Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs available, including original research articles and reviews. Content on Preprints is not yet peer-reviewed and can receive feedback from readers. Updated versions of manuscripts can be uploaded by authors at any time.

For authors intending to submit, we highly recommend reading the Policy & Process and Instruction for Authors pages. The majority of research journals allow authors to post on preprint servers such as Preprints prior to publication. For more information on this, please see information on Preprints and Publishing in Peer-Reviewed Journals.

Preprints is a non-for-profit platform launched in May 2016 and supported by MDPI, an open access publisher. Journals try to serve authors by processing papers quickly, but there are often unforeseen delays: an editor may be travelling, a reviewer doesn’t respond, requested revisions to a paper require time-consuming experiments and so on. Many papers are rejected from one or more journals before finally being published. Important work is hidden from view until this process has been completed.

Putting an early version of a paper online as a preprint enables the work to be read and cited before the editorial process has finished. Authors can also receive valuable feedback that can improve the paper before submitting to a journal.

At Preprints, we want to make important research visible as quickly as possible to benefit authors and the research community.

Preprints is fully subsidized by MDPI and it is run by MDPI employees. However, it is a not-for-profit platform and the eventual goal is that it will become a separate entity. We welcome expressions of interest for cooperation in supporting and running Preprints.

Papers submitted to Preprints are handled separately from submission to MDPI journals. The same paper may be rejected from an MDPI journal but still appear on Preprints, or vice versa.

Papers are assessed by the Preprints editorial team, supported by the Advisory Board. However, we aim for more community involvement and in 2018 will work toward more active involvement of the academic community in assessments of submitted preprints.

For any inquiries related to Preprints, please contact info@preprints.org.

Preprints
c/o MDPI
St. Alban-Anlage 66
4052 Basel
Postfach, CH-4020 Basel
Switzerland

Tel. +41 61 683 77 34
Fax: +41 61 302 89 18

Office Hours

8:00-17:00 (GMT +1)

Martyn Rittman
Preprints Director rittman@preprints.org

Linghua Ding
Managing Editor linghua.ding@mdpi.com

For full imprint information, see http://www.preprints.org/imprint.