Information for Authors
Overview
MDPI is a publisher of scholarly open access journals. All journals uphold a peer-reviewed, rapid, and rigorous manuscript handling and editorial process.
MDPI journals are the perfect place for you to publish your work under an open access license, in a fast and straightforward manner. Our journals are indexed in the leading databases and, since they are open access, have a broad readership.
As a pioneer open access publisher, our mission is to make new research findings accessible to everyone. We are serving scholars from across the globe and from a variety of backgrounds. To deepen our understanding of the research communities that we serve, we aim to build journals that are just as diverse and inclusive. Only by valuing differences can we create an equitable and inclusive work environment and foster the openness that is key to our mission.
The daily exchange of ideas between the East and the West has been at the heart of MDPI's progress from day one. We understand that diversity does not end there. More needs to be done to bridge the gap between the global North and South—and to create equal opportunities for people without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, country of origin, physical ability, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination on the basis of any one of these characteristics.
Useful Resources for Authors
Manuscript Submission & Instructions for Authors
Authors and Readers Benefits:
- publish thoroughly peer-reviewed journals of high scholarly impact
- maintain a quick publication procedure — manuscripts are published within 5-7 weeks of submission, provided that no major revisions are required
- publish full open access journals — readers can access all articles published on this platform for free, including state-of-the-art review articles
- publish citation-tracked journals — MDPI is working towards quick coverage and citation-tracking of all of its journals in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE, see the list of covered journals) and Scopus (see the list of covered journals). In 2019, 88% of all published articles were covered by the SCIE.
- for biomed titles, STM is working towards quick coverage in PubMed Central and PubMed (see the list of covered journals). In 2019, 35% of all published articles were covered by PubMed.
For Authors and Readers Open Access Means:
- free availability of the literature on the Internet without any subscription or price barriers
- immediate open access once an article is released (no embargo period)
- authors retain all copyrights - authors will not be forced to sign any copyright transfer agreements
- permission of re-use the published material if proper accreditation is given (Creative Commons Attribution License
)
)General Peer-Review and Editorial Procedure
All manuscripts sent for publication in our journals are strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed by experts (this includes research and review articles, spontaneous submissions, and invited papers). The Managing Editor of the journal will perform an initial check of the manuscript’s suitability upon receipt. The Editorial Office will then organize the peer-review process performed by independent experts and collect at least two review reports per manuscript. We ask our authors for adequate revisions (with a second round of peer-review if necessary) before a final decision is made. The final decision is made by the academic editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Board Member of a journal or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue). Accepted articles are copy-edited and English-edited.
Editorial Decision and Revision
All the articles, reviews and communications published in MDPI journals go through the peer-review process and receive at least two review reports. The in-house editor will discuss each step of the process with the external academic editor and communicate decisions to the authors regarding the following:
Accept in Present Form: The paper is accepted without any further changes.
Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within ten days and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
Reject and Encourage Resubmission: An article where additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.
Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper is rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.