In accordance with its commitment to ensure public availability of its research output, the Max Planck Society (MPS) has reached an agreement with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) for the central funding of publication fees of MPS scientists without burdening the budget of single Max Planck Institutes.
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.
PLoS is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) to all published articles. Under the CCAL, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in PLoS journals, so long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. Thus, the contents of the seven Open Access journals of PLoS are freely accessible for the reader worldwide via internet.
Collaboration for promoting Open Access
"The Max Planck Society is one of the world's leading research organizations whose researchers have an international reputation for scientific excellence. We are delighted to be working with MPS so that more MPS researchers will be able to publish their work in PLoS journals, and for the broader promotion of Open Access to research literature", said Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing at PLoS.
The research institutes of the Max Planck Society perform basic research in the interest of the general public in the natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. As co-initiator of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) MPS has actively supported change in scientific publishing in accordance with Open Access principles. MPS is advocating the position that research funding should include allocations for making research results freely available.
Further information online:
Max Planck Society: http://www.mpg.de
Max Planck Digital Library: http://www.mpdl.mpg.de
PLoS: http://www.plos.org
PLoS Open Access journals: http://www.plos.org/journals/index.php
Berlin Declaration: http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html
Contact
Dr. Ralf Schimmer
Head of the Department of Scientific Information Provision
Max Planck Digital Library Amalienstraße 33
80799 Munich
Phone: +49 (0)89 38602-256
schimmer@mpdl.mpg.de
www.mpdl.mpg.de
Dr. Christoph Bruch
Head of Open Access Unit
Max Planck Digital Library
Invalidenstraße 35
10115 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 2888677-82
bruch@mpdl.mpg.de
www.mpdl.mpg.de
Donna Okubo
Institutional Relations Manager
PLoS
185 Berry Street, Suite 3100
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: +1 (415) 624-1213
dokubo@plos.org
www.plos.org