Question
Asked 23 October 2017

I'm gonna ask whether publishing in MDPI journals is good or more specifically how is publishing in 'International Journal of Molecular Sciences' ?

Because someone told me that its reputation is not good.

Most recent answer

My experiences have been very positive. The reviewers in MDPI have actually discussed about the topic instead of "Check English, too long and boring" comments that are really common.
4 Recommendations

Popular answers (1)

Michiel van Meeteren
Utrecht University
After several negative experiences, I no longer accept to do reviews for them. My experiences echo all what I read above, and more worrisome, my experiences used exactly the same email text despite being in a completely different field and a completely different "managing editor". When I try to encourage revision in reviews, you get a "revised manuscript" two days later which you are then pushed to accept. There is a reason why you want to take several weeks or months before you submit revisions, there are books to be read and robustness tests to be done. All gives the impression that MDPI sees the author as their "paying client" and the peer review as a nuisiance standing between them and their APC fee. In any case, in my discipline there are sufficient journals in the "mid range" that will eagerly consider good early career and precarious backgrounds papers that have a normal peer review process and where you don't have to pay to play. I gave MDPI 4 times the benefit of the doubt as reviewer (in three different journals) and was 4 times disappointed, including potential plagiarism that the editors refused to consider. That means I would not think of them to handle my own manuscripts as well, as they deserve a more rigorous review.
259 Recommendations

All Answers (970)

Mary Pat Harnegie
Cleveland Clinic
I am a medical librarian. I checked 2 predatory journal lists and this journal is not listed as a predatory journal. This journal has been indexed in PubMed since 2008. It started publication in 2000. It is only found in electronic format. This appears to be a reputable journal.
1 Recommendation
Although Beall listed MDPI as a predatory publisher, they are several arguments against listing publishers rather than individual journals. For example, I have worked with Symmetry, a journal published by MDPI, and I was impressed by their quality of peer-review. It was transparent and seemless. Regarding this particular journal, I will take Mary Pat Harnegie's advise considering she is a professional in this particular area.
4 Recommendations
Johann P Klare
Universität Osnabrück
We (my collaborators and me) published an article in this journal earlier this year and we were quite satisfied with the peer reviewing and publishing process. Everything went quick, smoothly and appeared to be professional. So, also from my own experience I would agree with Mary Pat Harnegie that this is a reputable journal.
1 Recommendation
Matthew A Pasek
University of South Florida
Like others, I've published with MDPI a few times. I was invited to write articles by people I knew, and they waived their open access fee as well. I'd recommend taking the same tack if you are offered a choice (submit if you recognize the editor, and if it's free or close enough to free).
I don't put my best papers there, but do send more standard research there. It seems as though they're trying to build their brand, and I have found them to be thorough with their reviews, and quick to publish, too.
Tariq Kamal
Technische Universität München
MPDI is a good publisher and the review process is fast and honest. However, I do not understand why MDPI increases the price of publication continuously. The unfortunate fact is that, they are selling impact factor. In the last couple of mouths, there is a huge rise in the price of impact factor journals of MDPI. For example, the price of Electronics was 550 CHF. As it has been received impact factor from July 1, 2018, they have increased its price to 850 CHF. Now, they are again thinking to increase its price to 1400 CHF from December. Same is applicable to all journals of MDPI.
This practice is totally wrong. They are doing business and sell impact factor on the poor researchers and publish hundred of papers/day. If they are selling impact factor then why they not reduce the price of those journals which impact factor has been deceased, i.e., Applied sciences.
2 Recommendations
Mohamed O. Radwan
Kumamoto University
MDPI journals are quite reliable
Radu-Emil Precup
Polytechnic University of Timisoara
Many of MDPI journals are indexed in Web of Science, and some of them have good high impact factors. This indicates that their quality.
1 Recommendation
Bünyamin Akgül
Izmir Institute of Technology
I published two and reviewed one article. My experience was that MDPI was quite rigorous, thorough and transparent. I think it is a reliable and legitimate Publisher.
1 Recommendation
Tian Zhou
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
I published a paper on one of the MDPI journals. No difference comparing to other "regular" journals in terms of the peer-review processes. I received some critical but helpful comments from two reviewers. After two rounds of revision my paper got published. However, one thing I want to mention is that after publishing the paper I start to receive a lot of emails inviting me to some suspicious conferences and publish my work on their conference proceedings with a discount price. I'm not sure if these emails were related to my publishing experience with MDPI but what I can see is that all the co-authors of my paper were cc'ed in those invitation emails.
1 Recommendation
Husham I. Hussein
University of Diyala
MDPI journals are quite reliable
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
Good experience thus far as a referee with MDPI International Journal of Molecular Sciences - several reviewed manuscripts published only after incorporation of referee's suggestions and one irremediably substandard submission roundly rejected - as a referee, it is important to keep an eye on how a journal uses one's reviews and what it publishes. The key ongoing issues are neatly summarised in the link provided above by Derek Pyne. It is essential that MDPI do not 'kill the golden goose', given the need for good quality open-access outlets following the decision by European funding agencies that that much publically-funded research will need open-access publication after 2020. I agree however with the MDPI publisher that there is a need for good quality outlets, in the mould of e.g. PLoS ONE, for research that needs to be documented as sound and useful but not necessarily ground-breaking, including negative findings. Thus there is a balance to be struck and for both authors and referees to keep the practices of journals and publishers under constant review.
11 Recommendations
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
Following from above, just to emphasise again how important it is that referees and would-be authors continue to monitor individual journals and publishers as their policies and practices can change very rapidly. What may have been a credible journal in the past can suddenly start pursuing undesirable policies while, conversely, some journals have definitely improved their practices over the years. Unfortunately, we need them to publish our work just as much as they need us to general income, so that we are locked in a dysfunctional embrace!
Bryar Hassan
Charmo University
I am wondering to ask why this journal (Journal of Applied Sciences) is not listed in the Clarivate Analytics (the list of IF journals)? Do you think the impact factor given by this journal is real?
1 Recommendation
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
Journal of Applied Sciences has an 18 year publication record and is indexed in AGRIS, ASCI-Database, Chemical Abstract Services and Google Scholar. Standard metrics appear not to be available, but JAS has a realtively low impact factor (ca 0.45) in RG Impact Rankings calculated from submissions to ResearchGate, having peaked at around 1.1 in 2012.: https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1812-5662_Journal_of_Applied_Sciences.
Journal of Applied Sciences claims to be an 'international official journal of the 'Asian Network for Scientific Information' (ANSINET) publishing group, publishing original articles, reviews and short communications of a high scientific and ethical standard in applied science. Rightly or wrongly - there is some debate - ANSINET have appeared previously on 'Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers ' ( https://beallslist.weebly.com/ ), but this may have more to do with publication of relatively low impact papers for significant cost.
A quick scan of JoAS TOCs for the current issue reveals some interesting specalist titles, but the danger is that the breadth of the 'applied sciences' remit is so broad that anything of significance published here might get lost, especially because the journal appears in only a limited range of indexes. It is to be hoped that JoAS and ANSINET are improving, but they face the classic double edged sword of needing to attact good quality manuscripts to boost the impact factor, but not at present being a sufficiently attractive proposition for good quality submissions.
2 Recommendations
Bryar Hassan
Charmo University
Many thanks for your explanation. I really appreciate it.
1 Recommendation
Alaa Al-Ibadi
University of Basrah
I have published two papers in the MDPI journals and reviewed one for applied science.
Journal of Applied Sciences is indexed in Clarivate Analytics under the link below:
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
It is not enough in this environment just to give us a comment, but please give us a critiques, as well. But have you looked carefully and are any of these potentially fake journals any good or are these journals must getting you to your dirty work for them.
2 Recommendations
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
Hello
Mdpi is a free publishing journal?
Thanks
==========================================================
Hello Mohammed
No, individual journals in the MDPI stable (https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals) have established scales of Open Access and Article Processing Charges.
For example the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, with which I am familiar:
You need to make sure that any journal to which you are considering submitting a manuscript has an established and robust mechanism for Peer Review and a track record of regular article publication. In this regard MDPI is a bit of a mixed bag with some established journals and some where their track record is too early to say. This is why you should be selective about the journal in which you hope to publish as many of the journals out there are only interested in making money from article processing charges. If you are interested in good quality journals that do not levy Article Processing Charges, then you should look at journals published by the established academic societies in your field and consider becoming a member.
Hope that helps
Best Wishes
Steve Morley
1 Recommendation
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
Hello Mohammed
No, individual journals in the MDPI stable (https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals) have established scales of Open Access and Article Processing Charges.
For example the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, with which I am familiar:
You need to make sure that any journal to which you are considering submitting a manuscript has an established and robust mechanism for Peer Review and a track record of regular article publication. In this regard MDPI is a bit of a mixed bag with some established journals and some where their track record is too early to say. This is why you should be selective about the journal in which you hope to publish as many of the journals out there are only interested in making money from article processing charges. If you are interested in good quality journals that do not levy Article Processing Charges, then you should look at journals published by the established academic societies in your field and consider becoming a member.
Hope that helps
Best Wishes
Steve Morley
Turki Younis Abdalla
University of Basrah
It is good publisher,...
MDPI is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access journals since its establishment in 1996
Riitta Nissinen
University of Turku
Unfortunately, my experiences as a reviewer for International Journal of Molecular Sciences were quite bad. The manuscript submitted was not ready for review, let alone for publication, which I made clear in my comments. Regardless, the very minimally revised MS came back to my desk only a couple of days after I sent in my comments, and there was only three days (!) for me to review the revised MS. As none of the changes suggested were made, I recommended rejection. Regardless, the paper was accepted by the editor. This surprised me, as according to WoS, the IF of the journal is quite decent.
5 Recommendations
Steven D Morley
The University of Edinburgh
The experience of Dr Nissinen reported above, for which she is to be thanked, is obviously of concern, implying as it does a lowering of editorial standards, perhaps in pursuit of the fast buck. It is also an abuse of the time invested by referees in conducting a detailed peer review and an insult to authors who take the time to prepare high quality and well written manuscripts. With one exception, manuscripts I have reviewed for IJMS have been of reasonable quality, capable of being improved by peer review and to which authors have responded appropriately; however, Dr Nissinen's comments are duly noted and any such experience with a journal would lead me to decline to act as referee or submit manuscripts in future, as I have already done in a couple of cases.
This reinforces the point made above, especially for the benefit of younger colleagues starting out in science or academia, that it is contingent on both authors and reviewers to keep the behaviour of journals and publishers to which they submit their work under constant review. I recommend to you again the link provided above by Derek Pyne in which the key ongoing issues regarding MDPI are neatly summarised:
If you agree, please scroll up under 'All answers' and recommend Derek's contribution.
Finally, all contributions to this debate are very welcome, but please try to offer a reasoned critique that might be helpful to others, rather than bland and potentially misleading comments such as 'This is a good journal …', otherwise you risk being identified as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
4 Recommendations
Samuli Junttila
University of Eastern Finland
I have had very bad experiences as a reviewer. I have accepted to review (dl in 10 days) and after 9 days I have received an email saying my review is no longer needed, although I started the work already. I felt exloited. I have published two papers and that was okay and quite fast reviews. Probably beacause of the forementioned.
5 Recommendations
Same here.
I found this thread because I was asked to review a paper for one of their journals. The subject is in line with my research interest so, reviewer selection seems accurate. However, I am only given a week to review the manuscript which seems very short.
Based on this and the publisher's controversial reputation, I think that I will decline.
2 Recommendations
I actually just had the same experience as @Kay Smarsly described, with a email saying that, they don't need my review after all.
Which is fine as I had no interest in reviewing for them, but would be infuriating for anybody that would actually have started reviewing the document.
It also suggests that they are spamming their requests for reviewers which seems kinda sketchy...
3 Recommendations
Alaa Al-Ibadi
University of Basrah
Recently I got a paper in one of the MDPI journals. I have received the first revision decision after 42 days. I think this normal.... So , it depends on the journal and the editors.
3 Recommendations
David E Volk
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
If your review is no longer needed, it typically means the other two reviewers think the paper is junk, and therefore a third evaluation is not required. I have reviewed many good manuscripts in MDPI journals, and some clunkers as well that did not get published.
3 Recommendations
Konstantin Andreev
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
IJMS is okay to go with. I have reviewed for them once or twice and we had to pass several rounds of revisions until the manuscript was in a good shape. As a reviewer, I can definitely say they consider and care about the reviewer's feedback. The only thing, which I don't like by all MDPI journals is that they are redundantly pushy in terms of the review deadlines, with regular reminders within a single week.
What I certainly do not recommend to do is submitting to any journals published by E-Cronicon, which I had quite a bad experience with. Briefly, I have been repeatedly asked to submit an article to EC Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine. Later on, the editor also invited me to review someone's else manuscript. I agreed to provided my honest feedback on it. After a brief look it appeared to be not suitable for publication in any of the peer-reviewed scientific journals. Major discrepancies, poorly organized research design and incredibly low quality of the data prompted me to recommend rejecting the manuscript from publication, without considering future revisions. Recently, I have accidentally looked on the journal web page and, all of a sudden, saw this manuscript published in the current issue, in exactly the same form as it has been submitted. My feedback apparently was not taken into consideration. Their open-access model, with publishing everything that has been paid for, and the imitation of peer-reviewing process, has nothing to do with the actual science. 
Dinesh Panday , the dates have now been corrected as follows for the article you mentioned:
Received: 22 October 2018 / Revised: 22 November 2018 / Accepted: 24 November 2018 / Published: 27 November 2018
Happy Mathew Tirivangasi
University of Jyväskylä
I agree with you Luxon Nhamo some of the amounts charged are too exorbitant Indeed. In regard to MDPI , although their peer review is too quick, they also have high rejection rate. I think Sustainability journal actually does a great job.
1 Recommendation
Abheepsa Mishra
Novo Nordisk
I have reviewed various journals for MDPI. In particular I would like to highlight few journals which are good to publish with. (Perticularly for Biological Sciences/Biotechnology/Bioinformatics)
1. Nutrients
2. Journal of Clinical Medicine
3. Genes
4. International Journal of Molecular Sciences
5. Biomolecules
6. Molecules, and
7. Pharmaceuticals
The contents are good and it goes through multiple round of revisions before the journal is accepted.
4 Recommendations
Timothy Omara
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
For MDPI, some of its journals are good while others seem to be like the Editor makes the final decision on a paper. It is hard to understand its peer review process.
4 Recommendations
Timothy, the editor does the final decision in every journals not only in the MDPI journals.
4 Recommendations
Mitchel Otieno Okumu
University of Nairobi
I do not believe that MDPI is a predatory publisher. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I have published two papers in one of their journals and I must say that their peer review process is fast, efficient and robust. I think the skepticism that the publisher faces is based on the fact that unlike other publishers who sit on scientific reports for months in the name of peer review, MDPI has managed to debunk the pre-conditioning that peer review has to be this arduous, long drawn out process. Presently, I have one manuscript under consideration in a BMC journal. I was surprised when I recently inquired on the status of our submission (after 3 months of waiting) only to be told that they have not yet gotten reviewers for our submission. Never mind that the manuscript submission status indicates that the manuscript is under review.
1 Recommendation
F. Morgado-Dias
Universidade da Madeira
I am surprised at the description of Kay Smarsly since I have reviewed (more than 10 times, at least 4 different journals) and published (twice) with MDPI and they always gave me a week to review and no extra e-mails apart from starting and the day before the deadline. Well, in fact it is one week if you want the voucher to discount on your own publication. Nevertheless from this information I must take it that different journals are managed differently. My experience was with Sustainability, Energies, Entropy, Electronics, etc...
In my view there are good and not so good papers at MDPI. Same as IEEE and all other editors. Nevertheless it seems to me that the impact factors may be a bit high considering the average paper. And then I ask myself, how do they do it? and how did they rise so fast? So l would appreciate sharing some ideas on this last point.
Best,
4 Recommendations
Melvin R Hayden
University of Missouri
I have had good experiences with MDPI Neuroglia. The reviewers have always been helpful in their recommendations and I found editors to be very understanding and helpful along the way. Recently they moved the independent Neuroglia Journal by MDPI to become a Section within Brain Sciences Journal.
Importantly, they left all papers from the stand along MDPI Journal Neuroglia available online to view and download. The academic editors and the entire staff has been helpful. Therefore I recommend this Journal to publish plus it is now placed on PubMed from Brain Sciences. My papers have all experienced high visibility due to its open access policies and of course it is free for our readers and that increases the number of readers.
This is a Great question to entertain. Thank you for posting this question and opening up this discussion. Rejection is always a hard thing to swallow and none of us like to be pushed when we are reviewing their papers for free.
Things in life constantly change and will continue to do so in the coming years with new open access online Journals but I anticipate that this Journal is in the publishing business for the long haul. Personally, I find their published papers very informative and they help to guide me along my path in research.
As physicians, researchers and teachers our core goals should be
to Share,
to Teach by sharing and
to learn from others
and now creative commons by 4.0 has promoted all these ideals such that
now one can learn due to open access due to research gate and open access Journals without having to pay as on this site of Research Gate.
Dr. Asif Ali, thanks for sharing your question on research gate and I have enjoyed reading the posts.
M.R. (Pete) Hayden, MD
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
2 Recommendations
David E Volk
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Impact factors for some of the journals may be higher than one would expect (based on new research articles) because of the many good review articles that arise in them.
2 Recommendations
Dezső Módos
Imperial College London
I reviewed for some of the MDPI journals (Molecules, Cancer). The authors addressed my comments and the editor rejected a ridiculous paper even when the other reviewer was really pushed the paper. It is a fine place to publish according to my opinion (at least the above mentioned journals) even if maybe not the best.
2 Recommendations
Robert Hassink
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
A colleague of mine, Christian Binz, referred me to this critical contribution by Arjen Wals on the commercial interests of MDPI and particularly Sustainability:
5 Recommendations
Mitchel Otieno Okumu
University of Nairobi
This was MDPI's rebuttal to Prof. Arjen Wals commentary as shared by @Robert Hassink
1 Recommendation
Kamoru A. Adedokun
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
Currently, I am having good experience with MDPI, some of their journals are highly indexed and in fact have high impact factors. I have been closely following their journals years back, the beauty of their improvement is second to none, some papers which were Q4 are occupying Q1 today with very wonderful cite factors under Scimago ranking within 1-2 years, meaning that they overtook a number of journals to move up very fast, an indicator of a fast-growing journal. MDPI have many journals with Q1 rank today. As a favour for authors, they were open for free publication without APC last year (2018) and many with high impact factors are still free until June this year. One paper I am having with them was thoroughly reviewed and is undergoing 2nd phase for revision. The comments of the reviewers were constructive in criticism which did a lot putting the manuscript in excellent stand and that really showed the worth of the journal.
My opinion on MDPI is, if you sail through one of those highly cited journals under them it is a plus and thumb-up I would say.
6 Recommendations
Erik Cuevas
University of Guadalajara
Mdpi has high costs, but the reputation isOk
1 Recommendation
Costin Badica
University of Craiova
Hello,
Recently I had an experience being asked to review a paper for one of their journals.
Firstly, the invitation came from a "Managing Editor". Strange, what is that?
Secondly, I wanted to accept, as the paper was in my area of interest. But, I could not state a longer review period in their provided form. Practically, they obliged me to do the review in 7-10 days ! So I kindly asked for the permission to do the review in 1 month - still below a normal review period of 3 months as required by other journals that I know. But, the answer was "[...] is an open access journal and fast editorial process is our feature advance. We aim to keep rapid and high quality publication."
Seeing this, I could not stop myself asking them to explain how "fast editorial process" can assure "high quality publication"? Of course, I got a response to this, including " We also check the quality of review reports. " !? The discussion could continue, but I stopped, seeing no point in continuing it ....
Also, there is one thing that I do not understand: why do APC of their journals depend on existence and value of IF?
2 Recommendations
Mark Parcells
University of Delaware
I have reviewed 6 or 7 manuscripts for several of their journals (Genes, Viruses, etc.), and have had no issues. I do like the practice that you receive credit for your reviews in the sense that they give you a fair amount off of their publication charges for each review. I feel that this is at least one company that respects the time you take to do these carefully in a measurable way (as opposed to being thanked annually in an issue). I have never felt hounded by them for reviews. Not the highest tier, but some of their journals are well respected.
2 Recommendations
Zhichao Zhou
Karolinska Institutet
Had several times reviewing papers from their journals. My curiosity is does anyone (as reviewers or authors) experience a rejection decision from the editor? It seems to me they will take it in the end.
2 Recommendations
Konstantin Andreev
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Yes, as from my experience a few manuscripts submitted to Marine Drugs and Molecules were rejected or withdrawn after negative feedback from >1 reviewer .
Otherwise they typically try to push it to the end even passing through several rounds of revisions.
3 Recommendations
Pedro Cabral
Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology
They are a little bit stressed on their deadlines both for reviewers and authors which is not so good. However, so far my experience in both roles has been positive. I got rejected and accepted papers with some of my students. MDPI fills an important space in the academic publishing world. Of course there are more prestigious outlets, but they are not for everybody and not everybody wants to wait 2 years to get a paper accepted (especially when you have 3-years to finish your PhD). Some papers in MDPI journals are excellent and highly cited. Others not so much. In my area there are nice MDPI journals which I recommend: ISPRS journal of geo-information and/or Remote Sensing..
5 Recommendations
Mitchel Otieno Okumu
University of Nairobi
I think that MDPI is making a lot of important strides towards being one of the top drawer publishers. I have recently published a paper in their latest journal 'Sci' a post publication peer review journal that bears a lot of similarity to F1000 research. The manuscript was first evaluated by academic editors at the journal who then provided us with comments to address before further consideration for publication. The fact that the peer review reports will be open and will give us the chance to improve our paper after each report is submitted is, in my opinion a step in the right direction towards increasing confidence in the peer review process at the journal.
3 Recommendations
Reginald Masocha
University of Limpopo
Had 3 colleagues' manuscripts rejected and they were wondering how do I publish with them. In my last 2 publications had to submit a couple of times before its accepted. MDPI has opted to debunk the unnecessary delays prominent with journal publications. Their systems and review process is very agile and the speed pretty superb they get on your paper the moment you submit. Not other journals that first shelve your paper and have some sort of delaying tactics and traditions. I don't know how it began and what's the rationale of those delays especially in this information age? What value is there in holding information for 2 years and most of these journals, the delays are deliberate and don't make sense to me. I think this is what we should be talking about. You submit your paper to a journal house, it takes months and months for it to be assigned to an editor. I have reviewed for other journals and have discovered the feedback and inputs from reviewers is somewhat the same.
2 Recommendations
Marco Ciolli
Università degli Studi di Trento
My experience is also generally positive with MDPI journals. I sent papers that were accepted and rejected and, apart for one specific bad experience with a single journal and a very unprofessional review process that was really badly managed (but this unfortunately may happen also in some "high reputation super journal"), I can say I do not have to comply. The review requests sometimes are stressing and when I have not enough time I simply do not accept reviews instead of doing them hastily and careless. The certainty of a short review period is also very attractive when you have to publish. Personally, I hate waiting for one or two years to know if they will accept a paper.
2 Recommendations
Jeremie Sublime
Institut Supérieur d’Electronique de Paris
I have had a few experience with MDPI so far. I authored in one of their Journal and reviewed for 3 different ones.
They tend to send a lot of solliciations for reviews, but it is how they can publish relatively fast.
Among the papers I reviewed, I would say 2/3 passed (sometimes after many review rounds) and 1/3 was rejected.
As for the quality, they have some good quality journals, and others of lesser quality. Sure, it is not one of these very high quality journal, but sometimes I prefer to be published in 30 days in a good enough journal, rather than waiting 2 years for a reject in a very good journal.
4 Recommendations
Michiel van Meeteren
Utrecht University
After several negative experiences, I no longer accept to do reviews for them. My experiences echo all what I read above, and more worrisome, my experiences used exactly the same email text despite being in a completely different field and a completely different "managing editor". When I try to encourage revision in reviews, you get a "revised manuscript" two days later which you are then pushed to accept. There is a reason why you want to take several weeks or months before you submit revisions, there are books to be read and robustness tests to be done. All gives the impression that MDPI sees the author as their "paying client" and the peer review as a nuisiance standing between them and their APC fee. In any case, in my discipline there are sufficient journals in the "mid range" that will eagerly consider good early career and precarious backgrounds papers that have a normal peer review process and where you don't have to pay to play. I gave MDPI 4 times the benefit of the doubt as reviewer (in three different journals) and was 4 times disappointed, including potential plagiarism that the editors refused to consider. That means I would not think of them to handle my own manuscripts as well, as they deserve a more rigorous review.
259 Recommendations
Monirul Islam Pavel
University of South Australia
Surely, some of the journals (like sensors, and so on) of MDPI are good enough for getting Scopus, PubMed indexing.
Comparatively , MDPI's journals deliver quality reviews within a short period of time.
Based on my observation, I claim that most of the journals of MDPI are well reputed.
4 Recommendations
Abheepsa Mishra
Novo Nordisk
MDPI is a very good publisher. I have had really good experiences with this publishing house. I am an active reviewer for MDPI and reviewed multiple journals. Also I have published a couple of papers in their Biomolecules journal. Also, International Journal of Molecular Sciences(IJMS) is a very good and reputed journal in my opinion.
6 Recommendations
Madujith Sagara Chandra
University of Moratuwa
Most of MDPI journals are indexed. But they are increasing publication charges regularly
1 Recommendation
Kennedy J. Offor
The University of Sheffield
I just published an article with MDPI (sensors) and my experience with the review process is commendable, fast, professional. It was recommended by my supervisor. The only thing I hold against them is the high cost of publication.
4 Recommendations
Kuldeep Dhama
Indian Veterinary Research Institute
MDPI journals are very fast, they provide well peer-reviewed reports perfectly, within 03-04 weeks and editors are cooperative. Impact Factor can be seeing as rising and many journals have now IF. Journals should be fast to disseminate knowledge and research timely.
3 Recommendations
Karekin Esmeryan
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
In general, i prefer to stay silent in discussing such sensitive themes, however, i believe i can say something from my own experience. First, i would like to say that i totally support previous comments in this correspondence regarding the deliberate "holding" of papers and their subsequent rejection with almost no reason. In my opinion, some journals deliberately keep and delay the papers in order to "induce" moral outdating of our results. In turn, someone else publishes similar research before you and all your efforts can be thrown in the dustbin. I see some scary practices of having the so-called scientific lobby-ism, where some papers, although with insufficient quality, are going very smoothly through the peer review system of well-established and reputable journals, while some others do not (when saying low or high quality papers, the used criteria are the quality of writing, importance of the findings - incremental advance or findings of fundamental importance, number of pdf downloads and citations within one year of the publication). I think this happens as most of the journals have limited space (number of printed pages) and they prefer to publish papers from recognized scientists rather than junior faculty, regardless of the article's quality. However, i am happy by the fact that the impact factor of some of these journals is going down with every year (the people are not stupid, they have brain and can think). And believe me, these are not just bold words, i have plenty of evidences for such practices, but don't think it will be beneficial for me to talk too much. Perhaps, one day i will write an article, where i will share my own experience with the peer review process. Just as a final comment (then will talk about MDPI), the way the science goes nowadays, in my perspective, is wrong - the money cannot be the mediator. The sole criterion must be the importance of the findings and nothing else!!
Now, regarding MDPI - lets start from the old name of this abbreviation - "Molecular Diversity Preservation International". So touchable for me, i interpret this as "we support the preservation of molecular diversity" and one can understand that such molecular diversity determines the availability of natural diversity everywhere (at least i understand it in that way) - in politics, art, food, sport, music, etc.. This is extremely important to me, because i refuse to support the idea of having "equality" (the quotation marks are deliberate) everywhere - this changes the main working scheme of the nature and turn the people, for example, into robots - same vision, same thinking, same food, same cars, same values... come on... you born, live like a robot and die... No, thank you :)
In terms of the publishing process with MDPI, i am a referee of some of their journals and i must say i am impressed with the transparency, quality and speed of the process. Unlike other journals, MDPI "judges" the manuscripts ONLY upon their quality and nothing else. If one sends crappy papers, he/she risks to receive rejection regardless of the fact that an APC can be taken from him/her. I disagree that MDPI "sells the impact factor"... If we will talk in such a direction, what can we say about some other publishers - it is more than apparent they are selling their impact factor and only "the chosen" can publish there, no matter how good your research is (you may find a way to transmit living matter through time and space and these journals again will say, oh, sorry, it is out-of-the-scope or with insufficient quality). And the worst thing indeed is the delaying of the papers... 2, 3, 4, 5 months just to receive a review with 10 sentences stating your figures are not well formatted :) (when there is no argument about the findings, lets start seeking other ways of rejecting the manuscript. So familiar...). Finally, the increasing positive reputation of MDPI is an undisputed fact and their journals will continue to increase the impact factor, as most good and perspective researchers nowadays are seeking for solutions in overcoming the problem with scientific lobby-ism (some journals loose authors continuously).
Finally, i agree that the APC can be slightly reduced and full waiver can be granted to financially "poor" researchers if the presented research is promising (eventually, the science is the most important factor, isn't it?).
As a short recommendation to the colleagues who believe they need 2-3 weeks to "think whether they can provide high-quality reviews" - dear colleagues, if it takes so long to estimate your own expertise, i think it will be better if you retire from refereeing :).
With my best wishes to all nice, perspective, good and honest people on our small planet,
Karekin
14 Recommendations
David E Volk
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Indeed well said Karekin Esmeryan . It should take no more than 1 working day to decide if you have the time, and expertise, to provide a review. Referees need to be more considerate and reject a review offer in a day or two. I too have had a manuscript first described basically as 'hey, this is far too thorough and exhaustive of a write up for us to find people to review all of this science', to submitting a slimmed down version of the same manuscript, only to receive a review that we should have included A, B, and C, which we took out based on review #1. Then we remembered that the Editor of the journal worked in this field and we were stepping on his/her toes. Insta-publish in another fine journal. Politics does play a part some times.
3 Recommendations
Izhar Hyder Qazi
South China Agricultural University
As a reviewer and author, I have no issue with MDPI journals. These journals are good as others.
Please read following response letter from MDPI.
Majority of authors and readers approach research in a constructive and engaged way and we wish to advocate this approach for the benefit of the research community as a whole.
3 Recommendations
Cosmas Wacal
Mountains of the Moon University (MMU)
I think there is no problem as long as the article processing charge is affordable upon manuscript acceptance after review being an open access publisher. There are number of journals in MDPI indexed in web of science and some have impact factors increasing from time to time. It generally depends on the journal you select. The review time does not go for more than 1 month which is good if one is eager to get their paper published as soon as possible. Best regards.
Yukitaka Ishimoto
Saga University
I felt it predatory or, at the very least, spamming. I may accept review request from someone I know and who knows me. They simply asked, not based on such trust.
2 Recommendations
Subha Das
Ministry for Primary Industries
I review for some the journals being published by MDPI including the one you have mentioned here. Personally, I like the time they give to reviewers to review the article (7-10 days max.). The publishing time is also fast, indeed good for the authors. The papers I have reviewed for International Journal of Molecular Sciences are all of high standards. If your work related to microbiology, you may also consider Microorganisms. The quality of paper Microorganisms publishes is also good. I act as a reviewer for this journal as well.
Regarding review time, I think it should not take more than a week to provide a good review by a reviewer.
5 Recommendations
Timothy Omara
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
I am an author and reviewed some papers (though not for MDPI). I always give time to manuscripts submitted for review to me because I know what it means to review someones work and the timeliness required. 10 days max is sufficient, my only problem with MDPI is their excessively high APCs, prohibiting potential authors from publishing with them. Another thing, I learnt that MDPI rejects papers depending on the authors.
7 Recommendations
María Pérez-Fernández
Universidad Pablo de Olavide
I'm reviewer and author in some MDPI journals and have had no issues with them at all. The fact that 51 journals in the group have reached reasonable impact factors might be taken as an index of quality. They are fast ad they make published papers available on line very quickly what might threat other journals as they go down while MDPI goes up. One should be able to make their own conclusions.
2 Recommendations
Georgiy Shevchenko
Kyiv School of Economics
Two days ago I have withdrawn my article from MDPI: Mathematics. The decision was hard and led to deterioration of relations with my coauthors.
Here is the story. I have submitted an article to special issue there. The problems with the journal started from the editor's letter, which came 9 days after the submission, even before the submission deadline. It read:
We are contacting you again regarding your paper ... So far, we have invited over 15 reviewers but only got one response. Therefore, we would like to kindly ask you to recommend some additional reviewers in this field. If possible, 8-10 reviewers.
Reviewers must hold a PhD degree and have published more than five papers for the past five years in the relevant field.
More importantly, in order to have them review the paper fairly, please do not recommend scientists who come from the same country with the authors, or those who have cooperated with them before. Otherwise we can not invite them because of our rules.
etc. The last two paragraphs are just bizzare, but the first one is quite shocking. They have sent 15 invitations at once with an intention to cancel some of them later, which I find quite impolite; I am myself an associate editor and do such things only under extreme circumstances. They were lucky to get one response in a week, in July, where most people have vacation. And they have contacted authors (all authors, not just the corresponding author) asking for help finding them more potential reviewers. I have answered to an editor expressing my concerns about their methods, asking him to maintain the correspondence only with the corresponding author, i.e. myself, and to send me an example reviewer invitation to find the reason why people might turn it down.
Meanwhile, I made a small research about the journal. All the information I obtained from its web page.
Here is what I found:
  • Since its start in 2013, the journal had published 1200 articles. Among them, 367 were published last year, and 551, almost a half of all, were published only in the first half of this year.
  • Over 100 special issues already planned for this year.
  • The average time from submission to the first decision is less than 20 days. This is about 10 times less than usual. Also I have learned from editor's letter that the standard time given for review is 10 days, which is 6 times less than the standard time of 2 months (and this is even more unusual to see such request in July).
  • The majority of citations to the most cited articles from Mathematics come from MDPI journals: Mathematics, Symmetry, Physics, Informatics. There are also a lot of references from other questionable sources: IOS, Cogent etc.
This, together with editor's letter, led me to a conclusion that I am dealing with one of the most vivid examples of predatory publishers, and I withdrew the article.
8 Recommendations
@Georgiy, how can you justify MDPI is predatory????? I am not convinced
2 Recommendations
Georgiy Shevchenko
Kyiv School of Economics
Devraj Chalise, I believe in my answer I gave enough reasons.
Karekin Esmeryan
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Dear Georgiy Shevchenko,
I am not an attorney of MDPI :), however, what you have written (with all my respect) is absolutely incorrect. First, the avoidance of reviewers who have collaborated with and/or are from the same country of the corresponding author is a general requirement used by all reputable publishers, because there must be no conflict of interest whatsoever. In other words, likely your friend, colleague or compatriot would be much less critical compared to an independent reviewer, which creates dishonest practices. Such practices, as we all know, are forbidden!
Later, in my opinion, it is much better practice to send a particular manuscript to a large number of reviewers rather than just 1 or 2. Thus, the editor makes sure, he/she will receive the required number of reviews in a timely manner, which is in complete benefit to the authors. Of course he/she can disregard some review reports, this is his/her exclusive right and in fact, it is much better to choose between 3-6-10 reports rather than 1 or 2. Do you like waiting couple of months for receiving review reports? And what if these reports contain 2-3 non-constructive (useless) sentences? Your time is totally wasted...
In addition, i see you raise doubts about the quality of peer review in MDPI, because of the shorter deadline (only 10 days). Well.... i will say the following: If the reviewer is competent enough and have time, 10 days are more than enough. For example, i have written 5 computer pages review report, which i have submitted to the editorial office on the 6th day following the invitation (not for MDPI, for another reputable publisher) - does this make my review low-quality? I don't think so and if i should be honest, the authors have taken into account most of my comments, which means they are satisfied with the quality and constructive criticism. It is my personal belief that leaving 2-3 months for a review report is a very unfortunate practice, which creates a lot of stress in all of us and is always accompanied by negative feelings and emotions. I strongly hope this will change in the future.
Finally, you are worried about the fact that most of the citations of the articles published in MDPI are gained by MDPI journals. So what? This is the so-called "maintenance of ongoing threads of scientific discussion". For example, you want to publish somewhere - apart from matching the scope of the journal, your research must clearly demonstrate that it will be eventually interesting to the community of the journal. You must represent clear interconnection between your findings and those previously reported in that particular journal. Otherwise, how can you pretend it is of significance and merit to the audience? The references must competently reflect the current state-of-the-art and must include the most relevant literature sources, no doubt about that, but showing that some of these relevant sources have previously been published in the journal you are submitting to is of great importance too. And btw, i follow these guidelines when writing a paper or providing a review report and i strongly believe that the ongoing threads of scientific discussion have nothing to do with questionable practices.
Have a wonderful day.
Yours sincerely,
Karekin
7 Recommendations
Subha Das
Ministry for Primary Industries
I know how it feels when a journal takes more than three months to make decision and then they reject the paper. When the authors prepare for a new submission they find somebody else has just published same or a similar work just few days back. I still believe that 10 days is more than enough for an experienced researcher to review a paper.
If you are a reviewer:
1. Don't accept reviewing a paper if you don't thing you can finish the process within a week.
2. Don't accept reviewing a paper if you are not familiar with the subject.
3. Don't review papers to get free vouchers and to make your profile look great on Publons.
8 Recommendations
Mustafa A Adhab
University of Baghdad
Sad stories. Fortunately, I have not lived one yet.
1 Recommendation
Georgiy Shevchenko
Kyiv School of Economics
> what you have written (with all my respect) is absolutely incorrect
It cannot be absolutely incorrect. The statistics I gave comes from the publisher's web page and so is correct. And it is quite tell-tale: after the inclusion of the journal to Scopus and WoS, the number of articles had increased exponentially and continues to grow very fast.
> First, the avoidance of reviewers ...
Yes, I agree to most of this (except the compatriot thing, which is laughable). However, it seems to me that with MDPI this requirement is rather declarative.
> In addition, i see you raise doubts about the quality of peer review in MDPI
And I find the doubts well-grounded. I looked some openly available review histories. I have not picked them, these are the first ones I have found.
  1. The paper itself looks like a collection of textbook exercises. I could imagine it as a good bachelor thesis, but not a serious scientific article. Speaking of reports, two of them are very short, the remaining one does not go deep into details either.
  2. Again, some very short reviews. But what is interesting is that the 2nd and the 3rd reports contain exactly the same remark: " Page 2, lines 41: has+ve ? " (note the "lines" instead of "line" in both reviews). So they are very likely to be written by the same person or some very closely related persons.
  3. Review round 2 contains only one review, and the reviewer is not completely satisfied with the revision. However, there were no round 3, so apparently the editor was not interesting in reviewers' opinion of the final version.
All these review records are of quite low quality; the second review record is just unacceptable.
Yes, I agree that 10 days is always enough to write a good report. I usually use less than that amount. Unfortunately, these 10 days are never available in row, and rarely immediately after accepting the review task. For example, I write a lot of reviews travelling in a train or on an airplane, because it is hard to find a suitable time slot elsewhere. I travel once in 2-3 mothns, so my average review time is about 1.5 months.
> Finally, you are worried about the fact that most of the citations of the articles published in MDPI are gained by MDPI journals. So what?
I see this, together with exponentially increasing number of articles, as an easy tool to blow up the impact factor to the skies. IF is already over 1, which is pretty decent for a mathematical journal. But the quality of papers is certainly not. With such quality, the IF should be around 0.3-0.4, judging by my experience.
I wish you a beautiful day too, thanks.
5 Recommendations
Michael Hitch
University of the Fraser Valley
I too have published in Minerals and Sustainability with no negative experiences. Both journals have a SJR rank of Q2 which is reasonable. I also sit on the editorial board of Minerals.
3 Recommendations
Suleman Lazarus
The London School of Economics and Political Science
  1. Have you ever reviewed for any MDPI journals? No, I have not.
  2. Have you published in any MDPI journals? Yes, I have recently published one conceptual paper and one empirical article in: [1] "Religions"; and [2] "Laws" respectively.
  3. MDPI journals usually involve article processing charges (APC) for open access, so how much did each publication cost you? Nothing, I paid nothing - each of them was gratis. "Knowledge Unlatched (KU)" waivers or discounts are usually available for a limited number of papers accepted for publication in "some MDPI journals," for example, and fortunately, in both occasions/publications, I had received 100% discount through "Knowledge Unlatched (KU) scheme."  I think it is best to contact the editorial office of the journal before submission to check whether KU waivers or discounts are still available. Not that it matters, but to create more transparency, please see the attached document concerning KU discounts.
  4. How would you describe your overall experience with these two MDPI journals? I am glad my articles are free for readers all over the world, having received 100% APC discounts. What is the point of writing articles that only the "privileged ones" can access? Apart from the above issue, some MDPI journals can also parallel or exceed some 'high quality' journals' standard with regards to feedback-quality. For example, "Religions" & "Laws" are excellent regarding the speed of the process and the overall quality of reviewers' in-depth feedback. It is noteworthy that research topic may become outdated due to delays in the publications process. In the past few years, I have submitted to "top journals" and "low journals," and helpful feedbacks or spiteful comments in themselves do come out of both sides of the "camp." Equally, a referee for a "low journal" can also serve as a referee for a "high journal." I, for one, have reviewed for a journal with over 3 impact fact (i.e., social science discipline) and also reviewed for a journal that may be considered as a"low ranking one". Do the maths - "low" and "high" in themselves could be seen as dubious yardsticks of measuring a journal's standard, guys.
3 Recommendations
Suleman Lazarus
The London School of Economics and Political Science
Edmund K Hainisch , I am not an attorney of MDPI (as Karekin Esmeryan also said), but if what you suggest is correct - i.e., MDPI's tactics , how come some MDPI journals (e.g., social sciences) have over 70% rejection rate as shown in the attached document?
4 Recommendations
James Knighton
Cornell University
I have had several negative experiences as a reviewer for MDPI journals and several uneventful experiences. On my first review for Water, I made the recommendation that a low quality paper should be rejected. Out of three total reviews, we returned two votes for “reject” and one for “major revisions”. The handling editor decided instead on “minor revisions.” After a few days, the “minor revisions” were submitted and the paper was accepted without further review. All of the major problems pointed out in review went unaddressed. I asked my (then) PhD advisor if I had any recourse with MDPI. He encouraged me to keep offering to review for them because journals can improve if reviewers continue to turn in high quality reviews.
Since then I have reviewed six papers in total for MDPI, and my experience with these subsequent MDPI submittals has been mixed. Here are the major issues I’ve encountered: 1) Most of the papers I have received for review should have been returned to the author by the editor for corrections prior to initiating the full peer-review. I have received papers with major problems that are immediately apparent (e.g. typos in the title and abstract, incorrect or missing references, obviously false statements in the abstract and introduction). 2) The editors’ decisions sometimes seem to be made independent of the reviews that are collected, and in these cases they universally favor accepting the articles. Contrary to my initial experience, I have reviewed several MDPI papers where the editor decided to reject the paper following the advice of all reviewers, so maybe this is an issue with specific editors and not MDPI overall. 3) Finally, I am regularly solicited by MDPI to review papers well outside of my area of expertise (which I decline). I have tried to update MDPI about my areas of experience, yet I still receive many requests to review papers that I have no business reviewing.
9 Recommendations
Joe Dey
University of Idaho
I experienced same as Edmund K Hainisch. They ignore the reviewer's comment who reject a paper which is lengthy of their point although technically not sound by reviewer. Yes its true. They do not care about the reviewer's suggestions. Their paper get citation because of open access and networking. However MDPI is nothing more than business. I appreciate if all university evaluation committee banned them what university of Malaya did on their sensor journal.
4 Recommendations
Muhammad Zaman
Northeast Forestry University
MDPi are very good journal and fast review with reasonable comments.many journal are so stupid especially journal of wildlife management and ecological research Japan.both are delay and very slow as well as untrained reviwers
2 Recommendations
Mosomi E Mogen
Beijing Institute of Technology
Its always prudent to respond within 10 days otherwise taking months before responding could get a similar work published elsewhere or the submitted work could be outdated before it is reviewed. Reviewers should not accept work if they cannot do it in such a period
6 Recommendations
My experiences have been very positive. The reviewers in MDPI have actually discussed about the topic instead of "Check English, too long and boring" comments that are really common.
4 Recommendations

Similar questions and discussions

How good is Qeios as an academic journal?
Question
80 answers
  • Chiemela Victor AmaechiChiemela Victor Amaechi
Why we should not publish in MDPI special issues?
Discussion
95 replies
  • Hossein HaghighiHossein Haghighi
I would like to ask you to share your experience for publishing in MDPI special issues:
1- It seems they are getting benefit from Invited Guest Editors to write and present a short proposal about a specific topic. This is purely an honorary position and after this step, the staff of MDPI (who are not from the academy) will proceed with everything. They receive manuscripts from authors and send the manuscript for revision. In many cases, if the article is accepted with a major revision, only 5 days will be given by the assistant editor to revise the manuscript!!!
2- High publishing cost (almost 2000 CHF) is another negative point.
3- It seems 100 CHF gift for reviewers is attractive enough for many people who voluntarily work as a reviewer without having enough experience in that topic. The reviewers only ask for modifying graphs and tables and suggesting their article as a reference!!!
4- I personally prefer to submit to a journal with a professional academic editor who is really familiar with the topic and after acceptance to pay for open access.
5- The impact factor of special issues is high, but i think this is neither related to the quality of the articles nor the journal. This is mainly due to the open acces of journals that articles can receive more citations!
6- The positive point from my side is that they are quite fast and within one month you will receive the result, either accepted or rejected!
They know how to play the game and get advantages from the name and position of guest editors by offering discounts!
My main point is if you have high-quality work submit it to a high-quality journal and if you are interested to make your work more visible, just pay for open access.

Related Publications

Article
Unlike most academic journals, advances.in/psychology aims to publish high-quality research and to financially compensate editors as well as reviewers for their work. As incoming editor-in-chief, I explain how this publishing model works, give an overview of the journal and its mission, and present our future perspective on academic publishing.
Got a technical question?
Get high-quality answers from experts.