Brill and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Sign Agreement on Digital Concordances

Brill, the international scholarly publisher, has signed an agreement with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) to cooperate on digital concordances, a new publication format that draws upon historical practices of concordances, not only to publish the results of research in the customary format such as essays, but also to present the data on which that research is based in a reusable manner. The goal of this cooperation is to investigate how the digital concordance format can be created and maintained sustainably from a technical, organizational and business perspective.

Scholars at MPIWG have rich experience in conducting historical research that generates digital datasets curated from analogue and digital primary sources and are looking for innovative ways to publish their research outputs in a format that integrates the datasets with peer-reviewed essays on the data curation process and key research findings. In this format, technical interfaces allow readers to refer from the data back to the primary sources and to utilise the datasets themselves for their own research purposes. Brill has extensive experience in digital publishing and welcomes this opportunity to work together with MPIWG to expand its publishing services for the research communities focused on Digital Humanities.

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Schäfer, Managing Director of MPIWG, said: "Brill has over 300 years of unparalleled experience in publishing high-end scholarly products. With its international portfolio and innovative approach to digital publishing, Brill is the ideal publishing partner for this pilot. We at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science look forward to a fruitful cooperation on digital publication formats that centre discoverable and reusable research data generated from Digital Humanities projects."

Dr. Jasmin Lange, Chief Publishing Officer at Brill, commented: "In the Humanities we are still at the beginning of publishing datasets in a structured and reusable way. With this project we are at the frontier of this important development. We will focus not only on technical standards but also on user expectations and use cases. Our team is excited about the cooperation with researchers from the MPIWG with whom we share the curiosity to turn a traditional format like a concordance into something entirely new."

For more information on this collaboration between Brill and MPIWG, contact Brill's Senior Acquisitions Editor Asian Studies, Dr. Qin Higley, Higley@brill.com.

About MPIWG
Founded in 1994, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany, is one of the more than 80 research institutes administered by the Max Planck Society. It is dedicated to the study of the history of science and aims to understand scientific thinking and practice as historical phenomena, with projects spanning globally and across all eras of human history. For further information, please visit https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/.

About Brill
Founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands, Brill is a leading international academic publisher in Middle East and Islamic Studies, Asian Studies, Classical Studies, History, Biblical and Religious Studies, Languages & Linguistics, Literature & Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Biology, Education, Social Sciences and International Law. With offices in Leiden (NL), Boston (US), Paderborn (GER), Singapore (SG) and Beijing (CN), Brill today publishes over 300 journals and close to 1,400 new books and reference works each year, available in print and online. Brill also markets a large number of primary source research collections and databases. The company's key customers are academic and research institutions, libraries, and scholars. Brill is a publicly traded company and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam NV. For further information, please visit Brill.com.