Special Issues Guidelines

MDPI Special Issue

What is a Special Issue?

Special Issues (SIs) are collections of papers centered around a subject of special interest. They are organized and led by subject experts who take on the role of Guest Editor. They are not regular issues of the journal. All Special Issue submissions follow the same peer review process as regular papers and are published in regular issues of the journal when they are accepted, but are additionally labelled as belonging to a Special Issue and are discoverable within the collection. Click here to see Guest Editors’ feedback regarding Special Issues.

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

• Greater discoverability: Articles published in Special Issues benefit from greater discoverability and more frequent citations than articles spontaneously submitted to the respective journal due to their connectivity within the article collection.
• Ease of navigation: Clustering papers within specific topics helps scholars to easily navigate through a journal’s content .
• External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal’s social media channels for the relevant subject areas to increase visibility and readership.
• Rigorous peer review: Articles in Special Issues follow the same rigorous and independent peer-review process as regular papers and are published in regular issues of the journal. They are generally handled by a Guest Editor who is an influential researcher in the discipline.
• Expand your research network: Special Issues are a great place to find new collaborators among the authors of other manuscripts published within it.
• Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—wide availability, high visibility, and rapid dissemination. Find more information here.

Special Issue Proposals

Submitting a Special Issue Proposal

The Editorial Office of the journal usually invites scholars to guest-edit Special Issues on topics of interest to the scientific community. We welcome the submission of proposals from our readers and authors on a topic within their field of expertise. The journal’s Editorial Team and Editor-in-Chief will oversee Guest Editor appointments and Special Issue proposals, checking content for relevance and ensuring the suitability of the material. If you have an idea for a Special Issue, please fill in all the required information and submit the proposal via the journal’s website.

Special Issue Proposal Application

Detailed Guide on Special Issue Proposals

The information below will help guide you through the establishment of a successful Special Issue.

The Special Issue proposal must include the following:

• The journal you are submitting your proposal to. Please ensure that the topic of your proposal is within the scope of the journal.
• The Special Issue’s tentative title. This title should clearly reflect the subject of interest.
• The submission deadline. A Special Issue can be open for submission for 6–12 months.
• A list of Guest Editor(s) that includes their names, affiliations, email addresses, websites, research interests, social media accounts (optional), ORCID (optional), and SciProfiles accounts (optional). Guest-editing requires time and may become demanding; therefore, most Special Issues are led by a team of Guest Editors. Please feel free to invite 1–3 colleagues or scholars in the field to co-edit the Special Issue with you, ensuring that you decide on each person’s responsibilities and work distribution as a group.
• A summary of the Special Issue (about 150–200 words) and relevant keywords (about 3–10 words): Briefly describe the motivation behind the Special Issue, the main topic and areas covered, and the types of submissions that would fit the scope of the Special Issue.
• Information for at least eight planned papers or a list with at least 20 potential authors (following the peer review process, not all planned papers may be suitable for publication; we recommend that you take this into account and propose more planned papers than you would expect to have included in the Special Issue): This includes the names, emails, and affiliations of the authors as well as the tentative title of the planned paper as an option.
• A customized call for papers email prepared by the Guest Editor(s) (optional), which will be used to invite scholars to submit their research to your Special Issue. It should contain a brief description of the Special Issue and motivate the potential contributors to submit their research. The Editorial Office can help you contact scholars by either providing you with a list of potential contributors or sending out invitations on your behalf.
• A plan to promote the Special Issue (optional). Promoting the Special Issue is crucial to ensuring its success. Please let us know how do you intend to advertise your Special Issue and attract potential contributors. Please also let us know how we can assist you.
• Previous experience as a Guest Editor for MDPI journals.

MDPI Guest Editor Guide

This guide clarifies the role of the Guest Editor/s involved in the Special Issue process and provides more details about the editorial process of MDPI journals, facilitating efficient communication and thereby supporting the success of a Special Issue.

In general, the Guest Editor will be in charge of the Special Issue’s contents, while MDPI in-house editors will provide administrative assistance.

Guest Editor Responsibilities and Ethics

MDPI’s Policies on Publication Ethics can be found here. Please check any individual journal guidelines that supplement the MDPI guidelines. MDPI is a member of COPE. We fully adhere to its Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines.

Content Relevance: The Guest Editor is responsible for ensuring that all content published in the Special Issue aligns with both the specific scope of the Special Issue and the broader scope of the journal. Additional oversight of the scope is provided by the journal's Editor-in-Chief and/or the Editorial Board.

Citation Policies: The Guest Editor must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations of their own or an associate’s work, of the journal, or of another journal they are associated with. The addition of references not relevant to the work is strongly discouraged (please see MDPI Publication Ethics). In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.

Editor’s Submission: The Special Issue may publish contributions from the Guest Editor(s), but the number of such contributions should be limited to ensure the diversity and inclusiveness of the authorship representing the research in the Special Issue. Any article submitted by a Guest Editor will be handled by a member of the Editorial Board.

Confidentiality: The Guest Editor should protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal. This includes all communications among editors and the identity of the reviewers, unless the manuscript is to be published with open peer review and the reviewers have signed their review report.

Conflicts of Interest: All those involved in the peer review process must carefully consider and declare any conflicts of interest when participating in the review, decision-making process, and publication of a paper. All associations that interfere with, or could be potentially perceived as interfering with, the full and objective assessment, peer review, and decision-making process must be declared. Even if an editor believes that the existence of a conflict of interest or several conflicts of interest will not impact the peer review or decision-making process, the editor should remove themselves from the process to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest and to protect the integrity of the peer review process. In the event of a conflict of interest, an alternative editor will be found. Please check here for more information.

Declaration of Competing Interests: Any potential editorial conflicts of interest should be declared to the publisher in writing prior to the appointment of the editor and then updated if and when new conflicts arise. The publisher may publish such declarations in the journal. The editor shall apply MDPI’s policy relating to the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers, e.g., ‘Disclosure of Interest’ by the ICMJE guidelines.

Guest Editor Duties

• Preparing the Special Issue’s title, summary, and keywords to introduce this Special Issue to authors and readers;
• Providing a list of potential contributors and inviting investigators in the field to contribute;
• Pre-screening new submissions, supervising the whole peer review process, and making decisions about articles submitted to the Special Issue;
• Promoting the Special Issue at conferences if the opportunity arises, or on social media and other relevant platforms.

Normally, a successful Special Issue consists of 10 or more papers, in addition to an Editorial (optional) written by the Guest Editor(s). To achieve this goal, we recommend collecting more than 10 planned papers, as some manuscripts might not pass the peer review process or might not be submitted.

Please note that the Guest Editor is considered to be an expert in their field of research. The Guest Editor may choose to include early career researchers as part of their team; however, the supervision of the peer review process and decisions regarding manuscripts must be undertaken by the Guest Editor alone.

Guest Editor Benefits

• Guest editing is an ideal opportunity for networking and communicating with scholars in the research community;
• Guest Editors help accelerate the dissemination of science and initiate new collaborations;
• Special Issue Reprints: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print. Reprints are free to read on our platform and interested scholars can order print copies on demand at a cost. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—wide availability, high visibility, and rapid dissemination. Reprints are indexed in DOAB and available through various channel partners. Find more information here.

Promoting your Special Issue

Publications in a Special Issue are generally gathered via invitation from the Guest Editor(s) or a wide call for papers from the Editorial Office. Nevertheless, submissions from the wider community to any Special Issue should not be neglected. An effective way to maximize the visibility of a Special Issue and increase submissions is to promote your Special Issue from the very beginning. Examples of effective promotion from the Guest Editor’s side include, but are not limited to, the following:

• To start, simply add the title and URL of your Special Issue to your email signature.
• Social media, with its ability to facilitate instant dissemination and wide coverage, is also a convenient yet highly effective tool for advertisement. You are encouraged to publish a post on Twitter and LinkedIn, together with a Special Issue banner provided by the Editorial Office, or to announce the project on ResearchGate. This way, more scholars will be aware of the Special Issue. Please always tag MDPI or the journal’s Twitter account when you post a new Tweet; our staff will help to amplify your message.
• Announcing your Special Issue on the homepage of your website is another way to increase its visibility. MDPI staff will gladly send you images or text in all formats that suit your needs. In addition, you can inform us of relevant research websites or mailing lists that could feature your Special Issue
• Your Special Issue can be promoted using MDPI’s new initiative, SciProfiles—Discussion Group Service. The Discussion Group function allows you to initiate a discussion on the SciProfiles platform with your peers and other academics about the Special Issue or any other topic you wish to discuss.
• Introducing your Special Issue at academic events to colleagues is recommended. Special Issue flyers and posters can be delivered to you. If you are going to give a presentation at a conference and are willing to broadcast an open call for submissions to your audience, a slide about the Special Issue can be prepared for you.

Editorial Procedure of Submissions to the Special Issue

Special Issue submissions are peer-reviewed and published following “The MDPI Editorial Process”.

The Guest Editor(s) can select one of the following actions in response to a submission: accept, reject, ask the author for revision, or ask for an additional reviewer after the peer review process. When making an editorial decision, you are expected to verify the following:

Pre-Check

• The overall relevance of the manuscript to the journal/section/Special Issue;
• The manuscript’s adherence to high-quality research and ethical standards;
• The manuscript’s standards of rigor to qualify for further review.

First or Final Decision

• The suitability of the selected reviewers;
• The adequacy of the reviewers’ comments and the authors’ response;
• The overall scientific quality of the paper.

If there is any suspicion that a paper may contain plagiarism, an MDPI editor will recheck it using the industry-standard anti-plagiarism iThenticate software.

Decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of submissions made by Guest Editors are based on the collected reviewer reports, and it should be noted that the Editor-in-Chief and/or Editorial Board Members maintain oversight and may also be involved in the decision-making process in some cases. This collaboration ensures the quality and integrity of the Special Issue.

Additionally, please kindly note the following: (a) if there are conflicts of interest between the Guest Editor(s) and authors, or if a Guest Editor is unresponsive to the Editorial Office regarding matters of acceptance or rejection, we will invite another editor from the journal’s Editorial Board with an appropriate research background to check manuscripts and make decisions; (b) if a Guest Editor supports the acceptance of a manuscript despite a reviewer’s recommendation to reject it, MDPI staff will seek a second independent opinion from an Editorial Board Member or the Editor-in-Chief before communicating a final decision to the authors; and (c) any article submitted by a Guest Editor will be handled by a member of the Editorial Board.

Accessing MDPI’s Online Submission System (SuSy)

An MDPI Editor will handle the whole editorial process via the MDPI online Submission System (SuSy). The Guest Editor will be able to monitor the whole process after registering and logging into SuSy with the email address announced on the Special Issue website, and they can view the status of all submissions to their Special Issue by clicking on the title of the Special Issue.