Since its inception in 1996, over the course of 30 years MDPI has evolved into one of the world’s leading scientific open access publishers. Publishing 260,000 articles in 2025 alone, MDPI continues to expand and develop its output whilst supporting native and non-native-English-speaking authors with scholarly manuscript preparation and submission. A crucial element of MDPI’s author support infrastructure is the Author Services team, which offers precise language and grammar editing, subject-specific expertise, and technical refinement of structure and argument.

As we celebrate MDPI’s 30 years, we’ll look back at the beginnings of MDPI and its Author Services department, exploring key milestones whilst also looking ahead to the future of this department in a rapidly changing scholarly publishing landscape.

MDPI’s beginnings

The Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) was founded in Basel in 1996. The purpose of MDPI was to preserve the diversity of chemical compound samples and make them accessible to the scientific community for research purposes.

The same year, the journal Molecules was launched, which MDPI officially took over as an open access journal in 1997. Since then, MDPI’s portfolio has expanded to more than 500 fully open access journals, with the latest indexing performance indicators highlighting the continued recognition of MDPI’s scholarly output. As of 2025, these include:

• 365 journals indexed in Scopus.
• 314 journals ranked in the top 50% (Q1/Q2) of their categories.
• 52 journals in top-quartile positions.

Over the course of MDPI’s consistent growth across 30 years, the publisher’s editorial departments have also expanded to further support authors on the road to publication.

Launch of Author Services

One of the key moments in the history of MDPI’s editorial expansion was the launch of Author Services in 2016. With the rise of open access and global scholarly publishing, demand from both native and non-native-English-speaking authors for language and specialist editing services also increased. Author Services was established to meet that demand and support academic communities, whether they wanted to publish with MDPI or submit to other academic publishers.

Where Author Services intended to set themselves apart from other editing services was with fast turnaround times. At its launch, its single English editing service had a guaranteed turnaround time of 48 hours. This meant that authors were met with minimum delays during the manuscript submission process.

In the following years, Author Services broadened its scope, aiming to provide more comprehensive and specialist editing services. Here are some of the key milestones in the department’s development.

Key milestones

2018

• Started to offer layout editing, with a turnaround of 1 business day. This service prepares the author submission for publication in an MDPI journal. References are formatted and checks for missing information are completed. Overall presentation is improved by revising font, equations, and line spacing of paragraphs.
• Introduction of Author Services’ Specialist service, in which a specialist editor with subject-specific knowledge would review and comment on the scientific aspects of the manuscript.
• Launch of first educational video resources for authors; the first MDPI Writing Prize competition is also held.

2019

• Introduction of plagiarism checking service, through which authors could receive a report indicating text duplication and potential plagiarism, along with advice on where to modify text and add further citations.
• Introduction of figure editing. This service produces publication-ready figures and tables that clearly communicate research. Charts, graphs, and tables are enhanced through revision of colours, shading, size, resolution, borders, font, and file type. Originally provided in 2 business days, but the turnaround time has since been reduced to 1 business day.

2021

• Establishment of its most popular English editing service: Rapid editing. Instead of the 48 hours offered previously, Rapid editing provides the same high-quality proofreading authors had come to expect within 24 hours. The turnaround time for “Regular editing” was changed to 5 days to support authors who had more time and needed a more budget-friendly service.

2023

• Complementary services for customers of Rapid and Specialist editing (now renamed “Academic editing”) launched. With these perks, authors can have their reviewer responses and cover letters edited for free, and they may request free re-editing an unlimited number of times within 365 days from the date the original service was completed.

2025

• 100,000^th order received.
• Introduction of Graphical Abstract service. A dedicated team of professional designers create custom graphical abstracts to clearly show the main idea of the customer’s research.
• Introduction of Video Abstract service. Customers of this service receive a custom-made, social media-ready, short visual summary of their research paper, which provides a dynamic and engaging overview of the study’s key findings and significance.

Our promise in a rapidly changing scholarly landscape

MDPI’s Author Services has evolved significantly over the last 10 years. But so has the scientific publishing landscape.

In an era driven by fast-moving advancements in AI, it is important that editing services can operate flexibly whilst still offering a human-centered approach to manuscript preparation.

Author Services ensures that English language experts and subject specialists are at the forefront of language, grammar, and technical checks.

With a team of 120+ dedicated editors across the globe, we ensure that each manuscript is processed efficiently, with 88% of Rapid submissions returned to the authors in less than 10 hours.

Our Specialist editors, who hold PhDs, are experts in fields ranging from Biology & Life Sciences to Environmental & Earth Sciences.

Supporting global academic communities

MDPI understands that important research should be widely and freely accessible to all. Part of this understanding is knowing that excellent research is carried out by scientists whose first language may not be English. Better author support through Author Services means more researchers can publish open access in a language they did not grow up writing in.

If you are a non-native or even native English researcher wanting help with manuscript preparation, professional editing services are essential. And if you don’t know which editing service you require, our guide to choosing the right one should help you make the right decision.e.

At MDPI Author Services, we specialise in helping researchers prepare their manuscripts for publication. Our Academic Editing Service provides subject-specific expertise and in-depth technical refinement during the manuscript preparation phase, helping to improve the scientific content and structure of the paper as the author is guided from pre- to post-publication. This service includes a review of your paper’s terminology.

As part of celebrating 30 years of MDPI, we are offering a discount of CHF 30 off our Rapid and Academic Editing Services. Use code ‘MDPI30’ when ordering to apply the discount. Click here for a free quote.

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