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MDPI Academic Video Service: Advancing Visual Scholarly Communication

Encyclopedia MDPI is thrilled to announce significant enhancements to its Academic Video Service, which aim to improve its quality, accessibility, and functionality. Since its launch, our video service has enabled numerous scholars to present their research in a dynamic and visually engaging format, greatly enhancing its visibility and impact. Due to the overwhelmingly positive reception this service has received, we have reached a point where the number of orders we are receiving exceeds our current capacity. In order to maintain the quality of these videos and continue optimizing the service, we have made the decision to introduce a fee. However, to ensure that this service is still a cost-effective option, we have set our prices significantly below the market average. 1. Highlights of the Upgrades to the Service Although the service will now be fee-based, we are committed to providing even more professional and comprehensive support, including the following: One-on-one video production guidance Personalized assistance to ensure your needs are fully met. Scriptwriting and English editing Expertly crafted narratives and professional English editing to ensure your research is presented clearly, accurately, and with impact. High-quality animations Visually engaging animations are created to simplify complex research and captivate your audience. Whiteboard Animations: Clean and minimalist, using hand-drawn illustrations to explain ideas step-by-step. Motion Graphics (MG) Animations: Cartoon Style: Bright, colorful, and approachable, ideal for making technical or scientific content more accessible and engaging. Hand-Drawn Style: Unique and artistic, adding a personal touch to your research while maintaining clarity and professionalism. Customized infographics (optional) We can also create tailored infographics to visually summarize key data or findings, enhancing the clarity and appeal of your video. Native voiceover Native speakers provide voiceovers to enhance the accessibility and reach of your research. Multiple rounds of revision To ensure your video accurately represents your work. Social media promotion Expanding your research's visibility and impact. 2. Why Choose Us? The Proven Impact of Video Abstracts Research shows that a well-crafted video abstract can significantly enhance the visibility and impact of your work. It has been shown to do the following: Increase paper views by 120% （Source: 10.1007/ s11192-019-03108-w） Boost citations by 20% （Source: Wiley Online Library） Improve journal rankings by 33% （Source: Research Square） Raise Altmetrics scores by 140% （Source: Research Square） Our Expertise in Academic Research Backed by MDPI, our experienced production team combines deep academic knowledge with creative excellence. We understand the nuances of scholarly communication and ensure that every frame accurately conveys the value of your research, meeting the highest standards of quality and precision. Collaborations with SCI Journals We have partnered with over 60 SCI journals to create exclusive video series, enhancing the dissemination and impact of published research. For example, our collaborations with Entropy, Remote Sensing, Nanomaterials , Animals , Nutrients, Foods , Sustainability, Cancers, etc., have helped authors achieve greater visibility and recognition for their work. Global visibility The videos are linked to your paper's DOI for maximum exposure. Available Video Services and Their Pricing Video Abstract (up to 5 minutes long): Summarizes the key findings, methodology, and significance of your research paper. Regular Price: 600 CHF Short Take (up to 2 minutes long): Uses original animations to explain the specific aspects of your research. Regular Price: 500 CHF Scholar Interview: A face-to-face discussion offering deeper insights into your publication. Regular Price: 400 CHF Scholar Profile: A brief overview of a scholar’s career, highlighting education, research focus, and key achievements. Regular Price: 500 CHF 3. Video Production Service If you want to see some examples of our videos, please visit https://encyclopedia.pub/video. If you would like to apply for the video service, please click https://encyclopedia.pub/video_service. 4. Others If you have any other questions, please contact office@encyclopedia.pub.

Announcement 14 Apr 2026

The 88% Who Weren’t in the Trial: What Real-World Evidence Adds to Diabetes Care

Randomised trials establish whether a treatment can work under ideal conditions; real-world evidence establishes whether it does work in the patients clinicians actually see. Eligibility criteria exclude the majority of everyday patients from cardiovascular outcome trials, and the effectiveness observed in practice is shaped as much by titration and treatment persistence as by pharmacology. Observational data can extend trial findings to broader populations, but only when they are designed to emulate the trial they are meant to complement. This blog sets out what each source of evidence can and cannot answer and offers three questions for appraising a real-world study at the point of clinical decision. On Monday, you read a cardiovascular outcome trial destined to change practice. On Tuesday morning, in your clinic, an 82-year-old man sits down: estimated glomerular filtration rate 38 mL/min/1.73 m², eleven medications, and at least three criteria that would have excluded him from that trial. The trial did nothing wrong. It was simply not built to answer the question he is putting to you. 1. Trial Populations and Clinical Populations Randomised controlled trials are designed for internal validity: eligibility criteria, run-in periods, and protocol-driven follow-up all serve to isolate the causal effect of a molecule from everything else in a person’s life. That engineering has a price, and the price is representativeness. How high that price is becomes clear when the criteria of four SGLT2 inhibitor outcome trials are applied to 455,662 adults with type 2 diabetes attending 222 Italian diabetes clinics: 11.7% would have qualified for EMPA-REG OUTCOME, 55.9% for DECLARE-TIMI 58 (Figure 1B) [1]. Those who did qualify were older and had a longer disease duration, with lower HbA1c and BMI and more microvascular complications than the participants actually enrolled in those trials. Your Tuesday patient almost certainly belonged to the 88% that the most restrictive of the four would have excluded. This does not make the trial useless to him; it makes a second type of evidence necessary. Figure 1. Two complementary sources of clinical evidence. (A) Randomised trials and real-world studies answer sequential rather than competing questions, and both depend on the same methodological discipline. (B) Proportion of an unselected real-world type 2 diabetes population meeting the major eligibility criteria of four SGLT2 inhibitor outcome trials, drawn from data reported in reference 1. Original figure prepared by the author. 2. What Real-World Evidence Contributes The first contribution concerns the gap between what a drug can do and what it does. In a cohort of 7,881 adults treated with injectable semaglutide or tirzepatide for obesity in routine practice, mean weight reduction at one year was 8.7%, compared with 14.9% at 68 weeks in STEP 1 and 20.9% at 72 weeks in SURMOUNT-1 [2–4]—little more than half of the semaglutide trial result and closer to two-fifths of the tirzepatide one. That gap is explained almost entirely by how the drugs are actually used. In all, 80.8% of the cohort remained on low maintenance doses, whereas those who reached and maintained the full dose without interruption achieved weight loss approaching that observed in the clinical trials. The difference does not lie in the molecule; it lies in titration and in continuing treatment. Discontinuation at one year was 17.1% in STEP 1 and 14.3–16.4% across tirzepatide doses in SURMOUNT-1; here, 20.4% discontinued treatment within three months and a further 32.0% before twelve months [2]. And here real-world data do what no registration trial can: explain why people stop. Among patients discontinuing treatment within the first year in the same health system, the reported reasons for discontinuation were cost or insurance barriers in 47.6% of cases, intolerable side effects in 14.6%, and supply shortages in 11.8% [5]. Adherence thus stops being a nuisance variable to be adjusted for and becomes a determinant of outcome that can, in part, be addressed in the consultation itself. The relationship is not only one of deflation: sometimes real-world data widen the benefit rather than narrow it. CVD-REAL compared more than 150,000 patients initiating an SGLT2 inhibitor with an equal number initiating other glucose-lowering drugs (309,056 in total), and 87% had no established cardiovascular disease at baseline [6]; even in this lower-risk population, fewer hospitalisations for heart failure and fewer deaths were observed, extending to a lower-risk population a signal the trials had shown primarily in high-risk secondary prevention. The finding arrived years ahead of the dedicated trials—and precisely for that reason it deserves suspicion: that comparison was not randomised. 3. The Limits of Observational Data Observational research cannot randomise treatment, and much of what follows stems from that limitation. Patients receive one drug rather than another for reasons that are often also the reasons they fare better or worse; this is confounding by indication; prescribing follows formulary, fashion, and phenotype, and that is channelling; the interval between cohort entry and first exposure is misassigned with surprising ease, and immortal time bias is manufactured; and data absent from an electronic record are rarely missing at random. The textbook case is instructive precisely because it closed well. For years, observational cohorts suggested that postmenopausal hormone therapy protected against coronary heart disease, until the Women’s Health Initiative found the opposite; when the Nurses’ Health Study was re-analysed by explicitly emulating the design and analysis of the randomised trial, the discrepancy largely disappeared [7]. It was never the data that had lied, but the way they had been questioned. From that lesson came the toolkit we now expect to find in rigorous observational research: new-user, active-comparator designs, explicit target trial emulation [8], propensity-based balancing, negative control outcomes, and quantitative bias analysis (Figure 1A). For the reader who rarely has time to reconstruct a study design from scratch, that toolkit condenses into three questions. 4. Three Questions for Appraising a Real-World Study What trial is this study emulating? Eligibility, treatment strategies, time zero, outcome, and follow-up should be prespecified before the data are examined, as they would be in a well-designed protocol. Is the comparison fair in time as well as in patients? Comparing new users with an active comparator, while properly aligning time zero, reduces most of the classic biases; comparing prevalent users with never-users almost never does. How much unmeasured confounding would it take to make this result disappear? An E-value, a negative control outcome, a falsification endpoint. A paper that cannot answer it is asking you to take the estimate on faith. If the answers hold, that study earns a place in clinical reasoning alongside the trial—not instead of it. 5. Reading the Two Sources Together The two sources answer questions in sequence rather than in competition: whether a treatment can work under ideal conditions, and whether it works here, in these patients, at the doses actually prescribed, for as long as they are actually taken. Regulators have already made that move, admitting real-world data into decisions that were once the exclusive territory of trials. For the clinician, the gain is more modest and more immediate. Return to the man from Tuesday morning: Monday’s trial describes a population he was never part of, while a well-designed real-world study describes one he might actually belong to. That is where the decision begins, and it will take both to see it through. References 1. Nicolucci, A.; Candido, R.; Cucinotta, D.; Graziano, G.; Rocca, A.; Rossi, M.C.; Tuccinardi, F.; Manicardi, V. Generalizability of cardiovascular safety trials on SGLT2 inhibitors to the real world: implications for clinical practice. Adv. Ther. 2019, 36, 2895–2909. 2. Gasoyan, H.; Butsch, W.S.; Schulte, R.; Casacchia, N.J.; Le, P.; Boyer, C.B.; Griebeler, M.L.; Burguera, B.; et al. Changes in weight and glycemic control following obesity treatment with semaglutide or tirzepatide by discontinuation status. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2025, 33, 1657–1667. 3. Wilding, J.P.H.; Batterham, R.L.; Calanna, S.; Davies, M.; Van Gaal, L.F.; Lingvay, I.; McGowan, B.M.; Rosenstock, J.; et al. Once-weekly semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity. N. Engl. J. Med. 2021, 384, 989–1002. 4. Jastreboff, A.M.; Aronne, L.J.; Ahmad, N.N.; Wharton, S.; Connery, L.; Alves, B.; Kiyosue, A.; Zhang, S.; et al. Tirzepatide once weekly for the treatment of obesity. N. Engl. J. Med. 2022, 387, 205–216. 5. Gasoyan, H.; Butsch, W.S.; Casacchia, N.J.; Schulte, R.; Criswell, V.; Fox, J.; Renner, H.; Le, P.; et al. Reasons for discontinuation of obesity pharmacotherapy with semaglutide or tirzepatide in clinical practice. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2025, 33, 2296–2303. 6. Kosiborod, M.; Cavender, M.A.; Fu, A.Z.; Wilding, J.P.; Khunti, K.; Holl, R.W.; Norhammar, A.; Birkeland, K.I.; et al. Lower risk of heart failure and death in patients initiated on sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors versus other glucose-lowering drugs: the CVD-REAL study. Circulation 2017, 136, 249–259. 7. Hernán, M.A.; Alonso, A.; Logan, R.; Grodstein, F.; Michels, K.B.; Willett, W.C.; Manson, J.E.; Robins, J.M. Observational studies analyzed like randomized experiments: an application to postmenopausal hormone therapy and coronary heart disease. Epidemiology 2008, 19, 766–779. 8. Hernán, M.A.; Robins, J.M. Using big data to emulate a target trial when a randomized trial is not available. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2016, 183, 758–764. Biography Antonio Maria Labate, MD, is a specialist in Internal Medicine working as an outpatient diabetology and internal medicine specialist at ASST Franciacorta and ASST Mantova, in Lombardy, Italy. He trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Messina and has broad clinical experience spanning internal medicine, emergency medicine, and diabetology. His work focuses on clinical diabetology, cardiovascular and cardiometabolic risk in type 2 diabetes, real-world evidence, and the clinical use of newer glucose-lowering therapies such as GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT2 inhibitors. He has authored peer-reviewed articles and congress communications on the cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic effects of these agents and serves as a reviewer for several international journals.

Blog 05 Aug 2026

Best Video Abstract Awards

The Encyclopedia platform, together with the journals Biology and Nutrients, launches the Best Video Abstract Awards to increase the visibility and reach of published research and to inspire researchers to explore the power of visual storytelling. Video abstracts have become an increasingly important medium for scientific communication. By integrating narration, visualizations, animations, and experimental footage, they make complex research more accessible, engaging, and memorable. This initiative recognizes video abstracts that are not only scientifically rigorous but also creatively compelling and educational, thereby promoting broader dissemination and deeper community engagement. To learn more about the awards or to participate directly, please visit the event page via the links provided below. https://encyclopedia.pub/best-video-abstract-award 1. Event Duration 9 February 2026 – 2 February 2027 2. Awards Biology Best Video Abstract AwardOpen to video abstracts based on papers published in Biology between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025. This award will be granted to two video abstracts based on the evaluation of the Award Evaluation Committee. Nutrients Best Video Abstract AwardOpen to video abstracts based on papers published in Nutrients between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025. This award will be granted to two video abstracts based on the evaluation of the Award Evaluation Committee. Prize For each journal award, the winner will receive: CHF 500 A voucher waiving the Article Processing Charges (APCs) for one journal submission (subject to peer review, valid for one year) A free Academic Video Service production (no matter where the paper is published), valid for one year. An electronic certificate Participant Incentive All participants will receive a CHF 100 discount voucher for the Encyclopedia Academic Video Service. 3. Participation The event will be conducted in three stages. Submission Stage 9 February 2026 – 31 August 2026 Independent Submission Authors may create and submit video abstracts independently using their own tools and creative approach. Professional Support Option Authors who do not currently have a video abstract but intend to apply for the award may opt for the Academic Video Service, which offers a one-stop, end-to-end solution covering script development, animation, voiceover recording, and editing. Please submit your video abstract here: https://encyclopedia.pub/user/video_add?activity=b57ab0910b456a5e4eebd960867ce205 Or place your video service order here: https://encyclopedia.pub/user/video_service_order All video abstracts will be assessed by the editorial team for editorial suitability and overall quality. Submissions that meet the guidelines will be assessed equally. Voting Stage 1 November 2026 – 31 December 2026 Public voting will be conducted during this period. Voting results and video performance metrics, including views, likes, shares, and collections, will contribute to the final evaluation. Winner Announcement 2 February 2027 Final winners will be determined based on a combined assessment of public voting results and a comprehensive evaluation by the Award Evaluation Committee, which carries the primary weight in the final decision. Winners will be announced on the Encyclopedia platform and journal websites. 4. Others If you have any other questions, please contact office@encyclopedia.pub

Announcement 09 Feb 2026

MDPI Books: Expanding Open Access Academic Publishing

Academic publishing continues to evolve with the advancement of open science and digital technologies. While journal articles remain a fundamental format for communicating individual research findings, academic books provide researchers with opportunities to explore topics in greater depth, integrate broader perspectives, and present comprehensive knowledge within a dedicated publication format. To support diverse forms of scholarly communication, MDPI has developed MDPI Books, an open access academic book publishing program that enables researchers, editors, and academic communities to share extensive research contributions and educational resources with a global audience. MDPI Books supports MDPI’s mission to foster open scientific exchange, with open access as a key approach for sharing knowledge. The program includes two main publication outputs: Open Access Books and Reprints. Since the publication of the first Reprint in 2013 and the first original Open Access Book in 2017, MDPI Books has continued to expand its publishing portfolio, contributing to the advancement of open access publishing and the dissemination of scholarly knowledge across diverse disciplines. For more information about MDPI Books and available publishing opportunities, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/books/. 1. What Is MDPI Books? MDPI Books publishes academic books across a wide range of disciplines, providing researchers, editors, and academic communities with flexible publishing options for sharing scientific knowledge. The program includes two complementary publication categories: Open Access Books are original academic publications that present comprehensive research studies, educational resources, and specialized knowledge collections. By adopting an open access publishing model, these books enable broader access to scholarly content and support the dissemination of knowledge worldwide. Reprints compile previously published research articles into dedicated book formats. By organizing related studies into structured collections, Reprints provide additional opportunities to increase the visibility and accessibility of published research. Together, Open Access Books and Reprints provide researchers with different approaches to create, share, and preserve scholarly knowledge. 2. Open Access Books Open Access Books published by MDPI Books contain original academic content and provide researchers with opportunities to present comprehensive studies, educational resources, and specialized knowledge collections in a book format. Compared with individual journal articles, academic books allow authors to explore research topics in greater depth, present broader perspectives, and provide more comprehensive discussions of scientific developments. 2.1. Types of Open Access Books MDPI Books supports different types of Open Access Books to accommodate diverse scholarly communication needs. Monograph A monograph is a comprehensive/in-depth contribution to a single scholarly subject, or an aspect of a subject, written by a single or small group of authors. Both short-form (70–110 pages) or full-length monographs are accepted. This also includes PhD monographs based on doctoral theses from all fields. Edited Books Edited books contain chapters usually written by different authors who are experts in their field. The chapters in an edited volume are original works (not republished works). One or more editors are responsible for the book as a whole. Edited volumes present different viewpoints and experiences on a common theme. Textbooks A textbook contains a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining this branch or a particular sub-branch. It contains detailed information about a subject for people studying that subject. Project Reports A project report is the formalized recording of project progress and project results. PhD Thesis / Dissertations PhD theses can be published open access with MDPI Books, allowing the research to reach a wider audience while maintaining their original academic integrity. They are usually structured into multiple chapters and include a comprehensive literature review, methodology, results, and discussion. They do not undergo traditional external peer review, as they have already been formally evaluated and approved by the author's academic institution as part of the doctoral degree requirements and are clearly declared as PhD theses. Book Series Book series are series of original Open Access Books covering the same subject area. 2.2. Benefits of Open Access Books Open Access Books provide authors and readers with advantages in accessibility, knowledge sharing, and publishing support. Enhanced Accessibility and Discoverability Open access publishing allows scholarly books to reach broader audiences by improving accessibility and removing barriers to knowledge sharing. Through online libraries, indexing services, and metadata dissemination, Open Access Books can achieve greater discoverability and long-term visibility. Published books are available through the MDPI Books Online Library and are indexed through platforms including Google Books, CrossRef, EBSCO, WorldCat, and Scilit. Eligible titles are also submitted to the Web of Science Book Citation Index (BKCI). Comprehensive Knowledge Sharing Academic books provide space for systematic analyses, interdisciplinary discussions, and extensive reviews that may go beyond the scope of individual research articles. By presenting broader perspectives and integrated knowledge, Open Access Books contribute to long-term scientific communication and knowledge development. Author Rights and Publishing Support Authors retain copyright of their work through Creative Commons licensing options. MDPI Books provides support throughout the publication process, including editorial coordination, production services, DOI and ISBN assignment, marketing support, and print-on-demand options. 2.3. Publication Process MDPI Books provides comprehensive support throughout the Open Access Book publishing process, from manuscript submission and initial quality checks to peer review, revision, production, and publication. Following submission, manuscripts undergo an initial assessment, including checks for plagiarism, data integrity, figure permissions, and authorship information. The Editorial Office coordinates peer review and revision processes before accepted manuscripts proceed through professional editing, formatting, typesetting, and proofreading. Published books are freely available online and can also be accessed in print formats through print-on-demand and distribution channels. A complete publication process can typically be completed within approximately 6–12 months, depending on manuscript preparation and review requirements. 3. Reprints In addition to original Open Access Books, MDPI Books provides Reprints, which compile previously published research articles into dedicated book formats. Unlike Open Access Books, which contain original book-length content, Reprints focus on collecting and presenting existing research content. They allow researchers and editors to bring together related articles into thematic collections, extending the reach and visibility of published research beyond the traditional journal format. 3.1. Types of Reprints To facilitate the collection and dissemination of published research, MDPI Books provides several Reprint formats. Journal Collection Reprints Journal Collection Reprints compile articles from MDPI journals, including Special Issues, Topical Collections, Topics, and Proceedings. These collections provide a dedicated book format for completed research collections and are available as digital publications and physical books through print-on-demand services. Custom Selection Reprints Custom Selection Reprints allow tailored collections of published articles to be created according to specific requirements. They can support various purposes, including thematic research collections, teaching resources, institutional publications, conference and academic meeting materials. Article Reprints Article Reprints are professionally produced copies of individual journal articles. They preserve the original layout and typography of published research papers and provide a tangible format for sharing academic achievements. They can support research communication, institutional events, academic promotion, and other professional activities. 3.2. Benefits of Reprints Reprints provide additional opportunities to increase research visibility, organize published studies into focused collections, and support academic communication. Extending Research Visibility By bringing related research articles together into dedicated volumes, Reprints help increase awareness of specific research topics, Special Issues, Topical Collections, and conference contributions. Creating Structured Research Collections Reprints provide a convenient way to organize published studies into cohesive collections, allowing readers to discover related research more efficiently. Supporting Authors, Editors, and Institutions For authors and editors, Reprints provide a lasting representation of research achievements and editorial contributions. For institutions, customized collections can support educational activities, conferences, and academic outreach. 4. Contact For Open Access Books, researchers interested in editing a book volume or book series or in submitting a monograph proposal, can submit a Proposal Form and refer to the Information for Authors for further details. For Reprints, authors, editors, and institutions interested in creating Reprints can contact articlereprints@mdpi.com for further information and support.

Announcement 16 Jul 2026

Encyclopedia Journal Receives Its First CiteScore of 10.1

We are pleased to share that Encyclopedia has been assigned its first CiteScore of 10.1 in June 2026, following its inclusion in Scopus (Elsevier) in 2025. The CiteScore ranks the journal 20 out of 223 titles (Q1) in Multidisciplinary area, an impressive achievement for a journal running in Volume 6. You can find more statistics on our website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/encyclopedia/stats. The current CiteScores measure the average number of citations within a journal over a four-year window (2022–2025). The Scopus database provides a comprehensive suite of metrics that support informed publishing strategies, research evaluation and enable benchmarking of journal performance. This achievement reflects the collective efforts of our authors, reviewers, and editors. Together we will continue to track the progress of Encyclopedia and its growing impact in multidisciplinary research.

Announcement 04 Jun 2026

See what people are saying about us

Shlomi Agmon

Encyclopedia Video provides potential readers with a tool to quickly understand what the work is about. That is important for casualreaders, whose time is thus spared, and for investedreaders, for whom it makes the decision to say "yes, I want to read the paper" much simpler.

School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel

Ignacio Cea

For the video abstracts, the papers and authors could gain more visibility and increase citations. Also, it means a more diverse and interesting way of communicating research, which is something valuable in itself.

Center for Research, Innovation and Creation, and Faculty of Religious Sciences and Philosophy, Temuco Catholic University

Melvin R. Pete Hayden

Thank the video production crew for making such a wonderful video. The narrations have been significantly added to the video! Congratulations on such an outstanding job of Encyclopedia Video team.

University of Missouri School of Medicine, United States

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