The Finnish Publication forum panel chairs have decided to act as science police and downgrade Sustainability journal's quality classification from 1 to 0 from the beginning of 2023.

Good or bad?

On one hand this excellent news. To be honest, from author's and reviewer's point of view Sustainability and many other MDPI journals are money making machines publishing very poor papers. One challenge is the number of papers. For example, Sustainability has published over 56 000 articles since 2009 which is absurd. I have experience in publishing Sustainability and Education Sciences and reviewed many manuscripts for multiple MDPI journals.
Image: Two highest publishing journals of MDPI.
JUFO 1 class journals demand reliable peer-review process. Sustainability doesn't apply that in all papers. I have recommended decline for several papers that were published anyway. Too much pressure to make money I guess or my recommendations were just poor.

On the other hand, Sustainability and all MDPI journals have published extremely solid papers. As an author I have enjoyed fast review processes which sometimes lasts many months in other science education journals. As a reviewer I would like to have three weeks time to accomplish the task. It gives me a little security and freedom if I am sick or have much teaching and funding applications to do. In MDPI the review time is often 7 to 10 days, but of course you can ask extensions.

The future

Because of the JUFO 0, I can't publish in Sustainability anymore. However, I have no problem with the MDPI in general. I hope that MDPI's Chemistry will continue in the JUFO 1 level because I am preparing a manuscript to be submitted to it. I am interested in Chemistry because they have listed chemistry education as one topic in their scope. Chemistry education research field desperately needs new publication channels.

Further reading

Publication Forum. (30.9.2022). Sustainability to level 0 in 2023. https://julkaisufoorumi.fi/en/news/sustainability-level-0-2023