Is MDPI a Predatory Journal Publisher? What Web of Science, Scopus and JUFO Records Show

Ask a room of researchers whether MDPI is a predatory publisher and you will get a confident answer from almost everyone, and the answers will not agree. Some have published happily in Nutrients or Cancers and see a fast, well-run open access house. Others have received one too many emails inviting them to guest edit a special issue and have written the publisher off. Search interest in the question has been rising this month, which is a good reason to set the evidence out in one place.

This guide separates three questions that tend to get merged. Does MDPI meet the accepted definition of a predatory publisher? What have indexing services and national agencies actually done about its journals, and when? And what should an author do about a specific MDPI title on the shortlist? The third question is the one that matters for your manuscript.

A note on sourcing. I could read search summaries, publisher statements and secondary reporting for this piece, but could not open every primary page directly. Figures are given as reported, and I flag where sources disagree. Check the linked agency and publisher pages before you rely on any number here.

Is MDPI Predatory? What the Term Means

The phrase predatory journal is usually applied to outlets that charge fees while providing little or no genuine peer review, hide their charges until after acceptance, list editors who never agreed to serve, make false claims about indexing, or flood researchers with flattering invitations. A 2019 international consensus definition published in Nature put the core idea as entities that prioritise self-interest over scholarship, characterised by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial practice, a lack of transparency, and aggressive solicitation.

Measured against that definition, MDPI does not fit. Its journals run peer review, the fees are published, and the company says it belongs to recognised industry bodies, including COPE and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, though you should confirm current membership on those organisations' own pages. Its larger titles are indexed in Scopus and, for biomedical subjects, in PubMed and MEDLINE. Guides that apply standard checklists to individual MDPI journals generally conclude that the journals are not predatory by those indicators, while noting that the publisher's reputation is contested.

The confusion comes from the way predatory has become a loose insult for anything that is open access, author-pays and high volume. Those features overlap with predatory practice without proving it. Several large and respected publishers use similar models. What separates a predatory outlet is deception and absent review, and I found no credible evidence that MDPI as a whole operates that way. What the evidence does show is a publisher whose scale, speed and special issue model have drawn repeated scrutiny from the bodies that decide what counts.

Is MDPI Legit? What You Can Verify Yourself

Legitimacy is not a yes or no property of a publisher, so start with checks you can run in ten minutes. Search the exact journal title in the Scopus source list, in PubMed or the NLM Catalog if it claims biomedical indexing, and in the Directory of Open Access Journals. Do this at the source, not from the claims on the journal's own page. If the journal says it is indexed somewhere and the database does not agree, stop there.

Then look at the editorial board. Named editors with verifiable institutional pages and real publication records in the field are a good sign. Boards padded with unrelated names, or with editors who have almost no output in the subject, are not. Finally, read the journal's recent corrections and retraction notices. A handful, handled openly, is ordinary for a large title. A cluster tied to compromised review or non-existent references deserves a closer look at the handling editors involved.

None of this is specific to MDPI. It is the same due diligence we describe in our guides to predatory journals and to verifying indexing, and it works precisely because it tests the journal in front of you. A publisher-level verdict will mislead you in both directions, since MDPI includes long-established specialty titles and much newer ones with thinner boards.

Web of Science Removed Two MDPI Journals in 2023

The most cited institutional action is the one taken by the Web of Science team in early 2023. According to MDPI's own announcement, coverage of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ended on 13 February 2023, and coverage of the Journal of Risk and Financial Management ended on 22 February. MDPI filed a formal appeal on 31 March 2023. The delistings were part of a wider batch, and Chemistry World reported that more than 50 journals were removed in that round for failing quality selection criteria.

The reason reported for the MDPI titles was the content relevance criterion, which is about whether a journal's published content stays consistent with its stated scope and is relevant to its readership. The environmental health journal had published a very large number of articles in 2022 (a figure of roughly 17,000 is commonly cited), which is the sort of growth that attracts attention. Delisting did not mean the papers were invalid. It meant the journal lost Web of Science coverage and, with it, the metrics that depend on that coverage.

I could not confirm whether either journal has been restored. One commercial submission guide dated 2026 says it found no public confirmation of reinstatement for the environmental health title, which still sits in Scopus, PubMed, MEDLINE, PMC and Embase according to that source. Treat that as secondary and check the Web of Science master journal list directly if the status matters for your funder or promotion rules.

Scopus Paused, Then Kept, Sustainability

Scopus took a different route. Reporting at the time said Scopus paused indexing of MDPI's Sustainabilityat the end of October 2023 while it reevaluated the title, affecting a body of articles the journal's managing editor put at roughly 13,500 for that year. The reevaluation concluded on 4 January 2024, with MDPI's chief executive saying the journal met Scopus content selection standards and that the paused content would be added back within about four weeks.

The same reporting noted that Scopus had earlier dropped at least one other MDPI title, the mathematics journal Axioms, and that the managing editor said most reviewed MDPI journals were evaluated positively. I did not find any later Scopus action against MDPI as a publisher, but I could not search Scopus decisions comprehensively, so absence of evidence here is weak.

What the episode shows is how indexers behave. They review journals one at a time, they can pause and restore, and they do not issue publisher-wide verdicts. That is the same unit of analysis you should use as an author.

Finland's Publication Forum and the Level 0 Decision

The most sweeping response came from Finland. The Publication Forum (JUFO) classifies publication channels used in Finnish university funding models. In mid-2024 it moved 60 journals to level 0, 21 of them from MDPI. In September 2024 it adopted a policy on what it called grey area journals, meaning MDPI and Frontiers titles where its panels could not recommend publishing without reservation. On 9 December 2024 its steering group decided to move 271 MDPI and Frontiers journals to level 0 from the start of 2025.

Reported totals differ. Retraction Watch gave 193 MDPI and 78 Frontiers journals, with 16 MDPI and 22 Frontiers titles kept at level 1 after panel review, while MDPI's own statement referred to 187 MDPI journals among the 271. I did not find a reconciliation of the 193 and 187 figures. MDPI said it was being judged on its fee-based publishing model instead of on the quality of individual journals, and pointed to its Web of Science and Scopus indexing. JUFO later reported that a panel review completed in May 2025 restored some MDPI and Frontiers journals to level 1, so the current list on the JUFO portal is the only reliable reference.

Level 0 reduces what a paper counts for in the funding formula. It does not ban the journal or invalidate its papers. It matters to authors outside Finland because it shows that assessment rules are local and can change. If your institution or funder uses a classification list, check it before you submit.

The Special Issue Model and Why It Draws Fire

Most of the friction around MDPI traces to special issues. Guest editors invite submissions, handle review and often publish their own work alongside colleagues' papers. Done well, this gets focused collections into the hands of readers quickly. Done badly, it hands editorial control of large numbers of papers to people who may have no oversight, a commercial interest in volume, or weak distance from the authors.

Critics have counted thousands of special issues across MDPI's indexed titles in a single year, and the Web of Science actions in 2023 were widely read as a signal about this model across several publishers, not MDPI alone. I would not claim more than that. The model is shared by other publishers, and a special issue handled by a strong guest editor with real review is not the same as one assembled from invitations.

For an author, the practical lesson is to evaluate the special issue as well as the journal. Who is the guest editor, and do they have a record in the subject? Are the already published papers in the issue varied and well reviewed, or do they cluster around the editor's own group? Does the issue deadline look like a recruitment drive? An unsolicited invitation with a short deadline and a fee waiver for a quick submission deserves the same caution you would give any cold email from an unfamiliar journal.

MDPI Predatory Journals List: What the Lists Say

Authors often search for an MDPI predatory journals list and find pages that treat the whole publisher as listed. No current, widely accepted blacklist works that way. Jeffrey Beall's original list was taken down in 2017, and the services that followed it, including Cabells, work through criteria applied journal by journal and are mostly paywalled. We compare those tools in a separate guide.

What exists instead is a patchwork. National or institutional ratings such as JUFO, indexing decisions from Web of Science and Scopus, and the Directory of Open Access Journals, which removes titles that fail its criteria. Each answers a slightly different question, and each can be wrong or out of date. If a page claims there is one authoritative list that condemns or clears all MDPI journals, it is selling certainty that the evidence does not support.

How to Check a Specific MDPI Journal Before You Submit

Begin with fit and function rather than reputation. Read five or six recent papers in your subtopic. Are the methods reported well enough to repeat? Do the reviewer-handled revision histories look real? MDPI publishes the dates of receipt, revision and acceptance on each paper, and unusually short gaps between submission and acceptance, repeated across a title, are worth noting. Fast review is not a fault in itself, but speed combined with generic acceptance is.

Next, check the cost and funding rules. MDPI is fully open access, with charges paid on acceptance, and the amount varies by journal. The pay-on-acceptance structure gives every fully open access publisher an incentive to accept papers, and that incentive is exactly the issue critics raise. It is a reason for scrutiny, not proof of misconduct. Read the current fee page and any waiver or discount terms before you write, and see whether your institution has an agreement that changes the price.

Finally, ask who will read the paper. If a hiring panel, promotion committee or funder in your country applies a local list, a paper in a downgraded title may count for less, however good it is. Ask your research office if you are unsure. If you choose an MDPI journal, choose one with a strong board and a clear scope, and be ready to defend the choice in a sentence.

Questions Authors Ask About MDPI

Is MDPI predatory? Not under the standard definition, which turns on deception and absent peer review. The publisher does face legitimate criticism over scale, speed and the special issue model.

Is MDPI legit if a journal has lost Web of Science coverage? Lost coverage is a serious signal about that journal, but it is a journal-level action and says nothing about the validity of individual papers.

Is MDPI predatory because Finland downgraded it? JUFO placed many titles at level 0 as grey area journals and later restored some. That is a funding classification, not a finding of predatory practice, and the current levels are on the JUFO portal.

Will an MDPI paper hurt my career? It depends on who reads your record. Some committees treat it like any indexed open access paper, and others apply local lists or informal bias. Ask before you submit if the stakes are high.

What to Do Before You Submit

Treat this as a due diligence task and write down what you found: the indexing you verified, the board you checked, the fee and waiver terms, and any local rules. If an editor, reviewer or promotion panel later asks why you chose the venue, you will have an answer ready.

If something looks wrong, such as guaranteed acceptance, an editorial board you cannot verify, or a fee that appears only after acceptance, stop. Those are the behaviours that define genuinely predatory outlets, and they deserve more attention than any publisher's name.

The practical implication is simple. Do not accept or reject MDPI on reputation alone. Spend ten minutes testing the specific journal against the checks above, and submit only if it passes.

Further Reading