Crystals Submission Guide: MDPI Process (2026)

Crystals is not a stronger version of a subscription crystallography journal, and it is not a weaker one. It is a different model. MDPI built it around speed and soundness-based review: the editorial question is whether the crystallography is methodologically sound and within scope, not whether the structure ranks among the most cited determinations of the year. That model shapes everything about how you should prepare the package.

Two consequences matter most. First, the scope line is sharp and stated in the aims: a paper that reports a synthesis and a crystal structure with no characterization of the crystal's properties or applications is out of scope. The structure has to be doing work in the paper, not standing alone. Second, the Editorial Office's technical pre-check checks adherence to the Instructions for Authors, which require a CIF and checkCIF report for newly determined structures, so a complete crystallographic data package matters from the first screen.

A clean structure with a missing CCDC number or unaddressed checkCIF alerts can be returned before a reviewer ever sees it, while a sound, in-scope, property-linked determination moves quickly.

The journal covers a wide span of crystalline material research: the nucleation, growth, processing and characterization of crystalline and liquid crystalline materials, including diffraction methods, minerals and biominerals, metals, cocrystals, and small organic molecules including drugs. That breadth is real, but it does not loosen the scope rule. A pharmaceutical-cocrystal paper still needs a property or stability angle; a metal-organic-framework structure still needs a function tied to the framework.

The core fit for most submissions is the original research article. It works best when the structure determination explains a property, the diffraction data quality is defensible, and the CIF, checkCIF, and CCDC package is complete on first upload.

Ask these questions before you submit:

• does the crystal structure explain or enable a property, or is it reported for its own sake?
• do the R-factors, resolution, and data completeness actually support the structural conclusions?
• are the CIF, checkCIF report, and COD or CCDC deposition number all in the package, with A and B alerts addressed?
• does the paper read as crystallography, or as a materials or synthesis paper with a crystal attached?

If the answers are uncertain, the scope-and-data problem is usually more important than the chemistry problem.

The pre-check editor is answering a short list of questions fast.

On scope, the editor asks whether the manuscript is a crystallography paper and whether the structure is tied to properties or applications. A determination reported in isolation, however clean, is the single clearest pre-check rejection because the aims-and-scope statement names it explicitly. On soundness, the question is whether the diffraction data quality supports the conclusions. The instructions require checkCIF A-level and B-level alerts to be addressed, and unaddressed A-level alerts read as a refinement that was not finished.

On data integrity, the instructions ask for the CIF, the checkCIF report, and a COD or CCDC deposition, and these should be consistent with the numbers in the text. A refinement table in the manuscript that does not match the CIF is an easy problem for an editor or reviewer to spot. On completeness, the instructions require the declarations block and a Data Availability Statement that points to the deposited crystallographic data and any other deposited data. A manuscript missing Author Contributions, Funding, or a Data Availability Statement reads as not ready, even when the crystallography is fine.

Manuscript structure: The Crystals instructions list the research-article structure as Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions (optional), plus the back matter and declarations. Crystals also accepts free-format submission, with no strict formatting requirements, as long as the required sections are present. The journal encourages full experimental and computational detail so results can be reproduced, and it places no restriction on article length. The abstract is the first thing the pre-check editor reads, so the structure-to-property link and the main result both need to be visible there, not buried in the discussion.

Crystallographic data readiness: For any newly determined structure, upload the CIF and the checkCIF report with the supporting information, and address every checkCIF A-level and B-level alert in the text or the response. Put a concise diffraction summary in the main body: crystal data, empirical formula, unit-cell parameters, space group, temperature, radiation, completeness, R1, wR2, and goodness-of-fit. Deposit the crystallographic data before you submit, preferably with the Crystallography Open Database (COD) or alternatively with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, and include the COD or CCDC deposition number in the manuscript; the CCDC usually provides its numbers within three working days.

Property or application characterization: This is the scope gate, not an extra. Tie the structure to a property: thermal analysis, optical or magnetic response, mechanical or plastic behavior, gas sorption for a framework, dissolution or stability for a pharmaceutical crystal, or a structure-property relationship the determination explains. The characterization does not have to be exhaustive, but it has to be present and connected to the structure.

Declarations and data availability: Draft Author Contributions (by initials), Funding, Data Availability (pointing to the COD or CCDC number and any other deposited data), and Conflicts of Interest before you upload. These are not post-acceptance paperwork at MDPI; they are pre-check gates. The system will ask for suggested reviewers, ideally specialist crystallographers in the relevant subfield.

In our pre-submission review work with Crystals manuscripts, three failure patterns generate the most consistent pre-check returns and reviewer friction, and they are testable against your own manuscript before you upload.

Across our crystallography and materials-chemistry pre-submission reviews, the pattern that surprises authors most is that the Crystals pre-check is not a quality filter in the Nature sense; it is a scope-and-data-completeness filter. The manuscripts that get returned fastest are rarely bad crystallography. They are clean determinations whose scope angle, CIF package, or data quality is not ready for a fast, template-driven screen. Manuscripts coming through pre-submission review for Crystals split cleanly along these three lines.

Structure-only papers with no property or application

Pattern 1: a clean determination that stops at the atom positions. The single most common pattern we see is a manuscript that reports a synthesis and a crystal structure and then stops. The CIF is clean, the refinement is fine, the figures are good, and there is no characterization of any property, function, or application.

Crystals states in its aims that this is out of scope, so the pre-check editor returns it fast regardless of how interesting the compound is. The testable version of this failure: read your own results and discussion and ask whether the structure determination explains or enables anything beyond the atom positions.

If the only contribution is "here is a new structure," the paper belongs at a structure-report venue such as Acta Crystallographica Section E, not at Crystals, and the fix is to add the property or application angle (thermal, optical, magnetic, mechanical, sorption, stability) that the determination supports.

Check whether your Crystals structure is tied to a property the journal needs to see →

Incomplete crystallographic data package and unaddressed checkCIF alerts

Pattern 2: a CIF, refinement table, and CCDC number that do not line up. The second pattern is a crystallographic data package that is missing, inconsistent, or unfinished. We repeatedly see manuscripts with no CIF in the supporting information, a refinement table whose R1 and wR2 do not match the deposited CIF, no CCDC deposition number, or a checkCIF report with A-level and B-level alerts left unaddressed.

MDPI and the crystallographer reviewer both treat the CIF, the checkCIF report, and the CCDC deposition as part of the determination, not as optional extras. A single unaddressed A-level alert reads as a refinement that was abandoned early.

The testable version: run checkCIF on your own CIF, address or justify every A and B alert in writing, confirm the refinement statistics in the main text match the CIF exactly, and confirm the CCDC number is in the manuscript before you upload.

Check whether your Crystals CIF and refinement package is complete for pre-check →

Scope drift into pure materials or pure synthesis where the crystal is incidental

Pattern 3: a materials or synthesis paper with a crystal bolted on. The third pattern shows up at both pre-check and review, and it is a manuscript that has drifted out of crystallography.

A pure materials-engineering paper on device performance with a token diffraction pattern, or a synthetic-chemistry paper whose real contribution is a new reaction and where the crystal structure is just confirmation of connectivity, both read as out of scope when the crystallography is incidental rather than central. Crystal Growth & Design and CrystEngComm draw similar lines from the other direction.

The testable version: ask whether removing the crystallographic analysis would gut the paper or barely change it. If the structure is confirmation rather than contribution, the work is a materials or synthesis paper that happens to include a crystal, and the fix is either to reframe the crystallography as the central contribution or to target a journal whose scope matches the real story.

Check whether your Crystals scope reads as crystallography, not materials or synthesis →

Each of these is something you can check against your own draft before you commit the submission. This guide tells you what Crystals editors look for; the review tells you whether YOUR paper passes the pre-check before you upload.

Across the Manusights pre-submission reviews we have run on crystallography and materials-chemistry manuscripts that reported a single-crystal or powder structure, the structure-only scope miss above was the most common reason a determination was at risk before it reached a reviewer. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts. Run a Crystals submission package check to see whether your scope framing, CIF package, and data quality will clear the MDPI pre-check.

The Crystals journal page reports a first decision approximately 12.9 days after submission and acceptance to publication in 2.8 days (median values for papers published in the first half of 2026). Treat these as planning ranges, not promises: manuscripts that need a specialist crystallographer reviewer often run longer because reviewer search takes time in narrow subfields. MDPI publishes no duration for the individual stages below, so the list gives their order, not a calendar.

• Submission via SuSy. The portal accepts the package and the Editorial Office starts its technical pre-check.

• Technical pre-check by the Editorial Office. The Editorial Office checks adherence to the Instructions for Authors and MDPI's research and publication ethics policies, legibility and article type selection, and runs ethics and research integrity screening.

• Editorial pre-check by an Academic Editor. The Academic Editor assesses whether the manuscript fits the journal's scope and meets the expected standards of scientific soundness, and may reject it, request revisions before peer review, or move it to peer review. The fastest returns happen at these two pre-check steps, before any reviewer is invited.

• Peer review. Review is single-anonymized, and at least two review reports are collected for each manuscript that proceeds to peer review. Reviewers who accept an invitation are generally given 7 to 10 days to submit a report, and extensions are common.

• First editorial decision. Once at least two reports are in, the Academic Editor can accept in current form, request minor revision, reconsider after major revision, reject, or ask for an additional reviewer.

• Revision. Authors are generally given five days for a minor revision and ten days for a major revision, and extensions are granted on request. Reviewers asked to look at a revised manuscript are asked to report within three days.

• Acceptance and production. After acceptance the manuscript goes through copy-editing, English editing, author proofreading and publication, with acceptance to publication at the 2.8-day median above, so the slow part of the calendar is reviewer search and revision, not production.

This guide was researched and built from primary sources: the sources we checked include the Crystals Instructions for Authors, the journal's aims-and-scope and editorial-process pages, MDPI's research and publication ethics policy, and Manusights pre-submission review patterns from crystallography and materials-chemistry manuscripts deciding between Crystals and peer crystallography journals. We reviewed and compared current MDPI author guidance with recent Manusights work reviews from authors weighing Crystals, Crystal Growth & Design, CrystEngComm, and Acta Crystallographica E. Last reviewed by the Manusights chemistry editorial team on 2026-10-10.

Source limitations: MDPI can update APC, article-format details, abstract caps, CIF and checkCIF requirements, and editorial-process numbers after this review date, so verify final administrative details against the official Crystals author pages before upload. Median timelines are reported by the journal and vary by subfield. Use this guide for the decision the official instructions cannot answer: whether your scope framing, crystallographic data package, and data quality are ready for the MDPI pre-check.

• Crystals journal profile and metrics
• Crystal Growth & Design submission guide
• Best crystallography and materials journals
• Rejected from CrystEngComm, where next?
• Acta Crystallographica Section E journal metrics

Before you upload, run your manuscript through a Crystals submission readiness check to catch the scope, CIF, and data-quality gaps the MDPI pre-check filters for. It is free, and one upload is enough (/ai-review).