MSPL Organisational Structure

Open Access: Barrier-Free Access, Reuse Rights, and Global Discovery 

MSPL is committed to true Open Access publishing, making all our academic content freely available online immediately upon publication. We support the Creative Commons licensing framework, which allows authors to retain copyright while enabling others to distribute, reuse, and build upon their work. This approach maximises research impact, accelerates innovation, and ensures knowledge flows freely across institutional and geographical boundaries.

Our dedication to Open Access extends beyond simply removing paywalls. We actively work to ensure research discoverability through partnerships with major indexing services, institutional repositories, and academic search engines. This comprehensive approach ensures that valuable design and arts research reaches the widest possible audience, including practitioners, educators, students, and independent researchers who might otherwise lack access to traditional academic resources.

By embracing Open Access, we also facilitate more equitable global participation in scholarly discourse. Researchers from lower-resource institutions and developing regions can both access and contribute to cutting-edge design knowledge without financial barriers. This inclusive model creates a more diverse intellectual ecosystem that benefits from a wider range of cultural perspectives and innovative approaches.

Additionally, our Open Access policy supports the increasing demand for transparency and accountability in research. When design and arts scholarship is openly available, it enables greater scrutiny, verification, and collaborative improvement of methodologies and findings. This openness ultimately strengthens the quality and reliability of published research while fostering interdisciplinary connections that might not otherwise emerge.

MSPL implements a dual-track system, which means that the administrative affairs and scholarly publishing implement parallel policies. Specifically, the administrative affairs are managed and decided by the Management Committee, while scholarly publishing is managed and decided by the Scholarly Standing Committee. Therefore, there is no subordinate relationship between these two management systems, and their purpose is to ensure that the scholarly quality of MSPL is not affected by administrative management. This also means that MSPL believes in the dissemination of scholarly research and innovative ideas based on the basic principles of fairness and justice.  

The management committee of MSPL is responsible not only for organizing and managing operations but also for raising funds for academic journals through such means as scholarly speech and writing workshops. Currently, the funding for the operation of MSPL mainly comes from three channels: funding support from the founder, funding from research projects, and academic service activities. Because we can use the scholarly platform of universities as the basis for implementing scholarly publishing by MSPL journals, we can ensure the low-cost operation of journals and achieve sustainable development. The management committee is led by Professor Min Wang, who is the founder of MSPL and the editor-in-chief of JDSSI. 

Both the management and scholarly standing committees share several key responsibilities in shaping MSPL's future. These responsibilities extend beyond the traditional boundaries of administrative and scholarly functions, reflecting the collaborative nature of their work.

• Development goal formulation
• Policy creation and implementation
• Strategic planning and resource allocation
• Ensuring academic integrity and management efficiency
• Providing oversight and accountability for MSPL's operations

Decision-making procedures in the two committees are based on a consensus-building approach. Members of both committees engage in open and transparent discussions, seeking to understand each other's perspectives and arrive at a shared understanding of the best course of action. This process prioritizes collaboration and mutual respect, ensuring that decisions are informed by both scholarly and practical considerations. 

In the organizational structure, scholarly activities are a standing part aimed at bringing together international design experts to share research results and experiences. Among them, the annual International Design Forum is an event organized by MSPL to select outstanding design researchers and practitioners for the international academic community. This activity implements strict scholarly admission standards and limits the size of participants to avoid becoming a commercialized activity in the name of scholarly exchange.

At any time, MSPL will not implement a commercial operating model. As an independent scholarly publisher, MSPL will not accept funding from any institution for commercial purposes. Not only that, MSPL also attempts to avoid any political claims or biases interfering with scholarly research activities. The goal of MSPL is to adhere to the norms and social ethics of scholarly publishing and to strive to become a leading international institution in scholarly publishing.