this type of gathering has the potential to become an annual event in various locations. For example, Manchester could be an option, as we have over 30 EiCs and over 3,000 EBMs in the UK, a top market for MDPI that publishes high-quality research.

Impactful Research

769 Editorial Board Members of MDPI Journals Recognized as Highly Cited Researchers in 2023

Congratulations to our 769 Editorial Board Members from 40 countries/territories who have been awarded Highly Cited Researcher status for 2023 by Clarivate. This recognition is based on their outstanding scientific research contributions and significant influence in various fields, as evidenced by Web of Science data.

Click here to view the full list of 769 Editorial Board Members.

Clarivate's Highly Cited ResearchersTM list identifies individuals with exceptional impact in scientific and social science domains over the past decade. Their papers rank in the top 1% of citations in 21 fields analysed in ‘Essential Science Indicators,’ showcasing their substantial influence.

This year, 7,125 Highly Cited Researcher 2023 designations were issued to 6,849 individuals from 67 countries, representing just 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide.

These researchers demonstrate exceptional influence, representing a small fraction of contributors pushing the boundaries of knowledge, contributing to global well-being, sustainability, and security.

Congratulations to these scholars for their remarkable achievement: we are honoured to have them on board with our journals!

Inside MDPI

Corporate Marketing and Communications Strategy Session


Members of MDPI’s Corporate Marketing & Communications team.

For the past few years, I have led the Corporate Marketing & Communications department in our annual strategy session.

This typically involves 2–3 days of focused sessions covering key topics including budgeting, hiring targets, campaign reviews, and planning for the upcoming year, department strategy, and structure.

We are constantly exploring ways to optimize the Corporate Marketing & Communications department to support MDPI’s primary objectives and better convey the MDPI story while serving the scholarly community.

The strategy session also serves as a team-building activity, during which the team voted on bowling!

Strategy Session

In this strategy session, we looked at how to align our teams in order to better streamline our content with our campaigns, build a dedicated marketing team to strategically support our core MDPI products, expand our communications teams and functionalities to focus on company-critical campaigns and press releases, align our new brand design system with our marketing initiatives, set up a community and engagement team to support various teams with their outreach and communication efforts, and increase our use of data in the evaluation of campaign performance.

To grow in these areas, we will be hiring for various positions, including those of Public Relations Manager, Communications Manager, Internal Communications Manager, Campaign Manager, Marketing Associate, and Editorial Engagement Manager.

I am grateful for the way our Corporate Marketing & Communications department has grown and gelled over the years, and I look forward to supporting the department teams and their ideas for the future.

Coming Together for Science

ResearchGate and MDPI Partner to Boost the Visibility of Open Access Content through Journal Home


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) and Sören Hofmayer (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, ResearchGate) meet in Berlin, Germany to take their ongoing discussion further.

When I assumed the role of CEO at MDPI, my primary focus was to initiate the building of essential partnerships and collaborations within our industry. After all, I am a firm believer in achieving our goals by helping others achieve theirs and focusing on co-opetition wherever there is an opportunity. I first touched on the notion of co-opetition in MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #3, particularly when discussing collaborations with Elsevier.

In light of this, Sören Hofmayer (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate) and I connected recently to continue a discussion that had been ongoing for months. I was quickly brought up to speed and felt there was an opportunity for MDPI journals to pilot the Journal Home service that ResearchGate had launched. This would provide a new way for MDPI to engage with authors and readers and amplify the visibility of our journals.

While I receive many offers and opportunities for discussions with vendors, I am a firm believer that timing is everything, and in this case, the time for us is now. Sören and I met in person during my recent visit to Berlin and decided to proceed with piloting ten MDPI journals with the Journal Home service.

The press release below provides further details.

Press Release: Berlin (Germany) and Basel (Switzerland), 15 November 2023

ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and MDPI, the largest open access publisher in the world and a pioneer in open access publishing, today announced a partnership that will see ten of MDPI’s open access journals benefit from an enhanced presence on ResearchGate through its innovative Journal Home offering.  

This new partnership will expand the reach and visibility of MDPI’s participating flagship journals with ResearchGate’s highly relevant community of more than 25 million researchers globally.

Around 210,000 version-of-record articles from these 10 titles will be readily available on ResearchGate, including the full archive material and all new articles as they are published. These journals also benefit from enhanced brand visibility, with dedicated journal profiles, prominent representation on all associated article pages and all relevant touchpoints across the ResearchGate network – keeping the journals top-of-mind with their reader and author audiences. All articles covered by the new partnership will automatically be added to the authors’ publication records in ResearchGate. This not only reduces MDPI authors’ needs for direct management but also offers them valuable insights into the impact of their work, including data about readership and citations.

Closing Thoughts

November is Men’s Health Awareness Month


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) listening to music as he writes at a coffee shop in Basel, Switzerland.

November is dedicated to raising awareness of various men’s health issues. I have been fortunate to have positive male role models in my life, and I strive to share my experiences with others.

I used to take part in Movember, growing my moustache throughout November to raise awareness and funds and to help “change the face of men’s health.” With male family and friends impacted by physical and mental health issues, I have recently become more interested in men’s overall well-being.

Men often face stigma involving the perceived need always to be strong and have things figured out. Recently, I’ve had meaningful conversations with male friends and colleagues about issues we rarely discuss, and it was a positive experience.

Various factors impact men’s health and well-being, all too easily leading to risky health behaviours including a lack of health awareness, poor health education, and negative, culturally induced, behaviour patterns in our work and personal lives. I hope we can break down these barriers in our work environment.

Healthy men help build healthy families and a healthy society

Men are less likely than women to seek help with their physical and mental health struggles. This is a reminder to prioritize your overall well-being. I hope that as men, we will continue to open up to one another, becoming vulnerable in order to share what we are going through. By sharing and by supporting each other, we can learn and grow together. You are not alone, and when you fall, you can still get up and stand tall.

From one broski to another, you are loved and appreciated. I hope this mindset carries into December and beyond.

Mindfulness

Our content team recently released a handful of articles on mindfulness, a practice that I believe provides a good opportunity for stress release and self-reflection:

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

21 November 2023
769 Editorial Board Members of MDPI Journals Achieve Highly Cited Researcher Recognition in 2023


We extend our sincere congratulations to the 769 Editorial Board Members of our journals – from 40 different countries/territories – who have been recognized as Highly Cited Researchers for the year 2023 by Clarivate. They are being recognized for their high-quality scientific research achievements and outstanding contributions to their professional fields, as indicated by Web of Science data.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited ResearchersTM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade who stand out for their significant and broad influence in various scientific and social science domains. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 21 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

This year, 7,125 Highly Cited Researcher 2023 designations were issued to 6,849 individuals from 67 countries, representing just 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide.

This means that these researchers have demonstrated an incredible level of significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields over the last decade. They represent a small fraction of the researcher population whose contributions disproportionately push the boundaries of knowledge, enhancing global well-being, sustainability, and security.

Congratulations to the scholars for their noteworthy achievement – we are honored to have them on board with our journals!


Abate, Antonio
Aguilera, Ruth V.
Ahmed, Warish
Ahn, Myung-Ju
An, Qiaoshi
Anasori, Babak
Andersson, Dan I.
Angeletti, Silvia
Annabi, Nasim
Antinori, Spinello
Ariga, Katsuhiko
Asa, Sylvia L.
Astruc, Didier
Atala, Anthony
Atanasov, Atanas G.
Balsamo, Gianpaolo
Bandodkar, Amay J.
Banks, William A.
Bao, Yan-Ping
Barba, Francisco J.
Barnes, Peter J.
Barnholtz-Sloan, Jill S.
Barrow, Colin J.
Bashir, Ali Kashif
Basit, Abdul W.
Bassetti, Matteo
Batley, Jacqueline
Battino, Maurizio
Behnood, Ali
Benediktsson, Jon Atli
Biondi, Antonio
Bjarnsholt, Thomas
Blaschke, Thomas
Blay, Jean-Yves
Blumwald, Eduardo
Blunt, John W.
Boczkaj, Grzegorz
Bogers, Marcel
Bonomo, Robert A.
Boyd, Robert W.
Boyer, Cyrille
Braeckmans, Kevin
Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Bu, Wenbo
Bursać Kovačević, Danijela
Bush, Ashley I.
Byrd, John C.
Cabeza, Luisa F.
Cai, Xingjuan
Cambria, Erik
Cao, Guozhong
Cao, Xingzhong
Capasso, Raffaele
Carvalho, Andre F.
Casper, Jonathan
Castellanos-Gomez, Andres
Cavalli, Giacomo
Chai, Siang-Piao
Chan, Jasper Fuk-Woo
Chan, Timothy A.
Chang, Chih-Hao
Chang, Guoqing
Chao, Dongliang
Chen, Bo
Chen, Chaoji
Chen, Fahu
Chen, Gang
Chen, Jianmin
Chen, Jun
Chen, Jun
Chen, Jun
Chen, Lidong
Chen, Lingxin
Chen, Min
Chen, Mou
Chen, Peng
Chen, Qian
Chen, Qianwang
Chen, Shaowei
Chen, Shuangming
Chen, Wei
Chen, Xiaobo
Chen, Yimin
Chen, Yu
Chen, Yulin
Chen, Zhong
Chen, Zonghai
Cheng, Gong
Cheng, Huanyu
Cheng, Laifei
Cheng, Qiang
Chew, Kit Wayne
Chiclana, Francisco
Choi, Wonyong
Choi, Young Hae
Chowdhary, Anuradha
Cichocki, Andrzej
Clevers, Hans
Coops, Nicholas C.
Cortes, Javier
Cortes, Jorge
Costanza, Robert
Creutzig, Felix
Crommie, Michael F.
Cuadrado, Antonio
Cui, Haiying
Cui, Yi
Curigliano, Giuseppe
Dai, Sheng
Dai, Shifeng
Daiber, Andreas
Davies, Michael J.
Davis, Thomas P.
Dawson, Ted M.
de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar
Delord, Jean-Pierre
Demaria, Marco
Deng, Xiangzheng
Desneux, Nicolas
Dikic, Ivan
Dimopoulos, Meletios-Athanasios
Ding, Aijun
Ding, Jianxun
Dokmeci, Mehmet Remzi
Dolgui, Alexandre
Dong, Chung-Li
Dou, Shi Xue
Dragicevic, Tomislav
Du, Bo
Du, Qian
Du, Yonghua
Duan, Xidong
Dufresne, Alain
Dummer, Reinhard
Edwards, David
Elaissari, Abdelhamid
ElMasry, Gamal
Enjuanes, Luis
Fabbro, Doriano
Facchetti, Antonio
Fan, Junliang
Fan, Kelong
Fan, Xiulin
Fan, Zhanxi
Fang, Baizeng
Fang, Chuanglin
Fang, Yongjin
Fasano, Alessio
Feng, Liangzhu
Feng, Xuning
Fensholt, Rasmus
Ferdinandy, Péter
Fernandez-Lafuente, Roberto
Filippi, Massimo
Flavian, Carlos
Fortino, Giancarlo
Fowler, Michael
Franceschi, Claudio
Frattini, Federico
Friston, Karl J.
Fu, Gengtao
Gai, Francesco
Gaisford, Simon
Galanakis, Charis M.
Galluzzi, Lorenzo
Galvano, Fabio
Gan, Ren-You
Gao, Feng
Gao, Huijun
Gao, Huile
Gao, Peng
Gao, Wei
Garbe, Claus
Garg, Abhishek D.
Gasbarrini, Antonio
Gastaldelli, Amalia
Gautier, Emmanuel L.
Genevet, Patrice
Geng, Yong
Gerdts, Gunnar
Geschwind, Daniel H.
Ghaffari, Roozbeh
Ghamisi, Pedram
Giacobbe, Daniele Roberto
Giampieri, Francesca
Gillies, Robert J.
Godos, Justyna
Gogotsi, Yury
Golding, Nick
Gong, Jinlong
Gong, Peng
Gong, Yongji
Govindan, Kannan
Gozal, David
Grancini, Giulia
Grant, William B.
Graus, Francesc
Green, Douglas R.
Grosso, Giuseppe
Gu, Meng
Gu, Zhanjun
Guan, Cao
Gueimonde, Miguel
Gui, Guan
Guigo, Roderic
Guo, Hengyu
Guo, Jianping
Guo, Lin
Guo, Song
Guo, Yan
Guo, Zaiping
Gupta, Rangan
Gutzmer, Ralf
Haase, Dagmar
Hagger, Martin S.
Hall, C. Michael
Han, Fudong
Han, Heesup
Hanes, Justin
Hartung, Hans-Peter
He, Bao-Jie  
He, Debiao
He, Hongwen
He, Jiaqing
He, Jie
He, Jr-Hau
He, Qiong
He, Xiangming
He, Xijun
He, Zhili
Heneka, Michael T.
Herrera, Francisco
Herrera-Estrella, Luis
Herrera-Viedma, Enrique
Hetz, Claudio
Holick, Michael F.
Hong, Danfeng
Hong, Xuechuan
Hsueh, Po-Ren
Hu, Bin
Hu, Enyuan
Hu, Jin-Song
Hu, Weida
Hu, Wenbin
Hu, Xiaosong
Huang, Baibiao
Huang, Hongwei
Huang, Jianliang
Huang, Jianping
Huang, Peng
Huang, Xin
Hubacek, Klaus
Hussain, Saddam
Italiano, Antoine
Iwata, Hiroji
Jaeschke, Hartmut
Jain, Atul

Jaiswal, Amit K.
Jankovic, Joseph
Janssens, Ivan A.
Jelezko, Fedor
Jeon, Byong-Hun
Ji, Guangbin
Ji, Qiang
Ji, Wei
Ji, Xiaobo
Ji, Xiaoyuan
Jiang, Bin
Jiang, Hong
Jiang, Junjun
Jiang, Lianzhou
Jiang, Qing
Jiang, Shibo
Jiang, Yuyan
Jiang, Zhongyi
Jiao, Licheng
Jin, Shi
Jin, Zhong
Kalantar-zadeh, Kourosh
Kamal, Mohammad Amjad
Kaner, Richard B.
Kaneti, Yusuf Valentino
Kang, Zhenhui
Karagiannidis, George K.
Karniadakis, George Em
Karp, Peter D.
Kataoka, Kazunori
Katritch, Vsevolod
Kawi, Sibudjing
Kepp, Oliver
Khademhosseini, Ali
Khan, Nafees A.
Kiessling, Fabian
Kildishev, Alexander V.
Kim, Haegyeom
Kim, Jeonghun
Kim, Jin-Hoi
Kim, Jong Seung
Kim, Ki-Hyun
Kirkwood, John M.
Kivshar, Yuri
Klenk, Hans-Peter
Ko, Wen-Chien
Kong, Baohua
Kontoyiannis, Dimitrios P.
Koonin, Eugene V.
Kroemer, Guido
Kuang, Dai-Bin
Kudo, Masatoshi
Kuhn, Jens H.
Kumar, Prashant
Kumar, Sudhir
Kurths, Juergen
Kurzrock, Razelle
Kuzyakov, Yakov
Kyrpides, Nikos C.
La Vecchia, Carlo
Lai, Yuekun
Lan, Ke
Lancellotti, Patrizio
Landi, Francesco
Lavie, Carl J.
Laxminarayan, Ramanan
Lee, Chengkuo
Lee, Jechan
Lee, Jin-Wook
Lee, Pooi See
Lee, Sang Soo
Lehmann, Johannes
Lei, Yaguo
Li, Bin
Li, Chunzhong
Li, Dongsheng
Li, Feng
Li, Hai
Li, Heng
Li, Hongyi
Li, Hui
Li, Jinghong
Li, Jun
Li, Li
Li, Linlin
Li, Neng
Li, Ning
Li, Shuai
Li, Shutao
Li, Wei
Li, Wentao
Li, Xiang
Li, Xuecao
Li, Xuelong
Li, Yat
Li, Yurui
Li, Zhijun
Liang, Chao
Liang, Shuquan
Liaw, Peter K.
Lin, Jun
Lin, Yuehe
Lippi, Giuseppe
Lister, Ryan
Liu, Chengmei
Liu, Gang
Liu, Hong
Liu, Hui
Liu, Jian
Liu, Jinyan
Liu, Jun
Liu, Meilin
Liu, Pan
Liu, Wei
Liu, Xianhu
Liu, Xiaoping
Liu, Xuejun
Liu, Yang
Liu, Yu
Liu, Yuan
Lonardo, Amedeo
Long, Hualou
Long, Ying
Lu, Bingan
Lu, Junling
Lu, Lu
Lu, Nanshu
Lu, Rongxing
Lucey, Brian
Lucieer, Arko
Lugato, Emanuele
Lund, Henrik
Luo, Yangchao
Luo, Yi
Luo, Zisheng
Lv, Wei
Lyons, Timothy W.
Ma, Haile
Ma, Jianmin
Ma, Jun
Ma, Tianyi
Ma, Wei
Ma, Yanming
Madabhushi, Anant
Mahmoudi, Morteza
Mai, Liqiang
Mai, Wenjie
Makridakis, Spyros
Mandala, Mario
Mantovani, Alberto
Mao, Jianfeng
Mao, Like
Mardani, Abbas
Mathivanan, Suresh
Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof
McCabe, Matthew F.
McCauley, Darren
McClements, David Julian
Mei, Lin
Melenhorst, Jan Joseph
Melero, Ignacio
Meyerholz, David K.
Van Mierlo, Joeri
Miroshnichenko, Andrey E.
Mittler, Ron
Mu, Shichun
Mubarak, Mohammad S.
Mueller, Lukas A.
Muhammad, Khan
Mumtaz, Shahid
Munekata, Paulo Eduardo Sichetti
Nakagawa, Shinichi
Nauen, Ralf
Newman, David J.
Niaura, Raymond S.
Nidheesh, P. V.
Niu, Ben
Nussinov, Ruth
O'Connor, David
Odintsov, Sergei D.
Omri, Anis
Orsini, Nicola
Ostrikov, Kostya (Ken)
Oswald, Isabelle P.
Oudard, Stephane
Ouyang, Minggao
Ozcan, Aydogan
Pan, Anlian
Pan, Anqiang
Pan, Caofeng
Pan, Genxing
Pan, Likun
Pan, Quan-Ke
Pan, Xiaoqing
Pandolfi, Pier Paolo
Parati, Gianfranco
Pateiro, Mirian
Peng, Qiang
Peng, Qing
Peng, Shushi
Perc, Matjaz
Perlin, David S.
Perlman, Stanley
Petruzzelli, Antonio Messeni
Pitt, Bertram
Pöhlmann, Stefan
Polasky, Stephen
Pommier, Yves
Poor, H. Vincent
Potenza, Marc N.
Preat, Veronique
Prinsep, Michele R.
Pu, Kanyi
Putnik, Predrag
Qin, Yuanwei
Qiu, Jieshan
Qu, Xiaogang
Ragauskas, Arthur J.
Ramakrishna, Seeram
Ramkissoon, Haywantee
Ran, Jingrun
Rao, Zhonghao
Recio, Isidra
Ren, Jinsong
Rengel, Zed
Rho, Junsuk
Riahi, Keywan
Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo
Richardson, Paul G.
Robert, Caroline
Rocca, Maria A.
Rodriguez-Manas, Leocadio
Rojas, Orlando J.
Rojo, Teofilo
Roubaud, David
Saad, Fred
Saad, Walid
Sadorsky, Perry
Saliba, Michael
Sander, Chris
Sangaiah, Arun Kumar
Santamouris, Mattheos
Santoro, Gabriele
Scaldaferri, Franco
Schatzberg, Alan F.
Schwab, Matthias
Schweizer, Frank
Scolyer, Richard A.
Scott, Daniel
Serruys, Patrick W.
Setzer, William N.
Shahzad, Babar
Shao, Shuai
Shao, Zongping
Shen, Guozhen
Shen, Liyin

Shen, Zexiang
Shi, Peng
Shi, Yi
Siano, Pierluigi
Simões, Manuel
Sing, Swee Leong
Singh, Vijay P.
Smagghe, Guy
Smith, Lee
Soffietti, Riccardo
Song, Houbing
Song, Jibin
Song, Yu
Sood, Anil K.
Souto, Eliana B.
Stadler, Marc
Stanley, H. Eugene
Stephanopoulos, Gregory
Sternberg, Cora N.
Stoumpos, Constantinos C.
Stunnenberg, Hendrik G.
Su, Shiliang
Sun, Baoguo
Sun, Cuixia
Sun, Fengchun
Sun, Hongqi
Sun, Jie
Sun, Lijun
Sun, Litao
Sun, Runcang
Sun, Yanjuan
Sun, Zaicheng
Sun, Zhipei
Sureda, Antoni
Svenning, Jens-Christian
Tan, Chaoliang
Tan, Weihong
Tang, Chuan-He
Tang, Chuyang
Tang, Dianping
Tang, Yongbing
Tanzi, Rudolph E.
Terpos, Evangelos
Teschendorff, Andrew E.
Tian, He
Timsit, Jean-Francois
Tiwari, Aviral Kumar
Tohge, Takayuki
Tousoulis, Dimitris
Tran, Lam-Son Phan
Tress, Wolfgang
Trivedi, Pankaj
Tsao, Rong
Tully, Mark A.
Tung, Chen-Ho
Van der Bruggen, Bart
Vandenbroucke, Roosmarijn E.
Vangronsveld, Jaco
Varsani, Arvind
Vatanen, Tommi
Verbeke, Kristin
Vermote, Eric
Verpoorte, Robert
Vieta, Eduard
Vincent, Jean-Louis
Vita, Antonio
Wan, Jiafu
Wan, Shaohua
Wanek, Wolfgang
Wang, Bin
Wang, Bo
Wang, Chao
Wang, Chuanyi
Wang, Chunsheng
Wang, Dan
Wang, Feng
Wang, Gongming
Wang, Guoxiu
Wang, Haihui
Wang, Hao
Wang, Huanqing
Wang, Huanting
Wang, Hui
Wang, Jian
Wang, Jie
Wang, Jing
Wang, John
Wang, Joseph
Wang, Lianzhou
Wang, Lihui
Wang, Meng
Wang, Peng
Wang, Pengfei
Wang, Qi
Wang, Qi
Wang, Qiang
Wang, Qilin
Wang, Qin
Wang, Qing
Wang, Shaojian
Wang, Sibo
Wang, Tao
Wang, Ying
Wang, Yong
Wang, Zhen
Wang, Zhong Lin
Wang, Zhongrui
Wang, Zifa
Wang, Zuankai
Wei, Haotong
Wei, Leyi
Wei, Zhixiang
Wei, Zhongbao
Weissleder, Ralph
Weitschies, Werner
Wen, Guanghui
Wesemael, Bas van
Willerslev, Eske
Witlox, Frank
Wu, Haijun
Wu, Hao Bin
Wu, Hui
Wu, Jun
Wu, Qinglin
Wu, Shuilin
Wu, Xiaojun
Wu, Yongzhen
Wu, Yuping
Wu, Zheng-Guang
Wu, Zhong-Shuai
Xia, Jianguo (Jeff)
Xia, Meimei
Xia, Xinhui
Xia, Yongyao
Xia, Zhiguo
Xiang, Quanjun
Xiao, Fuyuan
Xiao, Jie
Xin, Sen
Xing, Baoshan
Xing, Wei
Xiong, Rui
Xu, Hui
Xu, Li Da
Xu, Ping
Xu, Yi-Jun
Xu, Zhenjiang Zech
Yan, Chong
Yan, He
Yan, Huaicheng
Yan, Kai
Yan, Ruqiang
Yang, Bing
Yang, Chenguang
Yang, Hongshun
Yang, Hui
Yang, Jian
Yang, Jianping
Yang, Jie
Yang, Jun
Yang, Kai
Yang, Shihe
Yang, Xiaofeng
Yang, Xinsong
Yang, Yun-Gui
Yao, Yonggang
Yigitcanlar, Tan
Yin, Shen
Yin, Shou-Wei
Yin, Yulong
Yin, Zongyou
Yokoya, Naoto
Young, Allan H.
Yu, Guihua
Yu, Jun
Yu, Le
Yu, Minghao
Yu, Shu-Hong
Yu, Wei
Yu, Wenwu
Yuan, Qiangqiang
Yuan, Yifei
Yuan, Yuan
Yuen, Chau
Zeadally, Sherali
Zhai, Tianyou
Zhang, Bing
Zhang, Dengsong
Zhang, Fan
Zhang, Fusuo
Zhang, Guangyu
Zhang, Guowen
Zhang, Hengjie
Zhang, Hongjie
Zhang, Hui
Zhang, Lai-Chang
Zhang, Lefei
Zhang, Lei
Zhang, Liangpei
Zhang, Lijun
Zhang, Min
Zhang, Peng
Zhang, Qiang
Zhang, Qiaobao
Zhang, Qichun
Zhang, Shicheng
Zhang, Shujun
Zhang, Tierui
Zhang, Wei
Zhang, Weili
Zhang, Xian-Ming
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhang, Xiaogang
Zhang, Xiaoling
Zhang, Yang
Zhang, Yaobin
Zhang, Yi
Zhang, Yi-Zhou
Zhang, Yong
Zhang, Yu Shrike
Zhang, Yue-Jun
Zhang, Yuelin
Zhang, Zheng
Zhang, Zhicheng
Zhang, Zhien
Zhao, Guochun
Zhao, Jie
Zhao, Li-Dong
Zhao, Qing
Zhao, Yi
Zheng, Hao
Zheng, Weitao
Zheng, Yufeng
Zhong, Cheng
Zhou, Jie
Zhou, Jizhong
Zhou, Kun
Zhou, Liang
Zhou, Peng
Zhou, Qi
Zhou, Wei
Zhou, Weiqi
Zhu, Chengzhou
Zhu, Hongwei
Zhu, Junfa
Zhu, Jun-Jie
Zhu, Lei
Zhu, Mingshan
Zhu, Quanxin
Zhu, Yi
Zhu, Yongfa
Zhu, Zhe
Zhuang, Xiaodong
Zou, Quan
Zou, Ruqiang
Zuo, Chao

1 November 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #5 - OA Week, UK, and Strategy

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

Open Access Week 2023 – the Global Drive to Open Continues

As the world's largest open-access (OA) publisher, we believe that unrestricted access to research findings is the cornerstone of transparency, efficiency, and quality control across scientific disciplines. At MDPI, we provide free, immediate access to scientific papers, empowering scientists to examine, validate, replicate, and build upon existing results. This minimizes redundancy, optimizes resources, and fosters innovative approaches.

International OA Week, held from 23 to 29 October 2023, provided a unique opportunity to link the global movement toward open sharing and open science with the progress of policy changes at the local level. Our mission, during OA Week and all the year round, is to offer educational resources highlighting the benefits of open-access publishing. The MDPI Blog is a valuable resource for information on open access and open science.

Core principles of OA publishing

Accessibility, transparency, and collaboration are core principles of OA publishing. OA aims to break down barriers that have traditionally restricted research access, ensuring that knowledge is available to all, regardless of financial situation or institutional affiliations. Our commitment to diverse pathways for OA publishing worldwide includes discounts for researchers. You can learn more about how MDPI supports scientific communities here.

One of the key strengths of OA publishing is its ability to facilitate interdisciplinary research. By removing paywalls and promoting knowledge-sharing across disciplines, OA encourages collaboration and innovation. Researchers from various fields can access and build upon each others’ work, fostering a holistic approach to addressing complex global challenges.

OA holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change.

Policy driving change

Governments, institutions, and funding agencies have recognized the transformative potential of OA and have implemented policies to promote it. These policies often require publicly funded research to be made openly accessible, accelerating the growth of OA repositories and journals. Check out our spotlights on OA policies in the USEU and China

OA publishing is continuously evolving, with community-driven models and technologies shaping its future. Initiatives such as “Plan S” and “cOAlition S” promote OA publishing from the perspective of national funders, requiring grantees to publish their research openly. A new policy announced by the US administration last year mandates that, with effect from January 2026, all US federally funded research should be freely and immediately available after publication.

Additionally, preprint servers such as MDPI's Preprints.org, which allow researchers to share their findings before formal peer review, have gained popularity, enhancing the speed at which new knowledge is disseminated. The rise of blockchain technology is also being explored to ensure transparency and authenticity in scholarly publishing.

For more than two decades, OA publishing has been revolutionizing academic publishing by promoting accessibility, transparency, and collaboration. Its support for interdisciplinary research, evolving policies, and innovative practices all contribute to its growing influence in the global research community. As OA continues to expand, it holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change.

MDPI is proud to lead the transition to open access.

Read more:

Impactful Research

Spotlight on Smart Cities

Smart cities will serve as a cornerstone for future human development. Their implementation will help us tackle many of the significant challenges we are facing – climate change, ageing populations, waste management, public safety, travel, and so on. Recognising the importance of this multifaceted field, MDPI launched the inaugural issue of Smart Cities in 2018 to provide an advanced forum for research into smart technology and society. Here we take a look at how this journal has developed, and its impact in this exciting field.

As at 30 October, 2023, Smart Cities has published 421 papers and has an Impact Factor of 6.4. It also has a CiteScore of 8.5, and more than one quarter of its published papers – 124 – have been cited 10 times or more.

Highly cited papers in Smart Cities

Below are several highly cited papers recently published in Smart Cities. Citation metrics are current as at 31 October 2023.

1. “Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities
Authors: Carlos Moreno, Zaheer Allam, Didier Chabaud, Catherine Gall and Florent Pratlong
Smart Cities 2021, 4(1), 93-111; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010006
Citations: Crossref (338), Scopus (366), Web of Science (270), Google Scholar (710)
The paper discusses the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 on cities, including increasing inequalities and rising unemployment. It introduces the concept of the "15-Minute City," a form of "chrono-urbanism," as a response to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

2. “A Review on Electric Vehicles: Technologies and Challenges
Authors: Julio A. Sanguesa, Vicente Torres-Sanz, Piedad Garrido, Francisco J. Martinez and Johann M. Marquez-Barja
Smart Cities 2021, 4(1), 372-404; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010022
Citations: Crossref (359), Scopus (363), Web of Science (268), Google Scholar (558)
This paper provides an overview of the progress in Electric Vehicles (EVs), focusing on battery technology, charging methods, and emerging research challenges. It also analyzes the global EV market and its future outlook.

3. “IoT in Smart Cities: A Survey of Technologies, Practices and Challenges
Authors: Abbas Shah Syed, Daniel Sierra-Sosa, Anup Kumar and Adel Elmaghraby
Smart Cities 2021, 4(2), 429-475; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4020024
Citations: Crossref (121), Scopus (151), Web of Science (91), Google Scholar (215)
This paper gives an overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the context of Smart Cities, discussing the fundamental components, technologies, architectures, networking technologies, and artificial algorithms that underpin IoT-based Smart City systems.

4. “Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Smart Grid: A Survey
Authors: Olufemi A. Omitaomu and Haoran Niu
Smart Cities 2021, 4(2), 548-568; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4020029
Citations: Crossref (76), Scopus (94), Web of Science (57), Google Scholar (120)
This survey paper reviews the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in the context of the smart grid. It covers various applications of AI in load forecasting, power grid stability assessment, fault detection, and security issues in the smart grid and power systems.

5. “The Metaverse as a Virtual Form of Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability in Urban Futures
Authors: Zaheer Allam, Ayyoob Sharifi, Simon Elias Bibri, David Sydney Jones and John Krogstie
Smart Cities 2022, 5(3), 771-801; https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities5030040
Citations: Crossref (72), Scopus (75), Web of Science (43), Google Scholar (176)
This paper discusses the concept of the Metaverse, a virtual world introduced by Meta (formerly Facebook), and its potential impact on urban life. It explores how emerging technologies such as AI, Big Data, IoT, and Digital Twins could reshape urban design and services in the context of the Metaverse.

Testimonial

“It was indeed a great and pleasant experience with MDPI regarding our recent publication. The submission process was very straightforward and less time-consuming than the norm. The review process was very fast compared to many other open access journals, which is praiseworthy. The support from the Editorial Office during the revision process was highly useful as well. We look forward to publishing with MDPI in the future, and I will most definitely recommend MDPI to my colleagues and collaborators. – Dr. Luís Rosa, University of Minho

Article in Smart Cities: Mobile Networks and Internet of Things Infrastructures to Characterize Smart Human Mobility

Inside MDPI

MDPI Manchester office, UK Visit


Allie Shi (Editorial Director, MDPI), Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Jamie Anderson (Manchester Office Manager, MDPI), Michael O’Sullivan (Senior Scientific Officer, MDPI), Hushneara Akhtar, and Becky Castellon (IOAP Team Lead, MDPI), dining out in Manchester, UK.

In October, I visited MDPI’s new office in Manchester. During the visit, I connected with our English Editing (EE) managers, Scientific Officer, members of the Editorial team, the Marketing team, and IOAP Team Lead.

Our Manchester office focuses primarily on EE services and provides local support for the UK market. Additionally, we regularly visit Editorial Board members and participate in local conferences.

I would like to thank Jamie Anderson, Manchester Office Manager, and her team, for their deep commitment to our Manchester staff and to MDPI’s impact on the UK market.

The UK by numbers

The UK is a hub for the world’s top universities, making it a key market for MDPI and the publishing world in general. It is home to two of the top-five-ranked universities globally, 11 in the top 100, and 15 in the top 200.

As a result, the UK plays a key role in MDPI’s global market. As at October 2023, it ranks as the seventh-largest contributor to the total number of papers published by MDPI. We have 3,500 Editorial Board members affiliated with UK institutions, including 34 serving as Editors-in-Chief (EiCs). Our commitment to collaboration with institutions is evident in the UK, where we have successfully established some 60 Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreements with esteemed institutions, such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh, and more.

According to InCites Dataset + ESCI for the period 2018–2022, as at October 2023, nearly 65% of UK papers are now published as OA. Just over 10% of total OA publications are by UK authors. UK papers are known for their high quality, with an average of 11 citations per paper. Furthermore, 2.16% of UK papers are in the top 1% of cited papers, and 14.61% are in the top 10% of cited papers, showcasing their impact.

We are currently hiring EEs in various locations worldwide.

English Editing at MDPI

Our English Editing (EE) department consists of two main branches, Quality Control and Learning and Development, reflecting our priorities. We are continuously enhancing the quality of our English Editing services and have raised the relevant standards, which now extend to company-wide communications. English editors participate in international interviews, conduct English assessments, and provide colleagues with presentations on ways to improve their use of written and spoken English.

While expanding, the EE department has proactively refocused its efforts on the quality of our work and how the English Editing department can benefit the company more broadly. We currently have approximately 140 full-time English Editors based across five offices worldwide, supplemented by over 700 freelance English editors.

Our Manchester office serves as the hub for the EE Department, with EE Managers situated there, except for Kurtis Jackson, who serves as the Head of EE and is located in our Basel office. Manchester EEs play a critical role in establishing and developing EE teams in our other offices, overseeing management and recruitment. The EE department plays a vital role in MDPI’s operations, as it is the department that touches every published paper. If this work interests you, I encourage you to explore our available EE positions, whether you are seeking full-time or freelance opportunities.

Testimonials

“MDPI provides an excellent service compared to any other previously used services. It delivers fast and high-quality results but at an affordable price.” – Ardha Apriyanto, University of Potsdam

“In my role as a professor, I consider that MDPI Author Services offer an excellent quality in the editing of Western academic writing while maintaining the required standards of clarity, precision and rigor. Additionally, delivery times are fast compared to other available services.” – Jesus Insuasti, University of Nariño

Read more:

Coming Together for Science

STM and Frankfurt Book Fair

Attending STM

MDPI has been a proud sponsor of the STM Conference for several years. The STM Conference is a dynamic event featuring interactive sessions, expert panellists, idea-sharing, and ample networking opportunities. On 16 October, the event kicked off with arrival drinks, sponsored by MDPI, followed by a welcoming dinner, providing a great chance to connect and network with industry professionals. The following day was filled with speakers, sessions, and further opportunities to connect. STM exemplifies the collaborative spirit of the scientific community, with session topics including achieving open, visible, and impactful research at scale; maintaining research integrity in a rapidly changing world; and exploring the impact of ever-evolving technology in the scholarly community.

Meeting with Web of Science

On a personal note, one of the highlights of STM was a candid and productive conversation with Nandita Quaderi, Editor-in-Chief and SVP at Web of Science. During our discussion, we talked about MDPI, Web of Science, the IJERPH delisting, and ways of moving forward. This open conversation aimed at fostering better collaboration for the future.

“We discussed ways to improve our communication and collaboration.”

I appreciated our frank discussion and felt that Nandita wholeheartedly supports open access. She also expressed her appreciation for the monthly CEO Letter, which she sees as a way to add personality to the MDPI brand and provide insight into the great work we do at MDPI. While we highlighted the positives, we also discussed ways to improve our communication and collaboration moving forward. This meeting alone made the trip worthwhile, and I hope Nandita doesn’t mind my sharing that she found our chat to be “the most honest and constructive discussion” she’s had with someone from MDPI in recent years.

75th Frankfurt Book Fair


Jelena Milojevic (Book Editor, MDPI), Jovana Dubajic (Book Editor, MDPI), Evan Escamilla (Project Manager, MDPI), Laura Wagner (Head of Books, MDPI), and Jenny Knowles (Commissioning Editor, MDPI), at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

For the 75th time, the Frankfurter Buchmesse opened its doors in October to celebrate exciting stories and their authors. If you haven’t yet had the chance to visit the Frankfurt Book Fair, I highly recommend it. It’s the largest book fair in the world, attracting thousands of visitors from around the globe. This is the place to gain valuable industry insights from top-class publishing professionals, connect with publishers directly, and learn about the latest trends in publishing.

MDPI Books

Our Books team was also present at the Frankfurt Book Fair, networking and learning from various panels. Did you know that our MDPI Books department publishes OA Books?

The book publishing program includes monographs, book series, edited books and reprints of special issues and topical collections, among other book types.

If you have a book proposal you would like to discuss, please feel free to contact our Books team to understand the benefits and methods of publishing your next book with the OA model.

Closing Thoughts

MDPI Strategy Meeting

As the newly appointed CEO, this is my first year leading the MDPI Senior Management Strategy session. I saw it as an opportunity to explore what MDPI has the potential to become in the next five years. Guided by the vision of its founder and President, Dr. Shu-kun Lin, the company has accomplished remarkable feats over the past 27 years and currently holds the position as the world’s third-largest academic publisher, following Springer Nature and Elsevier.

Our primary objective is to build upon the milestones of the past decades and consolidate MDPI’s position as well-established publishing brand. The two-day meeting emphasized the importance of communicating MDPI’s values more actively via its brand and adopting a straightforward yet impactful approach to managing MDPI as a mature academic publisher.

“Our primary objective is to consolidate MDPI’s position as well-established publishing brand”

As the world’s number one open-access publisher, MDPI has long been a game-changer in the scholarly community, serving millions of authors. The challenge in being a trailblazer is the need to continuously improve and at the same time explore the next blue-ocean strategy, while also maintaining the smooth operation of the business. Our collection model, featuring guest-curated thematic topics in the form of Special Issues, has disrupted the industry. Other publishers closely study us and attempt to replicate our models. The future of this collection model is something we are actively addressing – while, of course, looking ahead to what comes next!

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

19 October 2023
Open Access Week 2023 – the Global Drive to Open Continues


MDPI has been a strong proponent of the open access publishing model right from the beginning. As one of the pioneering fully open access publishers, we firmly believe that unrestricted access to research findings forms the foundation for better transparency, efficiency, and quality control across all scientific disciplines.

In December 2022, we reached a significant milestone by surpassing one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon!

Offering free and immediate access to scientific papers empowers scientists to examine, validate, replicate, and expand upon existing results. This not only helps prevent redundancy and optimizes how resources are used but also paves the way for innovative new approaches.

The International Open Access Week takes place from 23 to 29 October 2023, providing a unique opportunity to connect the global movement towards open sharing and open science with the progress of policy transformations at the local level.

Our goal, during Open Access Week as well as throughout the year, is to offer resources for educating people about the benefits of open access publishing. The MDPI Blog offers a wealth of information around open access and open science.

Promoting the values of accessibility, transparency, and collaboration

Open access publishing embodies the fundamental values of democratizing knowledge and fostering global accessibility. It aims to break down barriers that have traditionally limited access to scholarly work, ensuring that knowledge is available to all, regardless of their financial or institutional affiliations. 

Discounts are part of our commitment to ensuring there are diverse pathways to Open Access publishing for researchers worldwide. MDPI supports scientific communities in several different ways. 

One of the key strengths of open access publishing lies in its ability to facilitate interdisciplinary research. By removing paywalls and promoting the sharing of knowledge across disciplines, OA encourages collaboration and innovation. Researchers from diverse fields can access and build upon each other's work, fostering a holistic approach to addressing complex global challenges. 

Funders' policies are getting aligned with open science

Governments, institutions, and funding agencies have recognized the transformative potential of open access and have implemented policies to promote it. These policies often mandate that publicly funded research should be made openly accessible. Such initiatives have accelerated the growth of open access repositories and journals, reinforcing the commitment to open access principles. Check our spotlights on OA policies in the USEU and China

Open access publishing is continually evolving, with innovative and community-driven models and technologies shaping its future. Initiatives like "Plan S" and "cOAlition S" promote the adoption of OA publishing from the national funders’ perspective by requiring grantees to publish their research openly. A new policy announced by the US administration last year requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. 

Additionally, preprint servers such as MDPI's Preprints.org, which allow researchers to share their findings before formal peer review, have gained popularity, enhancing the speed at which new knowledge is disseminated. The rise of blockchain technology is also being explored to ensure transparency and authenticity in scholarly publishing. 

For more than twenty years, open access scholarly publishing has been revolutionizing academia by promoting the values of accessibility, transparency, and collaboration. Its support for interdisciplinary research, evolving policies, and innovative practices all contribute to its growing influence in the global research community. As open access continues to expand, it holds the potential to democratize knowledge, advance science, and drive positive societal change. 

MDPI is proud to be a leader in the transition to open access.

2 October 2023
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #4 - MDPI Presence in China

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

Open Access in China

It is Saturday, 23 September, and I have just returned from an unforgettable 12-day trip to China, visiting our main offices in Beijing and Wuhan. In the wake of a packed and very enjoyable agenda of internal and external meetings, I would like to use this edition of the CEO Letter to showcase how MDPI supports the scholarly community in China.

Coincidentally, Jack McKenna, Communications Associate from MDPI’s corporate content team, has just released a blog article discussing China’s open access (OA) policy. It is a timely read, providing a concise overview of the development of the OA movement in China and reflecting on its future. I shall draw some content from Jack’s piece and use this edition of the CEO Letter to highlight the various ways in which MDPI is involved in this market. And it would be remiss of me not to include some pictures and highlights from my travels!

Open Access Policy in China

As per Jack’s post, in 2020, China became the world’s leading producer of research articles. Today, China is experiencing a “substantial growth rate in OA [Open Access] publication”. This growth is supported by the State’s commitment to research & development and its policy “requiring the promotion of open science”.

Over the past two decades, there have been gradual developments in China’s OA framework, with repositories and platforms being developed in a consistent manner. Currently, key institutions across China – including the National Science Library, the National Science and Technology Library, and the Natural Science Foundation of China – support OA. The State aims to establish consistent policies across government agencies – a framework for a more encompassing embrace of OA across institutions.

In China, the number of subscription-only articles decreased by nearly 30% over the 10-year period of 2011–2021, while gold OA increased by 22%. Between 2017 and 2020 alone, China published 800,921 academic papers in an OA format.

In 2023, as the leading publisher of academic research, China is pursuing “self-reliance”. Therefore, the State will be establishing consistent policies across government agencies, including those related to OA. Additionally, it will want to ensure that Chinese people can access the research that is supported by Chinese funding and produced by Chinese academics. For this reason, “Open Access is a matter of priority in China”.

MDPI Offices in China

 While the history of MDPI begins in Basel, Switzerland, the story of MDPI’s founder is very much rooted in China. Dr. Shu-kun Lin, Founder and President of MDPI, graduated with a BSc from Wuhan University in 1982. He also studied physical chemistry at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (1982–1986; MSc in 1985), and at the University of Louisville, USA (1987–1989). Dr. Lin completed his doctorate in organic chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zürich) in 1992.


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) at MDPI’s Wuhan office.

In 2002, MDPI’s Basel headquarters moved to Matthäusstrasse 11, 4052 Basel, and Dr. Lin opened an editorial office in Qingdao, China, which launched the journal Marine Drugs in the following year. Below is a list of MDPI’s current offices in China and their respective dates of inauguration:

  • 2008: Beijing (Tongzhou, Haidian)
  • 2013: Wuhan (Hankou, Guanggu)
  • 2019: Tianjin
  • 2021: Dalian
  • 2021: Nanjing

Our Strength is in Our People

With over 6,000 MDPI staff, across 20 offices in 11 countries, MDPI is able to offer authors responsive and efficient round-the-clock support, enabling a rapid publication process.

In my experience, stakeholders are genuinely surprised when they realize the extent of our global operations. My response is to reiterate that our people are our strength. This is why we have fast and efficient processes and top-notch responsiveness. Our global presence ensures that your manuscript is constantly attended to, rather than sitting on someone’s desk. We prioritize our authors’ needs and act quickly to move things through the various stages of publication. MDPI is built on speed, convenience, and competence, which I believe are core pillars for success in any industry. We continually strive to improve our systems and processes on the basis of these core strengths. We literally have over 6,000 staff worldwide dedicated to serving your needs. It’s not magic: it’s people; it’s real.

Impactful Research

MDPI Awards

To support the academic community, and especially young researchers, and also to enhance communication among scientists, MDPI journals offer various awards in specific fields. We serve the scientific community by funding research to facilitate the development of sustainable global solutions through our annual World Sustainability Award and Emerging Sustainability Leader Award.

In 2022, MDPI made awards totalling over US$1 million in recognition and support of researchers worldwide.

Across our journal catalogue, we have granted over 2,000 awards to recognize and support researchers from all disciplines. Since 2016, these awards have served as a source of recognition, acknowledging the impact of research by heightening the influence of talented individuals. The award types mainly include the Young Investigator Award, the Best PhD Thesis Award, the Best Paper Award, and the Outstanding Reviewer Award.

To learn more about MDPI Awards and to find out which are currently available, please click here.

MDPI Awards to Scholars from China

Since 2021, there have been 23 Best Paper Awards granted to authors affiliated with Chinese institutions, identifying their papers as having high-quality scientific impact. A total of 45 Chinese scholars have received awards such as the Young Investigator Award, the Best PhD Thesis Award, the Outstanding Reviewer Award, and the Tu Youyou Award, among others. Prizes for these awards include MDPI grants for paid publications, totalling over CHF 70,000 for scholars affiliated with Chinese institutions.

MDPI’s Tu Youyou Award


Prof. Tu Youyou (left), Dr. Shu-Kun Lin (President, MDPI).

In 2015, Professor Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.” In order to commemorate Professor Tu’s contributions to human health and to promote the passion and spirit conveyed by her experiences, MDPI in 2016 established the ‘Tu Youyou Award’, which runs biennially to recognize outstanding scholars dedicated to the research of natural products and medicinal chemistry.

The 2022 Tu Youyou Award was granted to Prof. Dr. Xiaoguang Lei of Peking University. Click here to access the interview with the winner.

2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine Awarded to Professor Youyou Tu

Professor Tu’s work was celebrated in a Special Issue from Molecules on the occasion of her 80th birthday. The Special Issue: 'Artemisinin (Qinghaosu): Commemorative Issue in Honor of Professor Youyou Tu on the Occasion of her 80th Anniversary” was created five years before she won the Nobel Prize, highlighting the visibility MDPI provides researchers and their work.

Highly Cited Articles by Chinese Scholars Published in MDPI

Click here to access the most cited MDPI papers published by scholars affiliated with Chinese institutions. This list presents the most influential research from the more than 287,000 MDPI papers published by Chinese scholars. With over 9 million total citations, I encourage you to maximize your visibility and impact by publishing with MDPI, the number one most cited open access publisher.

Read more:

Inside MDPI

Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) with the Beijing Marketing team.

Marketing Department in China

During my visit to our offices in Beijing and Wuhan, I had the opportunity to meet with, and to present to, our local marketing teams. These teams are responsible for various journal-related and corporate promotional activities, including newsletters, conferences, seminars, author training, journal awards, content creation, digital marketing, and social media.

I was pleased by the ambition and curiosity of our marketing colleagues. They showed a strong desire to collaborate and acquire knowledge and tactics to effectively market and promote MDPI-journal-related activities. I presented some of the principles and objectives that we apply in the Corporate Marketing and Communications department, and used the opportunity to strengthen our collaborative communications across offices.

Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI) with the Wuhan Marketing team.

Coming Together for Science

Collaborations, Scholarships and Meetings

MDPI maintains partnerships with nearly 190 learned societies and over 800 institutions and consortia, helping to facilitate the transition to OA publishing. Our commitment to working with institutions is evident in China, where we have successfully established over 35 Institutional Open Access Programs (IOAP) with esteemed institutions such as the Tsinghua University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Our institutional partnerships, waiver programs, and article processing cost discounts create diverse pathways to OA publishing for researchers worldwide.

Scholarships in China

Since 2021, several MDPI journals (Sensors, Photonics, Coatings, Materials, Energies, and Journal of Fungi) have funded full scholarships for four Master’s and five Ph.D. projects in China. These scholarships align with Tianjin University, Wuhan University of Technology, Central South University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the China University of Petroleum (Beijing).

Meeting with the Society of Chinese University Journals (CUJS)


Prof. Tieming Zhang (President of CUJS, centre) and MDPI colleagues at CUJS office.

I am pleased to have participated in some highly productive meetings during my visit to China, including one with the Society of Chinese University Journals (CUJS). The meeting involved Prof. Tieming Zhang (President of CUJS), Assoc. Prof. Xin Zhang (Vice President and Secretary General), and Dr. Fei Gao (Executive Member of CUJS). Alongside my colleagues Dr. Guoshi Liu, Dr. Giulia Stefenelli, and Anita Sun, I represented MDPI and held an open discussion to address any questions regarding OA and MDPI.

We discussed several methods for collaboration, including a workshop on the future of peer review, MDPI sponsoring a funding grant for early-career researchers, and transitioning journals from diamond to gold OA. I am thankful for the opportunity to have met our colleagues at CUJS in person and feel very confident about our future collaborations in support of OA publishing in China.

MDPI hosts free academic seminars, author training sessions, and academic conferences as part of its commitment to enrich and support the scholarly community. CUJS often stages academic events (e.g., conferences, editor training, and editor competitions), and I believe there are great opportunities for CUJS and MDPI to collaborate accordingly.

Meeting with National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSLC)


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Dr. Giulia Stefenelli (Chair of Scientific Officers, MDPI), Anita Sun (PR Manager, MDPI) and Dr. Guoshi Liu (Managing Director, MDPI) at the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

We also visited the NSLC Director, Xiwen Liu, and colleagues Ying Jin, Zhesi Shen, and Sichao Tong. Following our introductions, we gave a presentation on the history and editorial process at MDPI, discussing specific details related to MDPI’s business and data. We highlighted the status of our  IOAP collaborations in China and the makeup of our author base, specifically in China, and drew attention to the fact that MDPI has published research by authors from every country in the world. We then discussed the design indicators, calculation methods and implementation purposes of the ‘Early Warning Journal List’ and how we can have open communication to provide any data regarding MDPI journals. I am pleased to report that we reached a consensus on future communications, and am grateful to NSLC for hosting us in their offices.

In-person meetings with stakeholders provide an invaluable opportunity to communicate what MDPI is about and the various ways in which we serve the scholarly community. While digital marketing and online communication are essential, they are no replacement for the understanding and trust that come about through in-person interactions.

The Numbers

As at September 2023, China holds the largest position in MDPI’s global market, ranking as the largest contributor to the total number of papers published by MDPI.

At this point in time, there were more than 847,000 China mainland scholars who have published with MDPI, 51 of whom are Section-Editors-in-Chief (SEiC) of MDPI journals, with seven serving as Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) for journals such as Air, Big Data and Cognitive Computing, Blockchains, Future, Nanoenergy Advances, and Targets.

Our growth and presence in China are a true testament to the service we provide to the scholarly community, and to the relationships we foster through collaborative activities. We look forward to continuing to support the growth of the scholarly community in China, providing a valuable and trusted experience with MDPI.

Closing Thoughts

Final Reflections on our MDPI Offices in Beijing and Wuhan


Stefan Tochev (CEO, MDPI), Dr. Constanze Schelhorn (Indexing Manager, MDPI), Jiale Shang (Admin, Tongzhou, MDPI) at Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing.

I spent approximately two weeks visiting some of our offices in China, and the first word that comes to mind when describing my experience is ‘hospitality.’ My colleagues and I were met with enthusiasm and delight at the airport by the Tongzhou Admin team (thank you, Jiale Shang, and thank you, Eric Wang, for keeping us organized on this trip!) and were taken care of with great attention. From hotels to transportation, dinners, and meetings, our stay was catered for perfectly.

Perhaps this is where MDPI’s focus on customers and service originates. At our core, we are a service company that provides a publishing platform for its authors. It’s therefore no surprise that authors consistently rate their experience with MDPI very highly.

95% of submitting authors rate their overall experience with the MDPI publication process as Excellent or Good (Springer Nature report 90%).

91% of submitting authors rate their overall experience with the MDPI peer review process as Excellent or Good.

Speed/Efficiency and Editorial Relationship are two key reasons underlying this high satisfaction score. ‘Editorial Relationship’ can be further explored, but in the past month, the most commonly noted aspects were the professionalism, kindness, availability, communicativeness, and personalized assistance provided by our editorial staff throughout the process. These attributes are at the core of our work across all our offices and continents.

Hospitality and Service

Just as our Chinese colleagues strove to keep us engaged by showing us the city sights (thank you, Thea Pan, and Jason Wu from the Wuhan Marketing team!) and sharing a variety of wonderful meals, our editorial staff are committed to serving our authors throughout their publishing journey. Our aim is to place the author at the centre of everything we do, eager to welcome our ‘guests’ and provide them with a pleasant publishing experience.

I asked my colleague Francis Wu (Senior Publisher, Wuhan office) where this hospitality originates. He responded that it is part of Chinese culture. I reflected long and deep on this answer. China is a vast country, and when visitors arrive, hosts want to ensure they feel welcomed and taken care of in order to maximize their time and visit. I can’t think of a better analogy for how I would want our authors to feel when they visit MDPI for their publishing needs. A company culture that prioritizes service, something that goes beyond products and productivity, and focuses on the overall experience. Over 6,000 people, across all MDPI offices, are ready, willing and able to go the extra mile for their colleagues and their customers. This is something I am truly proud of.

Stefan Tochev
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG

26 September 2023
Prof. Dr. Selvarangan Ponnazhagan Appointed Editor-in-Chief of Genes

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Selvarangan Ponnazhagan has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Genes (ISSN: 2073-4425).

text

Prof. Dr. Selvarangan Ponnazhagan is an Endowed Professor in Experimental Cancer Therapeutics at the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), AL, USA. Having already served as Section Editor-in-Chief for the “Human Genomics and Genetic Diseases” Section since 2016, he is familiar with the journal and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new role.

 

Prof. Dr. Ponnazhagan has taken over from Prof. Dr. J. Peter W. Young, who had held the position since the journal entered publication thirteen years ago. We are extremely grateful to Prof. Dr. Young for his hard work and support in growing the journal to its current state.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Selvarangan Ponnazhagan, who shared his vision for the journal, as well as his views on the research area:

1. What about the journal made you want to take on the role as its Editor-in-Chief?

I have served as the Section Editor-in-Chief of Genes for several years and saw the steady growth of the journal and its impact factor. I feel that with further commitment and enthusiasm, we can further improve the status of Genes and possibly compete as one of the premier journals in the field.

2. What is your vision for the journal?

I would like to improve the quality of manuscripts published, as well as identify global contributors and audiences, especially increasing the participation of researchers in Europe and the United States.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

The journal Genes covers a broad area of topics, ranging from prokaryotic genetics to gene transfer. With rapid advances both in the technological platforms and cutting-edge tools used to develop model systems, this is the right time to further invest in improving the visibility of the journal. The future potential of this field is astounding.

4. What do you think of the development of open access journals in the publishing field?

Open access provides quicker turnaround, as well as easier accessibility. With many premier journals starting to adopt this method of publication, the market will experience healthy competition.

5. Final remarks

It has been a pleasure working as part of the editorial team of Genes as the Section Editor-in-Chief for the last several years, and I consider my appointment as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal as a wonderful opportunity to continue working with the entire team to improve the quality of the manuscripts published in Genes. I look forward to a successful future.

We wish Prof. Dr. Ponnazhagan every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to Genes.

19 September 2023
Meet Us at the 13th Member Congress of the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and 2023 National Academic Congress, 19–22 October 2023, Hefei, China


MDPI will attend the 13th Member Congress of the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and 2023 National Academic Congress. This event will be held from 19 to 22 October 2023 in Hefei, China, and is hosted by the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

This event includes invited reports of the conference, branch (special topic) reports, and posters. The theme of this conference is gene expression and regulation; RNA function and regulation; protein modification and function; metabolic homeostasis and networks; frontier technology and application, etc.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

  • Biomolecules (leading);
  • Genes (leading);
  • IJMS (leading);
  • Cancers;
  • Cells;
  • Pharmaceutics;
  • CIMB;
  • Biology;
  • Symmetry.

If you plan on attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (#C07) and chat with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit https://www.csbmb.org.cn/2023/.

6 September 2023
Recap of Awards Granted to Scholars in 2022


MDPI is committed to supporting the academic community, nurturing talent and advancing science. Awards are an important part of the research landscape and play a vital role in helping academics gain recognition, especially young researchers as they embark on new research avenues.

In 2022, our journals presented a total number of 394 Awards, including Travel Awards, Young Investigator Awards, Best PhD Thesis Awards, Best Paper Awards, and Outstanding Reviewer Awards, with several winners announced for some of the awards. The total prize sum amounted to just under 580,000 Swiss francs (CHF), or approximately 650,000 US dollars. Overall, more than 720 scholars were awarded.

The majority of the awards were dedicated to young researchers in relatively early stages of their careers. This encompassed 66 of the afore-mentioned Travel Awards, 60 Young Investigator Awards, supporting research projects and conference attendance, as well as 51 Best PhD Thesis Awards. Additionally, 113 Best Paper Awards were given by our journals. The selection committees were entrusted with identifying the most impactful and novel research and review articles published in their journal within a given year.

MDPI will continue its support and recognition for the academic community moving forward, sponsoring new awards across disciplines. To learn more about all the awardees and their research projects in your field of study, please visit the following pages:

To explore more MDPI awards, please click here.

Back to TopTop