MDPI

MDPI
StatusActive
Founded1996
FounderShu-Kun Lin
Country of origin
  • Switzerland
Headquarters locationBasel, Switzerland
DistributionWorldwide
Publication typesOpen access scientific journals
No. of employees6,750 (in 2022)[1]
Official websitemdpi.com

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher of open-access scientific journals. It publishes over 390 peer-reviewed, open access journals.[2][3] MDPI is among the largest publishers in the world in terms of journal article output,[4][5] and is the largest publisher of open access articles.[6]

It was founded by Shu-Kun Lin as a chemical sample archive.[7] Between 2016 and 2020, the number of peer-reviewed papers published by MDPI grew significantly, with year-over-year growth of over 50% in 2017, 2018 and 2019,[6] attracting attention to their very fast article processing times.[4][8][9] In a review of 26 open-access "mega-journals" that published over 3,500 papers in 2022, 11 (42%) of the journals were from MDPI.[10] Besides launching its own journals, MDPI has acquired journals from other publishers, such as Tomography from Grapho Publications in 2021,[11] and Nursing Reports[12] and Audiology Research[13] from PagePress Publications in 2020.

As of January 2024, MDPI publishes 433 academic journals, including 92 journals indexed within the Science Citation Index Expanded, 7 journals indexed within the Social Sciences Citation Index,[14] 138 journals listed in SciFinder,[15] and 270 in Scopus.[16] Its journals are included in the DOAJ.[17] MDPI also publishes open access books indexed in DOAB, OAPEN and BCI.[18] It is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA),[19] the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE),[20] the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM),[21] and a participating publisher and supporter of the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC).[22]

MDPI's business model is based on establishing entirely open access broad-discipline journals, with fast processing times from submission to publication and article processing charges paid by the author, their institutions or funders.[6] MDPI's business practices have attracted controversy,[23][24] with critics suggesting it sacrifices editorial and academic rigor in favor of operational speed and business interests.[4][8][25] MDPI was included on Jeffrey Beall's list of predatory open access publishing companies in 2014;[26][27] it was removed in 2015 following a successful appeal,[24][26] while applying pressure on Beall's employer.[28] Some journals published by MDPI have also been noted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Norwegian Scientific Index for lack of rigor and possible predatory practices.[29][30][31]

  1. ^ "History of MDPI". MDPI. 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  2. ^ Fosso, Olav Bjarte; Nøland, Jonas Kristiansen (6 January 2020). "Forskere blir ledet til etiske overtramp" [Researchers are led into ethical transgressions]. Universitetsavisa.
  3. ^ "MDPI | Journals A–Z". www.mdpi.com. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Petrou, Christos (8 November 2022). "Guest Post – Publishing Fast and Slow: A Review of Publishing Speed in the Last Decade". The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  5. ^ Csomós, György; Farkas, Jenő Zsolt (14 November 2022). "Understanding the increasing market share of the academic publisher "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute" in the publication output of Central and Eastern European countries: a case study of Hungary". Scientometrics. 128: 803–824. doi:10.1007/s11192-022-04586-1. ISSN 1588-2861. S2CID 253535738.
  6. ^ a b c "Guest Post – MDPI's Remarkable Growth". The Scholarly Kitchen. 10 August 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  7. ^ Lin, S.-K. (2005). "Chemical Samples Recycling: The MDPI Samples Preservation and Exchange Project". In Lichtfouse, Eric; Schwarzbauer, Jan; Robert, Didier (eds.). Environmental Chemistry. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. pp. 585–590. doi:10.1007/3-540-26531-7_53. ISBN 978-3-540-22860-8. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
  8. ^ a b Crosetto, Paolo (12 April 2021). "Is MDPI a predatory publisher?". Paolo Crosetto's Blog. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
  9. ^ "Quality questions as publisher's growth challenges big players". Times Higher Education. 15 March 2023. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  10. ^ Ioannidis, John P. A.; Pezzullo, Angelo Maria; Boccia, Stefania (20 March 2023). "The Rapid Growth of Mega-Journals: Threats and Opportunities". JAMA. 329 (15): 1253–1254. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.3212. PMID 36939740. S2CID 257630165.
  11. ^ Vazquez, Franck (2021). "Publisher's Note: Continued Publication of Tomography by MDPI". Tomography. 7 (1): 65. doi:10.3390/tomography7010006. PMC 8048370. PMID 33704225.
  12. ^ Vazquez, Franck (2020). "Publisher's Note: Continued Publication of Nursing Reports by MDPI". Nursing Reports. 10 (1): 1. doi:10.3390/nursrep10010001. PMC 8608059. PMID 34968258.
  13. ^ Lin, Shu-Kun; Vicario, Unai; Vazquez, Franck (2020). "Publisher's Note: Continued Publication of Audiology Research by MDPI". Audiology Research. 10 (2): 49. doi:10.3390/audiolres10020008. PMC 7735433. PMID 33093435.
  14. ^ "Web of Science Master Journal List". Web of Science Group, a Clarivate company. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  15. ^ "SciFinderⁿ Login".
  16. ^ "Scopus preview - Scopus - Sources".
  17. ^ DOAJ. "Directory of Open Access Journals". doaj.org. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  18. ^ "Information". www.mdpi.com. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  19. ^ "OASPA Members". Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  20. ^ "COPE: MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), 190 Member Journals". Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  21. ^ "Our Members". STM. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  22. ^ "Initiative for Open Citations". Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vrieze was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  24. ^ a b Pal, Shalmali (1 January 2017). "Predatory Publishing: The Dark Side of the Open-Access Movement". ASH Clinical News.
  25. ^ "There is no black and white definition of predatory publishing". Impact of Social Sciences. 13 May 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  26. ^ a b Gillis, Alex (12 January 2017). "Beware! Academics are getting reeled in by scam journals". University Affairs.
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Beall2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference biochemia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  29. ^ "Plasserer tretten vitenskapelige tidsskrift på gråsone-nivå". Universitetsavisa. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  30. ^ "Vi innfører nivå X for tvilsomme tidsskrifter" [We are introducing level X for dubious journals]. Khrono. 27 May 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).