{"id":2229,"date":"2018-12-25T10:34:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T10:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/max-planck-society-sides-with-project-deal-cancels-subscription-to-elsevier-journals\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T10:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T04:58:02","slug":"max-planck-society-sides-with-project-deal-cancels-subscription-to-elsevier-journals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/max-planck-society-sides-with-project-deal-cancels-subscription-to-elsevier-journals","title":{"rendered":"Max Planck Society sides with Project DEAL, cancels subscription to Elsevier journals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Max Planck Society of Germany, one of the largest research organizations in the world, announced<\/a> that it will not renew its subscription with Elsevier as a gesture of its support to open access. The current contract will come to an end on December 31, after which Elsevier\u2019s portfolio of journals will be unavailable to the society\u2019s members. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Germany has been at the forefront of the negotiations with Elsevier<\/a> over high subscription fees and open access agreements. The Max Planck Society is one of the supporters of Project DEAL<\/a>, an initiative commissioned by the Alliance of Science Organizations, which has been negotiating with major publishers for new licensing agreements. Some researchers from the society who served as editors or as editorial board members on Elsevier journals gave up their positions last year<\/a> during the standoff between Elsevier and the German consortium. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Explaining the latest move of the society, President Martin Stratmann said, \u201cDEAL is fully in line with the objectives of the\u00a0OA2020 Initiative, which is strongly supported by the Max Planck Society<\/a>.\u201d The OA2020 Initiative<\/a> is an international alliance formed to accelerate the transition to open access. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Max Planck Society researchers publish about 12,000 articles per year of which about 1500 articles are published in Elsevier periodicals. Referring to this, Ralf Schimmer, Max Planck Library\u2019s Deputy General Manager, stated that: \u201cAs both producers and consumers of the research articles circulated through their journal platforms, we have the leverage to demand a system that meets the needs of our researchers<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Dutch publishing giant Elsevier has expressed \u201cregret\u201d about the society\u2019s decision. Tom Reller, vice-president for global communications at Elsevier, maintains that they are \u201ccommitted to working together with Project Deal to significantly accelerate the transition to open access in Germany.<\/a>\u201d However, the publisher has clarified that the consortium\u2019s demands of free-of-cost access to their entire research publication portfolio cannot be met. \u00a0As a result, the negotiations have come to a standstill. The consortium, however, has had success with striking open access deals with major publishers<\/a> such as Springer Nature and The Royal Society of Chemistry among others. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, the Max Planck Library has indicated that they have made alternative arrangements in preparation of losing access to Elsevier journals from January 1, 2019. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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