The Max Planck Society has signed-up to the Biochemical Society and Portland Press’ pilot Read & Publish transformative deal. This provides Max Planck researchers with unlimited open access (OA) publishing and ‘read’ access across the entire journal portfolio.

This Read & Publish agreement guarantees all corresponding authors affiliated with the 86 Max Planck Institutes worldwide with OA publishing of their articles in Portland Press journals by default and at no additional author-facing charges.

The three-year deal, 2021-2023, repurposes former library subscription funds to support open access publishing, instead, ensuring a move away from the traditional subscription model towards a sustainable publishing model based on open dissemination of research.

Portland Press publishes seven journals covering different areas within molecular biology and the life sciences; two are fully open access (OA) titles and there are five hybrid journals where content is usually published behind a paywall, with authors either choosing to pay an article publishing charge to have their work published OA or benefitting from default, charge-free OA publishing where their institution has signed up to a Read & Publish pilot.

In the words of Dr Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information Provision at the Max Planck Digital Library, “Through their commitment and thoughtful strategy, the Biochemical Society is paving the way for learned societies toward a sustainable and irreversible transition of scholarly publishing to open access. We are delighted to implement this new agreement in full alignment with the Max Planck Society’s open access transformation strategy and the OA2020 Initiative, for the benefit of our research community and scientists everywhere.”

Read the full press release here.


More info:
Portland Press Open Access Agreement 2021-2023 - Information for authors
Portland Press Open Scholarship Portal
OA2020 Initiative