Give to the MIT Press

Give to the MIT Press

Invest in a future where knowledge knows no boundaries.

Our work is critical right now

At a time when disinformation is rampant, the need for vetted, peer-reviewed content has never been more critical. Your support will put cutting-edge science into the hands of more students, faculty, researchers, and policymakers and fuel new innovative publishing methods that meet today’s challenges.

MIT roots, global reach

Sally Kornbluth looks straight at the camera, smiling widely. She wears fun turquoise glasses and a beige blazer.

Sally Kornbluth, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"As a nexus between MIT and the world, the Press is an essential resource, elevating diverse voices, supporting women in STEM, engaging in children’s STEAM publishing, and transitioning a high-impact academic book and journal program to become openly accessible to all. By creating new understanding and sharing MIT’s outstanding story and scholarship worldwide, the MIT Press plays a crucial role in making the Institute’s mission of creating a better world a reality."

Hyun-A Park smiles over her right shoulder. She is wearing a black suit, pearl earrings, and her hair is deeply parted to the left.

Hyun-A Park, President of Spy Pond Partners, LLC, chair of MITAA Alumni Association Selection Committee

"One of my key goals is to strengthen connections between MIT and the wider MIT community, especially alumni, and the MIT Press is a fantastic way to do that. It acts as a bridge, sharing groundbreaking ideas from MIT with those eager to stay informed and engaged."

Amy Brand smiles at the camera - she is wearing black glasses and a black top.

Amy Brand, Director and Publisher, The MIT Press

“Over a million publications, print and digital, get put out into the world every year with MIT’s name on them. We are part of the Institute’s Social Compact with the public to share the fruits of scholarship. I talk about and think about that as the third pillar of the university writ large, along with teaching and learning. We have impact through what happens in the lab or in the classroom by communicating it more broadly.”

Impact for good

Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, MIT Press supporters

“Most people recognize MIT Press as a forward-thinking, top-tier university press with an impressive roster of authors, books, and journals. But what many don’t realize is that MIT Press is also a leader in democratizing access to knowledge, striving to make academic information available to everyone, not just those who can afford it.

We were so impressed by their efforts that we made a $10 million gift to create the first permanent endowment for MIT Press. We wanted that endowment to be a catalyst for change. The first $5 million laid the foundation, and the remaining $5 million was set aside as a challenge fund, encouraging others to contribute and help raise another $5 million from like-minded individuals who share this vision.

Our goal in making this gift—and in seeking to build a community around it—is to support open access to knowledge. This is critical, especially now, when reliable, trustworthy information is more essential than ever and harder to come by. We believe the MIT Press is perfectly positioned to lead this charge.”

Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin are the co-founders of Arcadia, a charitable fund that helps people record cultural heritage, conserve and restore nature, and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002, Arcadia has awarded more than $1.2 billion to organizations around the world. Its CEO, Simon Chaplin, represents Arcadia on the MIT Press Advisory Council.

Direct to Open

Reflecting and amplifying the values of an educational institution that places a premium on experimentation and open knowledge, the MIT Press has been a leader in open-access publishing for decades.

A growing number of studies show that open-access books see exponentially more use and significantly more citations than their paywalled counterparts and tend to be more successful in reaching audiences beyond the academy. This is why we designed and implemented a new solution that would better serve scholars and the research monographs that are vital to our mission.

As of May 2024, our open access books have been downloaded more than 483K times. On average, our open-access Humanities and Social Sciences books are used 3.75 times more and receive 21% more citations than their non-open counterparts. Our open-access STEAM books are used 2.67 times more and receive 15% more citations than their non-open counterparts, on average.

Direct to Open (D2O) is a game changer. It’s a collective action model built to support the open-access publication of scholarly books where neither authors nor readers have to pay. We are using it to move high-quality, long-form digital publications from a paywalled purchase model to an open, community-supported approach that benefits authors, libraries, and readers. D2O has exceeded expectations in its first three years, and we’re thrilled to share the impact!

Lindsay Androski and Sid Banerjee, advisory council members, at a recent MIT Press event in Washington DC.

Lindsay Androski, MIT Press supporter

"University presses are essential in safeguarding world-changing ideas, standing apart from commercial publishers that prioritize profit. They focus on advancing academic thought, ensuring that critical research reaches students, educators, and the broader public.

That’s why I’m proud to support the MIT Press. They work to ensure knowledge doesn’t stay locked behind paywalls, making it accessible to everyone. This is especially vital today, when finding reliable, trustworthy information is more important—and more challenging—than ever.

By supporting MIT Press, we help make sure that the discoveries and innovations shaping our world are available to all, not just a select few. Their commitment to openness and accessibility is essential in today’s complex information landscape."

Lindsay Androski is the President and CEO of Roivant Social Ventures, which she launched after building and leading the Acquisitions team at Roivant Sciences. Androski serves on various boards, including the MIT Corporation and Eloxx Pharma.

 

Lindsay Androski and Sid Banerjee, advisory council members, at a recent MIT Press event in Washington DC.

MIT Open Publishing Services (MITops)

MIT Open Publishing Services (MITops) is a scholar-focused, MIT-branded hosting and publishing services operation. In collaboration with our esteemed partner, Knowledge Futures, we proudly present a suite of premier publishing services tailored for mission-driven partners.

Our vision goes beyond just hosting and publishing. We see a future where the true potential of institutionally governed infrastructure is unlocked by pairing innovative publishing technologies with economic incentives. This approach not only empowers academia but also paves the way to reclaiming the scholarly communication marketplace.

Our inaugural project, The MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing from the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, is peer-reviewed and examines the social, ethical, and policy challenges of present-day efforts in computing. They are now used by more than 1/3 of MIT undergraduates in their courses and have been featured widely in the media.

Phillip Sharp, MIT Press supporter

“As a scientist, I’m interested in having my research make the largest impact it can, to help solve some of the challenges of society. Open access, making research available to people around the world, is an important aspect of this objective. But the quality of publications is dependent upon peer review. Thus, open access policies need to be considered and promoted in the context of a vigorous peer-review publication process.

MIT has long been on the forefront of innovations, and the MIT Press is a key actor in the Institute’s leadership to provide open, equitable access to peer-reviewed digital learning, books, and journals.”

Phillip A. Sharp, Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, focuses on molecular biology and cancer research. Joining the Center for Cancer Research in 1974, he served as Director and later headed the Department of Biology for eight years. As the founding Director of the McGovern Institute (2000-2004), Sharp authored over 500 papers and earned the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on RNA splicing.

Imaging Neuroscience

The MIT Press recently launched Imaging Neuroscience, now recognized as the premier journal in the field of neuroimaging. The journal’s Editor-in-Chief is Dr. Stephen M. Smith, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Oxford University, was joined by the entire former editorial team from the journals Neuroimage and Neuroimage: Reports—a departure that was hailed by The Chronicle of Higher Education as a “high-profile move… in the long-unfolding battle over who pays and who benefits in the academic-publishing world.”

“The entire editorship has moved over to start our new journal with MIT Press, and we’re extremely excited about this move—not least because it allows us to fix the problem of high publication fees to authors,” said Smith. “But more generally, it has been a delight to work with MIT Press on this—in part because they clearly have a much more ethical approach to academic publishing than we often see.”

Beth Clevenger, Senior Editor, Environment and Urbanism fo the MIT Press, Maria Ivanova, MIT Press author of United Nations Environment Program at 50, Noelle Selin, MIT Press author of Mercury Stories, and Christopher Knittel, Associate Dean for Climate and Sustainability, MIT.

Maria Ivanova, MIT Press author

"Having my book published open access has made environmental and climate-related content freely available around the world. With UNEP based in Nairobi and communicating with developing countries, open-access content allows vital information to get to places where people have no credit cards for ordering books.

Open access publishing at MIT Press paves the way for more policy discussion, better process, and greater impact worldwide, from Nairobi to Northeastern.

I recently received a proposal from Kenya to create a children’s version of the book and have it in English and Swahili!"

Maria Ivanova is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She is author of The Untold Story of the World's Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty.

Beth Clevenger, Senior Editor, Environment and Urbanism fo the MIT Press, Maria Ivanova, MIT Press author of United Nations Environment Program at 50, Noelle Selin, MIT Press author of Mercury Stories, and Christopher Knittel, Associate Dean for Climate and Sustainability, MIT.

Journal of Climate Resilience & Climate Justice

The Journal of Climate Resilience & Climate Justice, edited by William Shutkin, is an online, open-access publication that provides research reports, case studies, essays, and opinions from the working edge of the climate resilience and climate justice fields.

“MIT Press director Amy Brand and I had been talking about starting a climate resilience and sustainability journal for several years, but the catalyst was the summer of 2021. This is when, for the first time, both major US political parties formally acknowledged that we are ill-prepared for the worsening impacts of climate change, proposing a bipartisan infrastructure bill, passed a few months later, with unprecedented funding for climate resilience,” said Shutkin. “The journal aims to accelerate the pace of knowledge exchange at a critical time of growth for the field.”

William Shutkin is a social entrepreneur, attorney, educator, and an expert in the sustainability and climate space.

The Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science

The Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (OECS) is a new, multidisciplinary guide to understanding the mind: a freely-available, growing collection of peer-reviewed articles introducing key topics to a broad audience of students and scholars.

For editors-in-chief Michael C. Frank of Stanford University and Asifa Majid of the University of Oxford, OECS stands apart from other reference works because it will facilitate cross-disciplinary understanding.

“Cognitive science is inherently interdisciplinary and requires shared referents,” Majid said. “The OECS will connect these resources and ideas in a single, authoritative encyclopedia.”

Which fund would you like to support?

For all other inquiries, contact Kathryn DeNitto at 617-688-0684 or kdenitto@mit.edu.