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.

The agreement, signed on 29 January 2008, following extensive negotiations, comes in the midst of significant transformation in Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) publishing, in which alternative business models are being tested by institutes and organizations in the research community.

“The new agreement is broader in scope and reflects the changes in scholarly communication as well as the role of the Max Planck Society while also respecting Springer’s interests as a leading academic publisher,” explained MPS Vice President Kurt Mehlhorn. “We have now reached a mutually beneficial agreement and I would like to thank Springer for the innovative approach and our institutes and scientists for their input and support over the past weeks.”

The new agreement is based on combining the subscription model with open access, and is set up as a 2-year experiment to investigate whether this construct is a more sustainable business model for scholarly publication.

“During the period of the agreement, Springer and the Max Planck Society will evaluate the effects of open access on both authors and users. We highly value the opportunity to further develop exciting new publishing models in close cooperation with a respected institution such as the Max Planck Society,” said Peter Hendriks, Springer’s President of STM Publishing.

Notes to editor:

About the Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (www.mpg.de) is an independent, non-profit research organization in Germany. The Max Planck Institutes perform basic research in the interest of the general public in the natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. In particular, the Max Planck Society takes up new and innovative research areas that are not yet established at the German universities.

About Springer Science+Business Media
Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of scientific and specialist literature. It is the second-largest publisher of journals in the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector, the largest publisher of STM books and the largest business-to-business publisher in the German-language area. The group publishes over 1,700 journals and more than 5,500 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and some 5,000 employees. In 2006, it generated annual sales of around EUR 924 million.

Contacts:
Eric Merkel-Sobotta
Springer Science+Business Media
+49 30 82 787 5431
www.springer.com

Dr. Ralf Schimmer
Max Planck Digital Library
+49 89 38602 255
www.mpg.de