Polymers

About Polymers

Polymers: Journal Overview

Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360) is an international, peer-reviewed, fully open access journal of polymer science, published by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland. MDPI's own aims statement defines it as "an international, open access journal of polymer science" that "publishes research papers, communications and review articles" and "provides an interdisciplinary forum for publishing papers which advance the fields of (i) polymerization methods, (ii) theory, simulation, and modeling, (iii) understanding of new physical phenomena, (iv) advances in characterization techniques, and (v) harnessing of self-assembly and biological strategies for producing complex multifunctional structures" (source: MDPI, Polymers Aims & Scope page, accessed October 2026). Founded in 2009, it is one of the youngest journals in this batch of profiles and also, by publication volume and citation indicators, one of the largest: a semimonthly open access title that has grown with the rapid expansion of polymer research in materials science, sustainable materials and biomedical engineering, and that now sits in the first quartile of its Web of Science category (sources: MDPI journal description; OpenAlex source record, accessed October 2026).

Two features of the journal's model shape everything else in this profile. The first is that it is open access in the full, author-pays sense: every article is free for every reader from the day of publication, authors retain copyright, and articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (source: MDPI, Polymers Aims & Scope, Copyright / Open Access statement, accessed October 2026). The second is speed. MDPI reports for this journal a median time to first decision of about 13.4 days and a median of 2.7 days from acceptance to publication, for papers published in the first half of 2026 (source: MDPI journal description, accessed October 2026). A journal that is simultaneously very large, very fast and fully open will attract both heavy use and heavy scrutiny, and an honest profile has to hold both facts at once: the citation and indexing record summarised below is real and checkable, and so is the obligation it places on authors to satisfy themselves, before submitting, that the journal's editorial handling of their own manuscript is as rigorous as they need it to be.

History and Development

Polymers was founded in 2009 — "Since its foundation in 2009, Polymers has developed into an internationally renowned, extremely successful open access journal", in the words of its Editor-in-Chief's message on the journal's pages (source: MDPI, Editor-in-Chief message for Polymers, accessed October 2026). Its launch year matters. It appeared just as open access publishing was moving from experiment to infrastructure, as several large research systems — above all China's — were expanding their polymer and materials output dramatically, and as sustainability was turning polymer science from a mature industrial discipline into an urgent environmental one: biodegradable materials, recycling, bio-based feedstocks and microplastics all became first-order research problems within the journal's first decade. A broad-scope, fast, open journal was well shaped to absorb that growth, and the journal's own trajectory shows it doing so: the coverage in this JournalsWorld record runs from 2009 to the present, and OpenAlex records the source, S123288148, with 32,858 works, all of them open access, and 821,826 citations at checking time (source: OpenAlex API, accessed October 2026). Publication is semimonthly and continuous within each issue, so the journal now operates less like a periodical in the print sense and more like a continuously updated, peer-reviewed record of the field.

The journal's governance follows the MDPI pattern. The Editor-in-Chief listed on the journal's pages is Prof. Dr. Alexander Böker of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research and the University of Potsdam (source: MDPI journal pages, accessed October 2026), supported by a large editorial board and by the many guest editors who run the journal's extensive programme of Special Issues — collections devoted to defined topics, from shape-memory polymers and polymer composites to cellulose research and wound-dressing materials, which account for a substantial share of the journal's content and are a route many authors use to place work in a thematically framed context (sources: MDPI Special Issue pages for the journal, accessed October 2026). MDPI states that it is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), that it applies rigorous peer review together with strict ethical policies, and that submissions are checked with iThenticate against previous publications (source: MDPI Publication Ethics Statement on the journal's Aims & Scope page, accessed October 2026).

Scope and Subject Coverage

The official scope is organised into named sections, and reproducing them is the most accurate way to show what the journal takes. Polymer Chemistry covers novel synthetic and polymerisation methods, reactions and chemistry of polymers, polymerisation mechanisms and kinetics, synthesis of functional polymers and catalytic applications in polymerisation. Polymer Analysis and Characterization covers methodologies, instrumentation and applications for characterising polymers and polymeric materials, molecular weight, size, conformation, structure, properties and behaviour, separation, spectroscopy and scattering techniques, structure–property–processing relationships, and the degradation, ageing and fire retardancy of polymer systems. Polymer Physics and Theory covers theoretical, computational and experimental studies of the physico-chemical properties of polymeric systems, multiscale modelling, constitutive equations, new theories, efficient algorithms and machine learning approaches to structure–property relationships, and experimental preparation and characterisation including new measuring devices. Polymer Processing and Engineering covers shaping, synthesis, transformation, compounding, functionalisation and stabilisation of polymeric materials, including extrusion, injection moulding, thermoforming, fibre spinning, additive manufacturing and 3D printing, among many named processes. Polymer Applications covers applications of polymeric materials from sensors and actuators to biomedical and space engineering, from the macro scale to the nano scale. Biobased and Biodegradable Polymers covers polymers of biological origin, polymers from renewable resources and biodegradable polymers. A circular and green strand covers the design of green polymer systems, mechanical and chemical recycling and energy recovery. Further sections cover Polymer Composites and Nanocomposites, Polymer Networks and Gels, Polymer Membranes and Films, Polymer Fibers, and Smart and Functional Polymers, including stimuli-responsive, shape-memory and self-healing materials (source: MDPI, Polymers Aims & Scope, Scope list, accessed October 2026).

MDPI adds two instructions that tell authors how the scope is meant to be used. Scientists are encouraged to publish experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible, and there is no restriction on the maximum length of papers; and the full experimental and computational details must be provided so that results can be reproduced (source: MDPI Aims statement). The practical consequence is that this is not a letters journal and should not be treated as one: a short, thin report that withholds its methods will not satisfy the journal's stated standard, while a long, fully documented study that a length-capped journal would force its authors to cut is exactly what the format is built for. Work that falls outside polymer science as such — pure organic synthesis with no polymer, materials studies in which the polymer is an incidental binder, or clinical studies of a polymer device with no materials science content — will fit better in the neighbouring MDPI titles and the wider materials literature named below.

Editorial Practice, Peer Review and Speed

MDPI describes the journal's workflow in its author guidance: submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously or be under consideration elsewhere; manuscripts are refereed through a single-anonymised peer-review process; authors may choose an open peer review option under which review reports and author responses are published alongside the article, with reviewers encouraged to sign their reports; a first editorial decision requires at least two review reports, on the assessment of the assigned Academic Editor; and reviewers of revised manuscripts are normally asked to report within a few days (source: MDPI, Polymers Instructions for Authors, accessed October 2026). The journal's reported performance against that workflow is the fastest in this set of profiles: a first decision at a median of about 13.4 days after submission, and acceptance to publication in a median of 2.7 days, for papers published in the first half of 2026 (source: MDPI journal description, accessed October 2026). Authors should read those medians as the journal reads them — as evidence of an efficient office and an available reviewer pool, not as a promise about any individual manuscript — and should note the obvious corollary: a system that decides in a fortnight rewards manuscripts that arrive complete, correctly formatted and with their data in order, and has little slack for manuscripts that need the office to chase missing files, ethics statements or author information.

Metrics and Standing

MDPI reports the journal's Impact Factor as 5.8 for 2025, with a five-year Impact Factor of 6.1 for 2025 (source: MDPI journal description, accessed October 2026) — the same figure carried in this JournalsWorld record's earlier data. The journal is ranked Q1 in the Journal Citation Reports Polymer Science category, and Q1 in CiteScore rankings for Polymers and Plastics and for General Chemistry; MDPI journal material shows a CiteScore of 11.0 alongside the impact factor (sources: MDPI journal description and journal flyer material, accessed October 2026). OpenAlex, resolving the source from ISSN 2073-4360 as S123288148, recorded at checking time 32,858 works, 821,826 citations, a two-year mean citedness of about 7.82 and an h-index of 238 (source: OpenAlex API, accessed October 2026). The h-index of 199 carried in this record's earlier data comes from Scopus-derived summaries; the difference between 199 and 238 is a difference of database coverage and counting date, not of fact about the journal, and it illustrates why this profile attributes every figure to its source.

What do these numbers mean for an author? They establish that Polymers is, by the standard bibliometric measures, a high-volume, highly cited, first-quartile journal in its category, whose articles are heavily read because they are free to read. They do not, by themselves, settle the question an author most needs to answer, which is whether publication here serves their own purpose. For a researcher whose priority is rapid, open, well-indexed dissemination of a complete piece of polymer research — and whose institution or funder mandates open access — the journal is a rational and widely used answer, as its sheer authorship shows. For a researcher whose field rewards the older society and commercial titles, or who needs the slower, scarcer signal those titles send, the same numbers will weigh differently. Both readings are honest; what is not honest is to treat a journal of this size as either negligible or beyond question. Check the journal's recent issues in your own sub-field, read how the papers nearest to yours were handled and presented, and decide on that evidence.

Indexing and Discoverability

MDPI states that the journal is indexed within Scopus, the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) in Web of Science, Ei Compendex, PubMed, PMC, FSTA, CAPlus / SciFinder, Inspec and other databases (source: MDPI journal description, accessed October 2026). That is a strong list for a materials journal: Scopus and SCIE cover the institutional audit requirements most authors face, Ei Compendex reaches the engineering readership, CAPlus / SciFinder reaches chemists through the chemical literature's own infrastructure, and PubMed and PMC coverage matters for the journal's large biomedical and biomaterials output. Combined with full open access — every article readable by anyone with a browser, with no subscription barrier between a search result and the full text — the journal's discoverability is about as complete as the current system provides. This profile does not claim a Directory of Open Access Journals listing for the title, because the DOAJ search API output obtained at checking time returned no record from which such a listing could be verified; authors for whom a DOAJ listing is a formal funder requirement should check the DOAJ directly at the time they submit.

Charges, Licensing and Author Rights

The article processing charge for this open access journal is CHF 2,700 (source: MDPI, Polymers Instructions for Authors and Special Issue pages, accessed October 2026); OpenAlex's price record for the source likewise records CHF 2,700, expressing it as about USD 3,258 in its 2025 data (source: OpenAlex source record, accessed October 2026). Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence and the copyright is retained by the authors, as MDPI's copyright statement for the journal sets out (source: MDPI, Polymers Aims & Scope page). Discounts on the charge exist within the model: members of the journal's affiliated societies — the Belgian Polymer Group, the European Colloid & Interface Society, the National Interuniversity Consortium of Materials Science and Technology and the North American Thermal Analysis Society — receive a discount, as MDPI's journal description states; authors at institutions participating in MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program may also have part or all of the charge covered; and reviewers who provide timely, thorough reports receive vouchers toward the charge on a later publication (sources: MDPI journal description, accessed October 2026). Because charges and agreements change, confirm the current amount and your own institution's arrangement on the journal's pages before submitting, and never pay an invoice that does not come through the journal's own submission system.

How to Submit

Manuscripts are submitted online through MDPI's submission system, reached from the journal site at mdpi.com/journal/polymers, after registering and logging in; the Instructions for Authors page governs preparation, and MDPI offers templates and an optional English editing service (source: MDPI, Polymers Instructions for Authors, accessed October 2026). For a planned paper, a title and a short abstract of about 250 words may be sent to the editorial office for an initial assessment of fit (source: MDPI Special Issue submission information). Authors choosing a Special Issue should follow that issue's own deadline and guest-editor arrangements, listed on its page. The submissions that fare best in a journal run at this speed share three habits: they use the journal's template and reporting conventions from the first draft rather than retrofitting them; they supply the complete experimental and computational detail the aims statement insists on, including characterisation data sufficient to reproduce the work; and they state, in the abstract and introduction, exactly which of the journal's scope strands the paper advances and what is new in it — because at this journal's volume, clarity about fit is a courtesy to editors and referees that is also a competitive advantage.

Similar Journals Worth Comparing

The natural comparison set spans the older subscription titles and the open access field. Polymer (Elsevier) is the long-established general polymer journal — a different title from this one, despite the near-identical name, and one whose record sits separately in this catalogue. Macromolecules (American Chemical Society) is the leading title for polymer chemistry and physics in the ACS portfolio. Polymer Chemistry (Royal Society of Chemistry) covers the synthetic and chemical side. Journal of Applied Polymer Science (Wiley) takes the applied and engineering end of the field. Within MDPI's own polymer and macromolecular cluster, the journal sits alongside Membranes, Gels, Polysaccharides, Textiles, Macromol, Microplastics and Adhesives (source: MDPI journal description), each of which is the more precise home for work that falls squarely in its narrower remit. Comparing recent tables of contents, article lengths and charges across these titles is the fastest route to the right destination for a given manuscript.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ISSN of Polymers? 2073-4360. The journal is published online only, so this single electronic ISSN identifies it. It is a different journal from Elsevier's Polymer, which has its own ISSNs and its own record in this catalogue.

Who publishes Polymers? MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), based in Basel, Switzerland. The editorial office can be reached at polymers@mdpi.com, as listed on the journal's pages.

Who is the Editor-in-Chief of Polymers? Prof. Dr. Alexander Böker of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research and the University of Potsdam, Germany, as listed on MDPI's journal pages at checking time.

What are the metrics of Polymers? MDPI reports an Impact Factor of 5.8 (2025) and a five-year Impact Factor of 6.1 (2025), with Q1 rankings in JCR Polymer Science and in CiteScore categories, and a CiteScore of 11.0 shown in its journal material. OpenAlex (source S123288148) recorded 32,858 works, 821,826 citations and an h-index of 238 at checking time. Each figure belongs to its source; databases differ.

How much does it cost to publish in Polymers? The article processing charge shown on MDPI's pages at checking time is CHF 2,700. Society-member, institutional-agreement and reviewer-voucher discounts may reduce it; confirm the current charge before submitting. Reading the journal is free — it is fully open access.

How fast is publication in Polymers? MDPI reports median values for papers published in the first half of 2026 of about 13.4 days from submission to first decision and 2.7 days from acceptance to publication.

Is Polymers peer-reviewed and indexed? Yes. MDPI describes a single-anonymised peer-review process with an option for open peer review, and lists indexing in Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Ei Compendex, PubMed, PMC, FSTA, CAPlus / SciFinder, Inspec and other databases.

Where do I submit to Polymers? Online through MDPI's submission system, via the journal site at mdpi.com/journal/polymers, following the Instructions for Authors held there.