Announcements

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Chemistry & Materials Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the winners of Travel Awards for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors.

MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Crystals:

• Gaojun Mao, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
• Lidia Bofill Herrera, University of Barcelona, Spain

Gels:

• Demetra Giuri, University of Bologna, Italy
• Martina Genta, Imperial College London, UK

Journal of Functional Biomaterials:

• Anushree Seth, Washington University, USA

Magnetochemistry:

• Fabio Ferreira, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Giulia Serrano, University of Florence, Italy

Materials：

• Giulia Fredi, University of Trento, Italy
• Mattia Biesuz, Czech Academy of Science, Czech Republic

Metals:

• Adriana Eres-Castellanos, Spanish National Center for Metallurgical Research, Spain
• Pavel Shurkin, National University of Science and Technology, Russia

Nanomaterials:

• Aleksandrs Leitis, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, France
• Ekaterina Kolesova, ITMO, Russia

Separations:

• Christoph Gstoettner, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands

We are pleased to announce that the 2021 CiteScore (Scopus) of Fibers (ISSN: 2079-6439) has increased from 4.6 to 6.5, with the following rankings:

• 50/326 (Q1) in the “Civil and Structural Engineering” category;
• 62/384 (Q1) in the “Mechanics of Materials” category;
• 26/115 (Q1) in the “Ceramics and Composites” category;
• 41/112 (Q2) in the “Biomaterials” category.

For more information, please refer to the journal’s source profile: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100847432.

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to all our authors, editors, reviewers, and readers for their efforts towards the journal’s further development. We look forward to our continued collaboration.

Fibers Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program intends to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to enhance their editing, networking, and organizational skills and to work closely with our journal to gain more editorial experience. Early career scientists who have novel ideas for new Fibers Special Issues will act as Guest Editors under the mentorship of an experienced scientist; this mentor could be a member of the Editorial Board of Fibers (ISSN 2079-6439), from other well-established research institutes or laboratories, etc.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Providing a CV, including a list of publications;
• Proposing a Special Issue title and a short introduction;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue;
• Reviewing and making decisions for submissions under the mentorship of our Editorial Board Members.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Co-editing the Special Issue with younger scholars and performing quality control of the publications in the Special Issue;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue.

Certificates and awards:

When the Special Issue is closed, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors. The younger scholars will be prioritized as candidates for Fibers Young Investigator Awards in future editions.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Fibers Editorial Office ([email protected]), and we will discuss the process (mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, Fibers continues to welcome all Special Issue proposals based on hot research topics as usual.

Fibers Editorial Office

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Catalin R. Picu has been appointed Associate Editor of Fibers (ISSN: 2079-6439).

Name: Prof. Dr. Catalin R. Picu
Affiliation: Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
Interests: mechanical behavior of fibers and fiber network materials; nonwovens; polymeric networks; mechanics of molecular crystals

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Catalin R. Picu, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his view of the research area and open access publishing:

Fibers is a relatively young, but a fast-growing journal that has already risen to a standard mandating the attention of the scientific community that it addresses.

The journal publishes articles addressing various issues of great interest. Topics of current and future interest include sustainable and environmentally safe fibers and fiber-based materials, developing fibrous materials with controlled architectures and exceptional mechanical properties, and the development of artificial fibers of high specific strength and toughness. Promoting research along these lines may be made a priority for the journal.

The future of fiber research is tied to that of engineering and biomaterials. In the engineering materials world, the community works on high-strength fibers for composites and fibrous materials of various kinds, ranging from paper to nonwovens and nanostructured network materials. In the area of biomaterials, topics such as biomimetics, biocompatibility, toxicity, and tissue engineering are all related to progress in fiber and fiber-based materials research.

The open access model, although not without flaws, responds to the need to make scientific results readily available to society.

We congratulate Prof. Dr. Catalin R. Picu on his new role as Associate Editor and we look forward to him leading Fibers to many more milestones.

Fibers Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Lucian Lucia has been appointed Associate Editor of Fibers (ISSN: 2079-6439).

Name: Prof. Dr. Lucian Lucia

Affiliation: Department of Forest Biomaterials, North Carolina State University, USA

Interests: green chemistry; smart biopolymeric materials; self-healing phenomena; drug delivery approaches; tissue engineering scaffolds; hydrogels

We warmly congratulate Prof. Dr. Lucian Lucia for taking on the role of Associate Editor and look forward to him leading Fibers to achieve more milestones.

Fibers Editorial Office

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members of Fibers (ISSN 2079-6439) who have been distinguished as highly cited researchers in 2021 by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We would like to express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to have on scientific progress and on the development of our journal.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists in the last decade. The impactful papers of these researchers are among the top 1% in the citation distribution of the 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

Name: Prof. Dr. Vijay Kumar Thakur

Affiliation: Biorefining and Advanced Materials Research Centre, SRUC, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK

Name: Prof. Dr. Alain Dufresne

Affiliation: University Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LGP2, F-38000 Grenoble, France

The full list of highly cited researchers for 2021 can be accessed on the following webpage in the Web of Science: https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

We would like to congratulate these individuals, and acknowledge the professional support and valuable publications from all of our academic editors. 

Fibers Editorial Office

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

Academic editors play a crucial role in leading our journals and ensuring that each article undergoes a robust and timely peer-review. With the launch of Topics this year and addition of Topic Editors to our family of academic editors, we decided it would be a good time to restructure our academic boards, thus providing more clarity and support for each role. MDPI is pleased to announce the launch of a new position—Topical Advisory Panel Member, that will replace the previous position of Topics Board Member. The Topical Advisory Panel will be comprised of early career researchers eager to gain experience in editorial work.

The main responsibility of the new members of the Topical Advisory Panel is to regularly provide support to Guest Editors, Topic Editors, and Section Board Members. The responsibilities of the Topical Advisory Panel are available here: https://www.mdpi.com/editors.

Each year, the members’ performances are evaluated, and outstanding members are promoted to the Editorial Board by the Editor-in-Chief.

To qualify as a Topical Advisory Panel Member, applicants must:

• Have expertise and experience in the field related to the journal;
• Have received a Ph.D. in the last 10 years, approximately;
• Have at least 6-8 published papers in the last 5 years as first author or corresponding author;
• Currently hold an independent research position in academia or a government institute.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the editorial office by email.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Fibers (ISSN 2079-6439) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles, critical reviews, research notes and short communications on materials science and all other empirical and theoretical studies of fibers, providing a forum for the integration of fiber research across many disciplines.

The Fibers Editorial Team is pleased to announce this open call for Special Issue Proposals, which gives a group of authors the opportunity to work on an interconnected set of papers on an innovative topic. We would like to solicit high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a competitive procedure on a rolling basis throughout the year.

Proposals within the scope of the journal are welcome. For more details, please see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/fibers/about.

If you would like to propose a Special Issue topic for this journal, please click the following link, complete and submit the form. Our editors will get back to you shortly. https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/fibers.

The duties and benefits of acting as a Guest Editor are as follows:

• Publishing both a review paper and a research paper free of charge in the Special Issue, and potential discount for additional papers you invite;
• Redefining the title and scope of this Special Issue;
• Circulating the Call for Papers for the Special Issue and inviting submissions;
• Making decisions on whether a manuscript can be accepted or not based on the reports we collect;
• Promoting the Special Issue and increasing its visibility at related academic conferences;
• If five or more papers are published in this Special Issue, we can make a Special Issue book and send a hard copy to each Guest Editor.

The Editorial Office will take care of setting up the Special Issue website; arranging the promotional materials; assisting with invitations to contribute papers; taking care of the rest of the administrative tasks associated with peer review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports, contacting authors, and professional production before publication.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office ([email protected]) for further details and clarifications.

We look forward to receiving your creative proposals.

Fibers Editorial Office