On 7 April 2025, the editorial board of the journal Mathematical Logic Quarterly (MLQ) announced its unanimous resignation from all editorial duties in an email received by the editorial team. The resignations are partly with immediate effect, partly at the next possible date according to the contract. The reason for this step is profound differences with the publisher Wiley-VCH. The previous editors are also demanding that their names be removed from all MLQ websites and materials. In an open letter, the former editorial board simultaneously announces the founding of the open access journal ZML – Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik.
Influence of commercial interests on the scientific review process
The editorial team criticises the fact that the publisher has repeatedly made decisions without consulting the editors. They believe this jeopardises the independence of academic quality assurance. They demand that academic publishing should be free of commercial interests and entirely in the hands of the scientific community. The editorial team is clearly committed to diamond open access: scientific results should be freely accessible worldwide – at no cost to readers or authors.
Further information
- The open letter from the former editorial board of MLQ can be found as a PDF file at the following link: https://zml.international/files/zml-open-letter.pdf
- You can access the ZML - Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik here: https://zml.international
- In the blog of the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) you can read an article by Marco Tullney on the topic: https://blog.tib.eu/2025/04/07/mlq-walk-out/