Daniella Maritan-Thomson Daniella Maritan-Thomson14 September 2025 Open Science

Highlights from the MDPI Societies and Acquisition Team

MDPI’s Societies and Acquisition team serves as a key link between learned societies and MDPI, supporting those interested in launching and growing their Open Access journals. The team also assists societies when transitioning their existing journals to the Open Access model or joining an MDPI journal as part of the affiliation program, ensuring these transitions are seamless.

Learned societies are key pillars in academia, playing a vital role in advancing scientific knowledge and community engagement. The Societies and Acquisition team is committed to delivering exceptional service to the societies they work with, meeting publishing needs while respecting their unique identity and goals.

In this biannual update, Dr. Carla Aloè, Head of Societies and Acquisition team, shares the team’s recent achievements and updates on MDPI’s valued partner journals.

Dr. Carla Aloè and the team have had great year so far. Here, she highlights their achievements in establishing new and exciting collaborations, renewing successful ones and meeting with MDPI’s society members across the world.

Establishing new society collaborations

We are proud to share that we signed two new partnership agreements and eight new affiliation agreements. Our team works closely with societies to help transition their journals to the Open Access model, launch new journals or grow their existing journals, ensuring a healthy and sustainable future.

We are excited to announce two new partnership agreements: Romanian Journal of Preventive Medicine (RJMP) and JDREAM – Journal of interDisciplinary REsearch Applied to Medicine.

Romanian Journal of Preventive Medicine (RJMP)

This journal is on the behalf of the Romanian Society of Preventive Medicine. It is a Diamond Open Access journal, meaning it is free to read and free to publish in, as it is sponsored by the society. It’s our third Diamond OA journal, joining Société Internationale d’Urologie Journal and the Journal of the Oman Medical Association.

Journal of interDisciplinary REsearch Applied to Medicine.

We are very excited to be working with the University of Salento on the relaunch of the  JDREAM journal which was discontinued in 2021. We’re working closely with the Editors-in-Chief and editorial board to bring the journal back.

New models of flexible cooperation

To explore flexible models that best align with the needs of the society, we’ve also launched a new “Hand Surgery and Research” section in the journal Surgeries in collaboration with the Italian Society of Hand Surgery (SICM). SICM oversees this section, and its members receive several benefits when publishing in it.

New and renewed society affiliation agreements

For societies that do not have their own journal or would like to offer their members a larger selection of journals to publish with, we offer the possibility to affiliate with an existing MDPI journal. Society members enjoy a discount on the article publishing charge of the affiliated journal.

An MDPI affiliated journal may consider engaging with marketing activities, such as sponsorship of the annual society conference or other events, travel grants, awards and more. By remaining flexible we can better serve the scholarly community.

During the first half of 2025, we’ve already signed eight new affiliation agreements and renewed two:

Renewals:

  • French Society of Toxinology (SFET) – Toxins
  • Japanese Society of Neonatal Screening (JSNS) – IJNS

With these new additions, we are now currently collaborating with more than 190 societies – a fantastic achievement for the team.

Listening to communities: voice of society partners

MDPI hosts summits and salons at locations across the globe to foster collaboration among Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board members in various regions. This year, the Societies and Acquisition team actively participated to highlight the publishing services we provide to societies. In June 2025, we attended the MDPI summits in Boston and Houston, and the MDPI salon in Montreal. We enjoyed insightful conversations about societies with our academic editors to better understand the needs of the scholarly community.

Clàudia Aunós at the Boston Summit, USA

Dr Maria Noguera at the Montreal Salon, Canada (left) and Dr Carla Aloè at the Houston Summit, USA (right)

In May, I was honored to be a guest speaker at the Fourth European Assembly of Archaeology of the Americas in Matera, Italy. I gave a keynote on Tommaso Stigliani’s Mondo Nuovo, a 17th-century epic poem and topic of my PhD. It was also a great opportunity to promote Heritage, especially since one of the conference organizers, Dr Nicola Masini, is the journal’s Editor-in-Chief.

Dr Carla Aloè at EAA4Am in Matera, Italy

Staying informed on industry trends is a priority. In March, we attended the London Book Fair and the Diamond Open Access Workshop Day in Bern, Switzerland (not far from our Basel headquarters). Participating in these events helps us stay up to date with the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in academic publishing, ensuring we can offer informed guidance and innovative solutions to our partners.

Celebrating our partner journals

Supporting our partner journals also means attending their major events. This is a great opportunity for us to strengthen the partnership by meeting the society members, organizing Editorial Board meetings, and celebrating the achievements of the journal. Since January, we’ve joined:

Dr Maria Fotiou at various society events

MDPI sponsored three Best Poster awards at the 13th European ISNS 2025. The first prize was 500 CHF and a free publication in IJNS, the second prize was 300 CHF and 50% APC discount, and the third prize 200 CHF and 20% APC discount for publishing in the journal.

We also sponsored four awards (two Best Lecture Awards and two Best Dialogue Awards) at the 38th International Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition. Each award winner received 500 CHF and a free publication in WEVJ. On behalf of the team, I would like to extend our congratulations to all the award winners!

Awards ceremonies at the 13th European ISNS 2025 Conference (left) and 38th International Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition (right)

Journal milestones:

A major aim for the team is to ensure that our partner journals continue to grow and serve their respective communities. We work closely with the Editors-in-Chief to agree on areas for strategic development and ensure indexing in relevant databases. This ensures the visibility of the journal and the increased reach of the published content.

We are excited to announce the successful inclusion of our partner journals in the following indexing databases:

Meet the new team members

We’re excited to welcome some new faces to our team!

Petar Jeremic

Petar joined MDPI in 2018 as an Assistant Editor for journals in the Geoscience section. He later worked as a Special Issue Editor for journals such as International Journal of Geo-Information IJGI (a society journal), Climate, and Remote Sensing. He also served as a Group Leader in the Belgrade office, where he led a team of around 20 colleagues for several years before transitioning to the role of Journal Relations Specialist.

Petar has attended various conferences and acted as a liaison between MDPI and the ISPRS society for IJGI. In March 2025, he joined the Societies and Acquisition team as an Acquisition Specialist. In his new role, he primarily focuses on outreach to other publishers and societies regarding potential acquisitions and journal takeovers.

Marijana Mandic

Marijana joined MDPI in 2020. She started working as an Assistant Editor for the Atmosphere journal. After that, she took on an additional role as an Assistant Editor Leader, supporting cross-team communication and collaboration among colleagues from European offices, and providing help and guidance when needed.

In 2021, she started working as a Special Issue Editor, and in 2023 she took on the role of Journal Relations Specialist for Atmosphere and several other journals. Marijana had the opportunity to work in our offices in Krakow, Poland, Wuhan, China, and Tokyo, Japan. In March 2025, she started a new role as Society Partnership Specialist. One of her responsibilities includes collaboration with other teams, such as the conference team, and supporting conferences and webinars of societies’ journals.

To learn more about our team, see our previous article series, Meet the Societies Team: Interview with the Specialists and Interview with the Students.

We hope that by expanding our team, we can better serve the needs of our society journals.

Our continued commitment to building relationships

MDPI is committed to expanding the reach of top scientific research and enriching the scientific community by fostering collaborations with institutions and societies.

We hope to continue building upon our great achievements from Q1 and Q2 by establishing more exciting affiliations and providing support to new partners.

If you’re interested in learning more about societies’ services and benefits, see our previous article: How MDPI/Open Access Supports Societies

To hear more about the ongoing work the Societies team do, see the Societies webpage here: Information for Societies.

Written by Dr Carla Aloè, Head of Societies and Acquisition.