Is Your Paper Ready for Sensors? MDPI's Cross-Disciplinary Sensing Journal
Sensors (MDPI) publishes 8,000+ papers yearly across all sensing technologies with an IF of 4 and 40-45% acceptance. This guide covers scope, special issues, and when Sensors fits your work.
Next step
Choose the next useful decision step first.
Use the guide or checklist that matches this page's intent before you ask for a manuscript-level diagnostic.
Quick answer: Your paper is ready for Sensors (MDPI) when the work is an applied, cross-disciplinary sensing contribution with real validation (calibration, interference testing, and field or biological-matrix data where the claim requires it).
It is a borderline fit when the engineering is solid but the characterization is incomplete, and a poor fit when the real novelty is a new sensing mechanism (try Sensors and Actuators B or ACS Sensors) or a machine-learning algorithm on an existing dataset. Few journals cast a wider net than Sensors, and that breadth is exactly why mis-targeting is common.
A Sensors readiness check tests scope fit and characterization completeness before you submit. The rest of this guide gives you the numbers, a readiness matrix, and the failure patterns that get papers desk-rejected.
Sensors at a glance
Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220) is an open-access journal published by MDPI, covering all sensing technologies from chemical and biological sensors to physical sensors, remote sensing, IoT, and signal processing. It publishes over 8,000 papers per year, carries an impact factor of 4, and charges an APC of approximately $2,600. Review turnaround is fast: 2-4 weeks for a first decision.
Metric | Value |
|---|---|
JIF (2025 JCR) | 4 |
CiteScore (2024) | ~7.0 |
Publisher | MDPI (Basel, Switzerland) |
Open Access | Fully OA (CC BY 4.0) |
APC | ~$2,600 |
Annual publications | 8,000+ |
Acceptance rate | ~40-45% |
Typical first decision | 2-4 weeks |
Peer review model | Single-blind |
Indexed in | Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Ei Compendex |
Article types | Article, Review, Communication, Letter |
Manuscript length | No hard cap (Articles ~4,000-10,000 words); abstract 200 words |
Sensors readiness matrix
Locate your manuscript before you submit. Each dimension has a ready signal and a risk signal you can test against your draft.
Dimension | What Sensors expects | Ready signal | Risk signal |
|---|---|---|---|
Scope fit | An applied, cross-disciplinary sensing contribution | The application is the contribution | Real novelty is a mechanism or an algorithm |
Methods | Analytical figures of merit reported | Sensitivity, selectivity, stability characterized | Limit-of-detection only, no interference test |
Evidence and novelty | Validation under realistic conditions | Field data, or biological-matrix data | Tested only in buffer or spiked tap water |
Package | Complete figures, calibration, data statement | Calibration curves + data availability statement | Power/latency data missing for wearable/IoT |
Risk and decision | Right venue vs Sens. Actuators B / ACS Sensors | Applied + fast-OA fit confirmed | Resubmitted from a higher tier without revision |
Source: MDPI Sensors instructions for authors, accessed June 2026.
Those numbers tell you two things right away. First, Sensors isn't selective in the way that Biosensors and Bioelectronics or IEEE Sensors Journal are. It doesn't reject 70% of submissions at the desk. Second, the sheer volume means your paper won't sit in editorial limbo for months. MDPI's operational model is built around speed.
What Sensors actually publishes
The scope statement says "all aspects of the science and technology of sensors and biosensors," which is about as broad as a journal scope can get. In practice, here's what fills the pages:
- Chemical sensors and biosensors, electrochemical, optical, piezoelectric, and immunosensor platforms
- Physical sensors, temperature, pressure, strain, acceleration, displacement, and magnetic field sensors
- Gas sensors, metal oxide, conducting polymer, and optical gas sensing
- MEMS and NEMS, microfabricated sensor devices and their integration
- Remote sensing, satellite imagery, LiDAR, SAR, and earth observation applications
- IoT and networked sensing, wireless sensor networks, edge computing for sensor data, smart buildings
- Wearable sensors, health monitoring, motion tracking, textile-integrated sensing
- Signal processing, algorithms, machine learning on sensor data, data fusion
That list isn't exhaustive. I've seen papers on acoustic emission monitoring of concrete structures, SERS-based detection of pesticides, and deep learning for radar target recognition all published within the same month. The editorial team doesn't draw hard boundaries between these communities, which is both Sensors' strength and its weakness.
The MDPI factor: what you should know
You can't evaluate Sensors without talking about MDPI. The publisher has grown from a small open-access outfit to one of the world's largest journal publishers by volume. That growth has generated real controversy, and you should be aware of it.
MDPI journals operate on a model that prioritizes speed and volume. The editorial process is heavily systematized. Reviewers are given tight deadlines (often 10 days for a first review). Editors are typically academic guest editors, not full-time professionals. Papers move through the pipeline faster than at almost any other publisher.
This model has clear advantages. You won't wait six months for a decision. The online-first publication is genuinely fast. And the open-access format means your paper is immediately available worldwide.
But there are trade-offs. Some researchers view MDPI journals with skepticism. You'll find heated debates on academic Twitter and PubPreview about whether MDPI's model prioritizes quantity over quality. Some institutions don't count MDPI publications for tenure or promotion. Others treat them the same as any indexed journal.
Here's my honest take: Sensors isn't a predatory journal. It's indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, it has a legitimate JIF, and plenty of good applied research appears there. But it also publishes some papers that wouldn't survive review at more selective venues. Your paper will be judged on its own merits, not on where it appeared, but you should know that not everyone in every department views MDPI journals the same way.
Special issues: the dominant publishing pathway
This is something many first-time Sensors authors don't realize. A large fraction of papers in Sensors, I'd estimate well over half, are published through special issues rather than as regular submissions. MDPI actively solicits guest editors to organize themed collections, and those guest editors then invite researchers to submit.
What does this mean for you?
If you've received an invitation to submit to a Sensors special issue, that's not the same as the unsolicited "submit your paper" emails that MDPI also sends. Special issue invitations usually come from a guest editor who knows your work. The review process for special issue papers is the same as for regular submissions, but the acceptance rate tends to be slightly higher because the pool of authors is more targeted.
If you're submitting a regular manuscript (not to a special issue), your paper goes through the standard editorial office. It'll be assigned to an academic editor and sent to reviewers. The process works, but you should know that regular submissions are a smaller share of the journal's overall output than you might expect.
One thing to watch out for: guest editors vary enormously in how carefully they manage their special issues. Some run a tight ship with demanding reviewers. Others are more permissive. You can't control this, but you can look at the guest editor's own publication record and the quality of papers already published in that special issue to get a sense of what you're working with.
How Sensors compares to competing journals
This is where the decision gets real. Sensors occupies a specific niche, and understanding how it sits relative to alternatives will help you decide if it's the right target.
Factor | Sensors (MDPI) | Sensors and Actuators B | Biosensors and Bioelectronics | IEEE Sensors Journal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
JIF | 4 | ~7.7 | ~11.8 | ~4.5 |
Publisher | MDPI | Elsevier | Elsevier | IEEE |
Open access | Fully OA | Hybrid | Hybrid | Hybrid |
APC | ~$2,600 | ~$3,500 (OA option) | ~$3,800 (OA option) | ~$2,095 (OA option) |
Scope | All sensing | Chemical sensors | Biosensors | Physical/electronic sensors |
Review speed | 2-4 weeks | 6-12 weeks | 8-16 weeks | 8-16 weeks |
Annual papers | 8,000+ | ~1,200 | ~1,500 | ~2,000 |
Acceptance rate | 40-45% | ~25-30% | ~20-25% | ~30-35% |
Sensors vs. Sensors and Actuators B: If your work is on chemical or gas sensors with strong analytical performance, Sensors and Actuators B is the higher-prestige venue. It carries more than double the JIF, and the editorial board is more selective about novelty. The trade-off is speed: you'll wait months, not weeks. If your paper demonstrates a solid but incremental improvement on a known sensing platform, Sensors is more realistic.
If you've got a genuinely new transduction mechanism or a dramatic improvement in limit of detection, aim for Sensors and Actuators B first.
Sensors vs. Biosensors and Bioelectronics: This isn't really a close comparison in terms of selectivity. Biosensors and Bioelectronics is a top-tier journal in the biosensing field, with an IF above 10. It wants papers that push the state of the art in detection limits, selectivity, or clinical translation. If your biosensor paper is applied but doesn't break new ground in the sensing mechanism itself, Sensors is a more natural fit.
Sensors vs. IEEE Sensors Journal: IEEE Sensors Journal covers physical, electronic, and MEMS sensors with a stronger engineering focus. It's the better choice if your work is primarily about sensor design, fabrication, or electronic readout circuits. If your paper sits at the intersection of sensing and applications (IoT, health monitoring, environmental monitoring), Sensors' broader scope may work better. IEEE Sensors also doesn't require an APC for non-OA publication, which matters if you're working without grant funding.
When Sensors is the right choice
Let's be direct about this. Sensors is a good fit in these situations:
Your work is applied and cross-disciplinary. You've built a wearable sensor system for monitoring gait in Parkinson's patients. The engineering is solid, the validation is real, but the novelty isn't in the sensing mechanism, it's in the application. The engineering journals won't find it exciting enough because the transducer isn't new. The clinical journals won't publish it because it's a prototype, not a clinical trial. Sensors will take this paper seriously.
You need fast turnaround. Your PhD student is defending in three months and needs a published paper. Your grant report is due and you need a peer-reviewed publication to list. Sensors' 2-4 week review and 6-10 week total publication time is genuinely hard to beat.
You want open access without the hassle. Sensors is fully OA under CC BY 4.0. If your funder requires open access and you don't want to deal with the hybrid OA process at Elsevier or Springer, Sensors is straightforward.
Your paper is solid but not field-changing. I know that sounds harsh, but it's worth saying plainly. Not every paper changes its field. A well-executed study that applies known sensing techniques to a new analyte, a new environment, or a new population has real value. Sensors publishes this kind of work regularly, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Readiness check
Run the scan to check your manuscript against this list.
See your readiness score, top issues, and journal-fit signals in 1-2 minutes.
Where to Submit Instead: Sister-Journal Routing
Your paper has genuine novelty in the sensing mechanism. If you've developed a new transduction principle, a new material platform, or a detection method that's an order of magnitude better than existing approaches, you're leaving citations and prestige on the table by publishing in Sensors. Try Sensors and Actuators B, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, ACS Sensors, or Analytical Chemistry first.
Your institution treats MDPI publications differently. Some tenure committees, especially in Europe and parts of Asia, have started questioning MDPI journals during evaluations. If you're going up for tenure soon, ask a senior colleague in your department how Sensors is perceived before committing.
Your paper is primarily a machine learning study. Sensors gets a lot of submissions where the "sensor" part is an existing dataset and the actual contribution is a classification algorithm. The journal publishes these, but they often don't get cited because the ML community reads other venues and the sensing community doesn't find the ML contribution novel. If your paper is really about the algorithm, consider IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement or Pattern Recognition.
Common Mistakes and Desk-Rejection Patterns
Even with a 40-45% acceptance rate, plenty of papers get rejected. Here's what I've seen go wrong:
Review papers that aren't systematic. Sensors publishes reviews, but reviewers expect either a systematic review with explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria or a critical review that synthesizes the field in a genuinely new way. "Here are 150 papers about gas sensors, organized by sensing material" isn't enough. You need a thesis.
Application papers with no validation. You've attached a sensor to something and collected data. Great. But if you haven't validated the measurements against a reference method, or if your sample size is five, reviewers will push back. Even in a high-volume journal, "we measured something" isn't a paper.
Papers that don't fit any section. Sensors is divided into sections (Chemical Sensors, Biosensors, Physical Sensors, Remote Sensing, etc.). If your paper doesn't clearly fit into any section, the editorial office may struggle to find appropriate reviewers. Make it easy for them: state explicitly in your cover letter which section best fits your work.
Resubmissions from higher-tier rejections without revision. Editors can tell when a paper has been rejected elsewhere and submitted to Sensors without changes. If Sensors and Actuators B or ACS Sensors rejected your paper and you're resubmitting to Sensors, address the previous reviewers' concerns first. The reviewer pool overlaps more than you'd think.
Practical submission advice
Pick the right section. When you submit, you'll choose a section. This determines which editors and reviewers see your paper. If your biosensor paper goes to the Physical Sensors section by mistake, you'll get reviewers who don't understand your work. Take two minutes to look at the section descriptions and choose carefully.
Format for MDPI standards. MDPI has its own LaTeX and Word templates. They're strict about formatting, and papers that don't follow the template get sent back for reformatting before review even starts. Download the template from the MDPI website and use it from the beginning.
Consider suggesting reviewers. Sensors handles thousands of papers, and the editorial office sometimes struggles to find reviewers quickly. Suggesting 3-4 qualified reviewers (who aren't your collaborators) can speed up the process.
Budget for the APC. At ~$2,600, the APC isn't trivial. Check whether your institution has an MDPI agreement that provides a discount. Some universities have institutional memberships that reduce the fee. Don't submit and then discover you can't pay.
A Sensors manuscript fit check at this stage can identify scope mismatches and common structural issues before you finalize your submission.
Before you submit
Run through this quick check:
- Does your paper report original experimental or computational results (not just a literature survey)?
- Is the sensing component real, not just a dataset reanalysis?
- Have you validated your measurements against an established reference?
- Does the paper fit clearly into one of Sensors' defined sections?
- Can you pay the ~$2,600 APC?
- Have you checked that a higher-impact venue isn't more appropriate for your level of novelty?
If you're unsure whether the framing and positioning of your manuscript match what Sensors editors expect, an Sensors scope and framing check can flag scope mismatches and structural issues before you submit. That's especially useful if you're targeting a specific special issue and need to make sure your paper fits the collection's theme.
Decision risks before submitting to Sensors
For manuscripts targeting Sensors (MDPI), five patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections worth knowing before submission.
Sensor paper without calibration data or interference testing. In our experience, many rejected Sensors manuscripts report detection performance without calibration data or interference testing. The Sensors author guidelines specify that analytical figures of merit must include sensitivity, selectivity against interferents, and stability under realistic measurement conditions. Editors consistently return papers that present only limit-of-detection results without addressing how the sensor performs in the presence of competing species.
Wearable or IoT sensor paper without power consumption and communication latency data. In our experience, manuscripts targeting wearable health monitoring or internet-of-things applications frequently omit power budget and real-time performance data. Editors consistently treat these as incompletely characterized: a wearable sensor paper without a power consumption figure cannot be evaluated for practical deployment feasibility.
Environmental sensor paper tested only under laboratory conditions. In our experience, papers claiming environmental monitoring applications often lack data from real-world deployment or at least a representative complex sample. Editors consistently flag the absence of field validation data as a scope-fit problem: papers that test only in deionized or spiked tap water cannot support claims about environmental monitoring performance.
Biosensor paper that reports detection in buffer solution without validation in biological matrices. In our experience, biosensor manuscripts frequently claim clinical or diagnostic relevance while reporting detection only in buffer. Editors consistently treat papers without validation in blood, urine, saliva, or other relevant biological matrices as proof-of-concept submissions rather than papers ready for the journal's applied scope.
Machine learning-based sensor fusion paper without feature selection justification or model interpretability. In our experience, manuscripts in this category often report accuracy metrics without explaining why the selected features are physically meaningful. Editors consistently object to ML-augmented sensing papers that optimize performance without connecting the learned representations back to the underlying sensing physics or chemistry.
SciRev community data for Sensors confirms the review timeline and rejection patterns documented above.
Before submitting to Sensors, a Sensors submission readiness check identifies whether your characterization data, validation approach, and application framing meet Sensors' editorial bar before you commit to the submission.
Submit If
- The work is an applied, cross-disciplinary sensing contribution and you can pass every checklist item without qualifying language
- Analytical figures of merit are reported: sensitivity, selectivity against interferents, and stability under realistic conditions
- Validation matches the claim: field data for environmental sensors, biological-matrix data for biosensors, power and latency data for wearable/IoT
- The data package is complete (calibration curves, data availability statement) and figures are publication-quality
- You can articulate why Sensors (applied, fast OA) is the right venue rather than a mechanism-focused journal
Think Twice If
- The real novelty is a new transduction principle or material platform (Sensors and Actuators B, ACS Sensors, or Biosensors and Bioelectronics fit better)
- The paper is primarily a machine-learning study on an existing dataset, with the "sensor" part incidental
- A biosensor claims diagnostic relevance but reports detection only in buffer, not blood, urine, or saliva
- A wearable or IoT paper omits power-consumption and real-time latency data
- You are resubmitting from a higher-tier rejection without addressing the previous reviewers' concerns
Last verified April 2026 against MDPI author guidelines and Clarivate JCR 2025 data (JIF 4, JCI 0.83, Q2, rank 24/79 in Instruments & Instrumentation).
For a manuscript-specific signal before you submit, run a free readiness scan.
If the manuscript is already in the portal, use the Sensors Under Review status guide to interpret the current status before sending a follow-up email.
Frequently asked questions
Sensors is commonly estimated to accept about 40-45% of submissions. The rate reflects its broad scope and high volume.
First decisions typically arrive in 2-4 weeks. Total time to publication is often 6-10 weeks.
Sensors is indexed in WoS, Scopus, and PubMed with an IF of 4 (JCR 2025). It is well-suited for applied sensing research across many disciplines.
The APC is approximately $2,600.
Sensors covers chemical sensors, biosensors, physical sensors, gas sensors, optical sensors, MEMS, remote sensing, IoT sensing, wearable sensors, and signal processing for sensor data.
Sources
Before you upload
Choose the next useful decision step first.
Move from this article into the next decision-support step. The scan works best once the journal and submission plan are clearer.
Use the scan once the manuscript and target journal are concrete enough to evaluate.
Anthropic Privacy Partner. Zero-retention manuscript processing.