Max Planck Society

From Eureka

The Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V. (abbreviated MPG), meaning Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, is an independent German non-profit research organization funded by the federal and state governments. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft operates 80 research institutes all over Germany (and in some cases in other European countries), which usually bear the name "Max Planck Institute (MPI) of ...". Their task is basic research in the natural sciences as well as in the social sciences and humanities. ^[1]

In October 2003 the Max Planck Society hosted a conference in Berlin, which culminated in the The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

The Max Planck Society has recently terminated their contract with Springer, due to the latter charging excessively high prices for online content.^[2] Several months later, the Springer and the MPS came to an agreement:

The Max Planck Society and Springer have reached an agreement which allows the scientists working at the 78 Max Planck Institutes and research facilities across Germany access to all content on SpringerLink, and which also includes Open Choice(TM), Springer's open access scheme, for all researchers affiliated with a Max Planck Institute publishing in Springer's journals. Springer's Open Choice(TM) program offers full and immediate open access for articles that are accepted for publication after a process of rigorous peer-review.^[3]

In August 2008, the Society announced that it would pay the publication fees for its members who publish in Public Library of Science journals. As their press release states,

Like many Open Access journals, PLoS journals charge a fee for publication. For papers accepted in PLoS journals after July 1st, 2008, MPS will pay the publication fee directly to PLoS from central funds for all articles where the corresponding author is affiliated with a Max Planck Institute.

"PLoS is a top quality Open Access publisher. We are pleased to support a seminal publication model with this collaboration and thus facilitate publishing for our scientists in this interesting spectrum of titles", said Ralf Schimmer, head of the Department of Scientific Information Provision of the Max Planck Digital Library.^[4]

References

1. ↑ Taken from Wikipedia article.
2. ↑ http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97652
3. ↑ [https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/4198.html Max Planck Society and Springer reach agreement]
4. ↑ Bora Zivkovic, Max Planck Society to support publication charges for PLoS journals, 2008-08-22.