What Does MDPI Stand For? Full Form & Meaning

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a Basel, Switzerland-headquartered academic publisher, founded in 1996, that publishes exclusively open access: every article it accepts is made freely readable on publication, funded by an author-side Article Processing Charge (APC) rather than reader subscriptions. MDPI operates several hundred peer-reviewed journals across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities -- examples include International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS), Sustainability, and Nutrients -- structured heavily around themed 'Special Issues' with guest editors, and is known for comparatively fast median times from submission to first editorial decision and to publication relative to many subscription journals. MDPI is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). It is a real, currently operating publisher, not a defunct or fictitious one -- but the label 'MDPI journal' does not, by itself, tell you the editorial rigor of any specific title, which varies journal by journal and has been the subject of genuine, documented scrutiny from indexing bodies and parts of the research community (see below).

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· Last updated 6 Aug 2026

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Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A researcher checking a call for papers notices the journal is published by MDPI, uses an APC-funded open-access model, and follows a Special Issue structure with a named guest editor and a stated submission deadline -- these are typical structural features of an MDPI journal, not in themselves evidence of poor quality.
Is an instance
A CV or bibliography lists a peer-reviewed article in an MDPI-published journal (for example, International Journal of Molecular Sciences) alongside articles in subscription-model journals from other publishers; the MDPI article is a normal, indexed, peer-reviewed publication, distinguished from the others mainly by its funding model (APC vs. subscription) and open licensing.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
Treating 'published by MDPI' as automatically equivalent to 'predatory' is not an accurate characterization: MDPI was added to Jeffrey Beall's list of predatory publishers in February 2014 and formally removed in October 2015 after an appeal review, and MDPI is a current member of COPE and OASPA -- both of which require applicants to meet publishing-ethics and transparency criteria. Calling MDPI a predatory publisher today, without qualification, overstates a settled historical dispute as an ongoing one.
Not an instance
Conversely, treating every MDPI journal as editorially equivalent to a well-established subscription journal in the same field, with no further check, is also not accurate: individual MDPI titles have been discontinued from Web of Science coverage by Clarivate at various points (for example, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Journal of Risk and Financial Management in 2023) and MDPI's Special-Issue-driven growth model has drawn specific, documented criticism -- so per-journal due diligence (indexing status, editorial board, self-citation rate) remains warranted rather than assumed.

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mdpi" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mdpi",
  "name": "MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mdpi",
  "description": "MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a Basel, Switzerland-headquartered academic publisher, founded in 1996, that publishes exclusively open access: every article it accepts is made freely readable on publication, funded by an author-side Article Processing Charge (APC) rather than reader subscriptions. MDPI operates several hundred peer-reviewed journals across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities -- examples include International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS), Sustainability, and Nutrients -- structured heavily around themed 'Special Issues' with guest editors, and is known for comparatively fast median times from submission to first editorial decision and to publication relative to many subscription journals. MDPI is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). It is a real, currently operating publisher, not a defunct or fictitious one -- but the label 'MDPI journal' does not, by itself, tell you the editorial rigor of any specific title, which varies journal by journal and has been the subject of genuine, documented scrutiny from indexing bodies and parts of the research community (see below).",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/mdpi",
  "sameAs": [],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-08-06T06:20:03",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}