2026 marks 30 years of MDPI and coincides with anniversaries for 19 of its international, Open Access, peer-reviewed journals. This year, there are a number of journals that are turning 10, 20, 30 and even 100 years old, all thanks to the crucial work and dedication of the Editorial Board Members and the scholarly community.

Click the images below to learn more about each journal:

Each journal has been an integral part of MDPI’s 30-year journey, making significant impacts across a broad range of scientific fields over decades. MDPI is proud to support so many disciplines and appreciates the hard work of all the individuals within the community that make the journals what they are today – from Editorial Board Members to reviewers.

Impact across disciplines

Spanning numerous disciplines and fields of study, the journals celebrating such impressive anniversaries this year have stood the test of time thanks to the high quality of their published research. More than 90,000 papers have been published across all 19 journals, receiving a combined total of more than 1,500,000 citations and 144,500,000 downloads.

The journal Molecules hosts the article with the highest number of citations out of this year’s anniversary journals – “Plant Phenolics: Extraction, Analysis and Their Antioxidant and Anticancer Properties” by Jin Dai and Russell J. Mumper. Since its publication in 2010, the paper has received more than 3,700 citations.

Molecules has also had the privilege of publishing the work of Nobel Prize winners over the years, including Chemistry 2022 winner K. Barry Sharpless who published with MDPI in 2006, and Chemistry 2025 winner Omar M. Yaghi who published in 2017.

Indexing and ranking

This year’s anniversary journals are covered by a wide range of indexing databases, including Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Science (Clarivate) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Impact Factor is a metric developed by Clarivate that represents the average number of times articles are cited in a particular journal. It is updated every year, and supports the ranking, evaluating, categorising, and comparing of journals. Out of all the anniversary journals this year, Molecules, Recycling and Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER) hold the highest ratings, with all of them having a score of 4.6.

CiteScore metrics are developed by Elsevier as an alternative to Impact Factors. They measure the citation impact of journals and can be accessed freely on Scopus. The metric represents the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in a journal. The highest CiteScore of the anniversary journals is 10.3, which applies to Molecules.

Scholarly rankings also show the success of these journals. For example, Fishes ranks in Q1 for the “Marine and Freshwater Biology” Journal Citation Report (JCR) category; similarly, Biomimetics is ranked in Q1 for the “Engineering, Multidisciplinary” JCR category. The anniversary journals also rank impressively in CiteScore categories, with Recycling achieving Q1 in the “Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law”, “General Materials Science” and “Waste Management and Disposal” categories, and Molecules ranking Q1 for the following 7 categories:

• “Organic Chemistry”
• “Pharmaceutical Science”
• “Analytical Chemistry”
• “Physical and Theoretical Chemistry”
• “Drug Discovery”
• “Chemistry (miscellaneous)”
• “Molecular Medicine”

These strong metrics across the board further highlight the high quality, value and reputation of the research contributions published in these anniversary journals.

Testimonials

MDPI journals would not be able to achieve the successes they have without the hard work of their Editorial Board Members (EBMs).  MDPI is highly appreciative of the crucially important time, support and contributions that the EBMs have provided to ensure MDPI journals maintain a high standard and impact across their communities.

Below are some testimonials collected from some of the anniversary journals’ EBMs:

“[The success of Fishes] is not because of one person. It is the result of a dedicated community working together. Every single contribution was vital. For this, we must express our deep gratitude.” – Prof. Dr. Maria Angeles Esteban, EiC of Fishes

“Congratulations are due to Geriatrics and the whole team who are involved in this series of publications. A great achievement to reach 10 years and maintain such a high-quality and high standard of papers and publications. So well done to everybody involved.” – Prof. Dr. Patricia Schofield, Section EiC of Geriatrics

“The success of Condensed Matter is driven by the dedication of its editors, reviewers and authors, supported by a strong international Editorial Board.” – Prof. Dr. Bernado Barbiellini, Assistant Editor for Condensed Matter

Community and outreach

MDPI journals harbour a great sense of community across many disciplines and provide great opportunities for members of the scholarly community to gather and share the latest research and information.

Society affiliations

MDPI is proud to have secured affiliations with numerous societies and organisations through its journals, providing a strong promotional platform for societies. Many of the anniversary journals have impressive affiliations, such as:

• Infrastructures with the International Society for Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Transport Infrastructures (iSMARTi)
• Fluids with the Portuguese Society of Rheology (SPR)
• International Journal of Turbomachinery, Propulsion and Power with the European Turbomachinery Society (Euroturbo).

Learn more about how MDPI supports societies here.

Awards

To give back to the academic community and recognise excellence, MDPI journals regularly offer a variety of awards to talented individuals across many disciplines. Several anniversary journals have awards that are currently open, such as the Languages Best PhD Thesis Award which is accepting applications until 30 June 2026, and both Biomimetics and Fishes are accepting applications for their Travel Awards until 31 October 2026.

For more information on MDPI’s award programme, visit the awards homepage or read more on the MDPI Blog.

Conferences

There are plenty of academic conferences and webinars taking place this year that the anniversary journals are either hosting or participating in. Several of these events are the 1^st International Conferences for their journals, including Fishes, Geriatrics, Inventions and Recycling. Click the images below to learn more about these milestone events.

For more information on upcoming academic conferences and events, visit the Sciforum website.

30 years of Open Science

The success of MDPI’s journals over the last three decades is down to the researchers, editors and reviewers who have worked hard to keep the open exchange of scientific knowledge possible. Once again, MDPI would like to express its sincere gratitude to everyone in the scientific publishing community that has worked on or contributed to its journals.

MDPI continues to be committed to building journals of an excellent standard, giving back to researchers and industry professionals across various disciplines, and helping to further scientific progress through its Open Access publishing model.

Click here to learn more about MDPI’s 30^th anniversary, and click here to explore the full list of its journals.