The Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry are among the leading proponents of open access to scientific publications and scholarly knowledge. Since the year 2003, the Max Planck Society is hosting and supporting a series of international meetings, the “Berlin Open Access Conferences”, which are dedicated to the promotion of open access and yielded some of the key statements and developments in the global move to open access.
The “Mission Statement at the Berlin 11 Open Access Conference” (2013) outlined clear perspectives and urged research organisations to develop a viable, coordinated and transparent strategy for an open access environment that returns control of scholarly publishing to the scholars (https://openaccess.mpg.de/mission-statement_en).
The „Berlin 12 Open Access Conference“ (2015) led to the international initiative „Open Access 2020“ (OA2020), which builds on the „OA2020 Expression of Interest“ (EoI) in the „Large-scale Implementation of Open Access to Scholarly Journals“ and aims to transform existing scholarly journals from subscription to open access publishing in a smooth, swift and scholarly oriented way.
Since its release in 2016, the OA2020 EoI has already been signed by over 150 scholarly organizations - including the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany, the European University Association representing more than 800 universities in 47 countries and other major organizations in Europe, Asia, and the Americas - and continues to receive swiftly growing global support.
MPIC scientists have been actively involved in this development from the beginning, and U. Pöschl has co-chaired the latest Berlin Open Access Conferences, triggered the OA2020 initiative, led the drafting of the OA2020 EoI, and continues to serve as co-chair for these and other open access initiatives of the Max Planck Society.
Already before the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, the MPIC and its researchers were pioneers in the foundation and successful development of innovative forms of open access publishing. Since the year 2001, scientists from the MPIC have led the way in the conception, development, and appliction of interactive open access publishing with public peer review, which is now also spreading across other fields in the sciences and humanities.
In fact, some of the very first and most successful open access journals have been founded and grown to top visibility and scientific reputation under the aegis of researchers at the MPIC: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) by U. Pöschl et al. since 2001; Biogeosciences (BG) by J. Kesselmeier et al. since 2004; Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT) by T. Wagner et al. since 2008; and Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) by R. Sander et al. since 2008.
Beyond the successful engagement of individual scientists in the founding, operation, and promotion of open access journals and initiatives, the MPIC increased the open access share of its publications at earlier times and higher rates than averaged over the Max Planck Society and the global scientific community. Thanks to the OA2020 initiative and its practical implementation through the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) and the German DEAL Consortium, over 90% of the MPIC and MPG publication output are now available in open access with copyrights retained by authors and usage rights shared with the world. Beyond open access and open peer review, the MPIC and its members continue to serve as pacemakers for open science for the benefit of scientific and societal progress.
