DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/pseyj-9zt76
The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce a new multi-year financial contribution agreement with the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), extending from 2026 through 2028. This commitment underscores our shared dedication to strengthening free, open-source, and community-governed scholarly infrastructure across the global research landscape.
The MPDL, a division of Max Planck Information & Technology, supports researchers at the 85 institutes of the Max Planck Society by providing trusted tools for accessing, publishing, and sharing research. The library plays a vital role in ensuring that scholarly communication remains reliable, transparent, and responsive to community needs. Beyond these direct service responsibilities, the MPDL has been a prominent advocate for the global transition to open access, consistently promoting sustainable approaches to scholarly publishing that prioritize public value and strengthen researchers’ ability to share and advance knowledge.
Ádám Dér, Head of Scientific Information Provision at the MPDL, said of the new agreement:
“We’re proud to support the Public Knowledge Project as part of our commitment to sustainable, community-driven scholarly infrastructure. Our researchers publish regularly in diamond open access journals using Open Journal Systems, and we see the great value it provides to the scholarly community. Supporting OJS is a natural extension of our mission and reflects the principles outlined in our OA2020 Expression of Interest: by backing diverse publishing models, we can strategically redirect resources toward community-driven initiatives that serve researchers and advance knowledge as a public good.”
Juan Pablo Alperin, Scientific Director of the Public Knowledge Project, welcomed the agreement, stating:
“We have been doing some analysis of journals using OJS indexed in OpenAlex, and we can see that every year since 2020 there have been between 80 to 100 papers published in journals using OJS (corresponding to well over 100 authors each year). We know this to be an underestimate (less than 50% of articles in OJS are in OpenAlex). We should have more complete figures next year, as our research is helping to improve the indexing of journals using OJS. MPDL support will help us continue this important work!”
The Max Planck Society’s support contributes directly to the continued development and long-term sustainability of Open Journal Systems (OJS), which remains the most widely used free open source journal publishing platform in the world. This funding also strengthens the broader suite of Public Knowledge Project tools, including Open Monograph Press (OMP) and Open Preprint Systems (OPS), along with educational programs, documentation initiatives, and multilingual resources that enable scholar-led and community-led publishing activities in a wide range of regional and disciplinary contexts. These efforts align with the Public Knowledge Project’s ongoing work to expand multilingualism support and advance global participation in open knowledge production.
Several journals associated with the Max Planck Society use Open Journal Systems as their platform of choice, including the Journal of Japanese Law, the Journal of Chinese Law, and Legal History. MPDL’s continued engagement demonstrates the importance of dependable, community-supported publishing tools for institutions committed to advancing open and equitable research dissemination.
