Rejected from Materials? Where to Submit Next

Materials is broad, but broad does not mean unbounded. The journal has to route papers across materials science and engineering, and an editor still needs to see a clear material, property, processing route, structure, or function.

Common reroutes:

The title and abstract must change when the route changes. A Materials abstract often says "materials-science contribution." A specialty-journal abstract has to name the exact material class and reviewer problem.

This is the category that authors most often mishandle. A rejection for weak controls, incomplete characterization, or unclear reproducibility is not solved by moving to another MDPI title or another open-access journal.

Before resubmitting, run the claim-evidence match:

If the missing evidence is central, add it. If you cannot add it, narrow the claim and choose a journal that accepts a more limited contribution.

MDPI workflows can make transfer offers efficient, but a transfer is only useful when it improves fit.

Accept the transfer when the new journal explains the paper better than Materials did. Decline when the transfer only keeps the manuscript inside the same publisher without solving the fit problem.

Appeals are rarely the best use of time.

If your appeal would mostly argue that the paper is important, do not appeal. Make the evidence and fit clearer, then resubmit elsewhere.

Do not only reformat. Rejection recovery is a content and evidence problem first.

In our pre-submission review work with Materials-targeted and adjacent materials-science manuscripts, the post-rejection problem is usually visible before the editor reads far into the paper. The rejected draft often has one of four repairable mismatches.

Pattern 1: the manuscript is material-adjacent, not materials-centered. Authors describe a device, catalytic process, environmental treatment, biomedical application, or engineering workflow, but the material itself is not the scientific object. Materials editors can see this from the title and first figure. The repair is either to rebuild the paper around a structure-property-processing question or move it to the applied field that actually owns the result.

Pattern 2: characterization supports existence, not the claim. A paper may show XRD, SEM, FTIR, DSC, TGA, tensile curves, or electrochemical plots, but only enough to prove a material was made. The claimed advance often needs a stronger comparator, repeatability evidence, uncertainty, aging/stability data, or failure-mode analysis. Reviewers reject because the evidence stack is descriptive while the conclusion is causal.

Pattern 3: speed-driven MDPI routing hides an unfinished package. Materials' fast workflow and free-format initial submission can make authors underprepare the methods, supplementary data, cover letter, and data statement. The editorial office can tolerate flexible formatting. It cannot compensate for missing controls, vague processing conditions, or a cover letter that does not explain fit.

Pattern 4: the transfer offer is treated as a verdict. A transfer suggestion can be useful, but it is not a scientific diagnosis. We see authors accept a transfer before deciding whether the material class, reviewer pool, and claim level genuinely fit the new journal. The better order is diagnosis first, transfer second.

The practical pattern across these four cases is that the failed component is usually specific: abstract center, Figure 1 evidence, methods reproducibility, supplementary data, or cover-letter fit. Once that component is named, the next submission becomes much less speculative. A rejected Materials paper can still be publishable, but the repair should make the materials contribution easier to audit than it was in the rejected version.

The useful recovery question is not "what journal is easier than Materials?" It is "what part of the Materials package failed, and which journal rewards the repaired version?"

This page was built from the current MDPI Materials journal page, Materials instructions for authors, Materials APC page, MDPI author information, the existing Manusights Materials submission guide, and adjacent Manusights Materials cluster pages. Official MDPI sources own the current upload rules, APC, journal statistics, cover-letter requirement, and reproducibility expectations. Manusights interpretation owns the post-rejection routing logic.

For first-submission mechanics, use the Materials submission guide, and for the broader journal profile use the Materials journal overview. For cover-letter framing, use the Materials cover letter guide. This page owns the separate post-rejection question: repair, transfer, appeal, or retarget.

Two concrete official details matter when you are deciding whether to try Materials again or move on: verify the current Editors-in-Chief on the journal's editorial-team page before quoting any name in a cover letter, and use the MDPI SuSy system at https://susy.mdpi.com/ for the live upload route. If your appeal or resubmission case cannot explain fit to that journal and workflow, it is probably a retargeting problem.