Renaming of Hallervorden–Spatz disease: the second man behind the name of the disease

Hallervorden–Spatz disease (HSD) has been recently renamed to pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN) and neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA), mainly due to the unethical behavior of Julius Hallervorden in the National Socialist (NS) euthanasia program of the Nazi Third Reich. The role of the second name giver in the NS euthanasia program is less clear. Hugo Spatz was the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch during World War II (WWII), renamed to Max Planck Institute after 1945. After the war, he headed the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main. The present study investigates the potential involvement of Hugo Spatz in the NS euthanasia program. In the present study, we compared a list of euthanasia victims from the German Federal Archive Berlin (30.146 cases published after the reunification of Germany, BArch R179) with the files of the collection of specimens from 1940 until 1945 of Hugo Spatz as listed in the Archive of the Max Planck Society Berlin-Dahlem (n = 305). Furthermore, the old term HSD and the new terms PKAN and NBIA were systematically searched in PubMed from 1946, through January 2019 to evaluate the renaming process from HSD to PKAN/NBIA. Following Hugo Spatz’s death in 1969 growing evidence indicated that he may have taken part in the NS euthanasia program. This study identifies 4 euthanized victims in the patient files of Hugo Spatz from 1940 to 1945, suggesting involvement of Hugo Spatz in the NS euthanasia program. This further strengthens the argument that the former HSD should be exclusively referred to as PKAN or NBIA.

Hubert Simon (Jim) Markl. 17 August 1938—8 January 2015

Hubert (Jim) Markl was a zoologist and animal behavioural physiologist; but, beyond that, he was arguably the most influential figure in European science policy and the key person influencing the relationship between science and society in Germany. He uniquely served as president of both the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation) and the Max Planck Gesellschaft. In these roles he was an outstanding and bold advocate for scientific research in Germany and throughout Europe, and his astute judgement, cogency and intellectual rigour commanded the respect of all his peers. His occupancy of the two most senior positions in German science policy followed from his earlier substantial scientific contributions to the emerging discipline of behavioural ecology, as well as his books on science, society and culture. Markl was a leading spokesperson in Germany on contested issues at the interface between science and society; for example, he was an eloquent advocate of stem cell research, speaking out against the political mainstream. He also strove to expose fully, and acknowledge, the Max Planck Society's responsibility for atrocities committed by the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft scientists during the Nazi era; Markl will be remembered as the president who oversaw a historical analysis of the involvement of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (the scientific society that legally preceded the Max Planck Gesellschaft), and in 2001 he apologized in the name of the Max Planck Society for the expulsion and deaths of Jewish scientists.

The Vienna Protocol

The "Vienna Protocol" was authored by Rabbi Joseph Polak, the Chief Justice of the Rabbinical Court of Massachusetts, with input from Prof. Michael Grodin of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University. The "Vienna Protocol" initially arose from a question posed by Prof. Susan Mackinnon of Washington University and her associate Andrew Yee with respect to the use of paintings from the Pernkopf Atlas of Human Anatomy, many of which are believed to be based on the dissection of victims of Nazi terror in Vienna. Questions about the use of these images and of how one deals, in Jewish tradition, with human remains of Nazi victims, have not been addressed. The "Vienna Protocol" is a unique and unprecedented religious and ethical analysis in the tradition of a Rabbinical "Responsum." While it was undertaken from a Jewish religious and ethical perspective, it is, in fact, a universal document that can be considered as a model for people of other faiths and beliefs. Image credit for the 1930s photo showing Nazi flags flying on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics: Archives of the Max Planck Society, Berlin. Used with permission.

Open access uptake in Germany 2010–2018: adoption in a diverse research landscape

This study investigates the development of open access (OA) to journal articles from authors affiliated with German universities and non-university research institutions in the period 2010–2018. Beyond determining the overall share of openly available articles, a systematic classification of distinct categories of OA publishing allowed us to identify different patterns of adoption of OA. Taking into account the particularities of the German research landscape, variations in terms of productivity, OA uptake and approaches to OA are examined at the meso-level and possible explanations are discussed. The development of the OA uptake is analysed for the different research sectors in Germany (universities, non-university research institutes of the Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association, and government research agencies). Combining several data sources (incl. Web of Science, Unpaywall, an authority file of standardised German affiliation information, the ISSN-Gold-OA 3.0 list, and OpenDOAR), the study confirms the growth of the OA share mirroring the international trend reported in related studies. We found that 45% of all considered articles during the observed period were openly available at the time of analysis. Our findings show that subject-specific repositories are the most prevalent type of OA. However, the percentages for publication in fully OA journals and OA via institutional repositories show similarly steep increases. Enabling data-driven decision-making regarding the implementation of OA in Germany at the institutional level, the results of this study furthermore can serve as a baseline to assess the impact recent transformative agreements with major publishers will likely have on scholarly communication.

Where Do Early Career Researchers Stand on Open Science Practices? A Survey Within the Max Planck Society

Open science (OS) is of paramount importance for the improvement of science worldwide and across research fields. Recent years have witnessed a transition toward open and transparent scientific practices, but there is still a long way to go. Early career researchers (ECRs) are of crucial relevance in the process of steering toward the standardization of OS practices, as they will become the future decision makers of the institutional change that necessarily accompanies this transition. Thus, it is imperative to gain insight into where ECRs stand on OS practices. Under this premise, the Open Science group of the Max Planck PhDnet designed and conducted an online survey to assess the stance toward OS practices of doctoral candidates from the Max Planck Society. As one of the leading scientific institutions for basic research worldwide, the Max Planck Society provides a considerable population of researchers from multiple scientific fields, englobed into three sections: biomedical sciences, chemistry, physics and technology, and human and social sciences. From an approximate total population of 5,100 doctoral candidates affiliated with the Max Planck Society, the survey collected responses from 568 doctoral candidates. The survey assessed self-reported knowledge, attitudes, and implementation of different OS practices, namely, open access publications, open data, preregistrations, registered reports, and replication studies. ECRs seemed to hold a generally positive view toward these different practices and to be interested in learning more about them. Furthermore, we found that ECRs’ knowledge and positive attitudes predicted the extent to which they implemented these OS practices, although levels of implementation were rather low in the past. We observed differences and similarities between scientific sections. We discuss these differences in terms of need and feasibility to apply these OS practices in specific scientific fields, but additionally in relation to the incentive systems that shape scientific communities. Lastly, we discuss the implications that these results can have for the training and career advancement of ECRs, and ultimately, for the consolidation of OS practices.

Pushing the Max Planck YouTube Channel With the Help of Influencers

We wanted to increase the number of subscriptions to the Max Planck YouTube Channel with the help of influencers. In recent years, we have published a video series called “Max Planck Cinema” to increase students' interest in complex scientific content. The videos generated sometimes well over 100,000 views (aggregated over several years). But these figures fall far short of the number of views of German YouTube influencers in the field of science, whose videos range from several 100,000 views to over a million. Against this background, the Max Planck Society (MPG) in 2020 launched a video series in collaboration with two YouTube influencers. The new “WISSEN WAS” video series focuses on current topics and their underlying scientific facts. Although the “WISSEN WAS” videos have been online for only a relatively short time, it can be seen that the videos produced with the influencers have significantly increased the number of subscriptions. The evaluation also shows that high numbers of views do not necessarily go hand in hand with more subscriptions as other studies have previously assumed. While the basic videos of the Max Planck Cinema series prove to be real long runners, which students regularly (year by year) search for and find on YouTube (Germany) as well as Google (Germany), thereby continuously generating views, it is currently not yet possible to estimate whether the “WISSEN WAS” videos, will still generate as high a number of views per day after several years.