The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (or SCOAP³) is an international collaboration in the

high-energy physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the stu ...

community to convert traditional closed access physics journals to

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

, freely available for everyone to read and reuse, shifting away the burden of the publishing cost from readers (traditional model) and authors (in the case of

hybrid open access A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. This status typically requires the payment of a publication fee (also called an article processing charge or APC) to the publisher in order to ...

journals). Under the terms of the agreement, authors retain copyrights and the articles published under SCOAP³ will be in perpetuity under a

CC BY A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...

license. The initiative was promoted by

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

in collaboration with international partners. Participating countries in the agreement sponsor SCOAP³ journals through the consortium, and contribute according to their scientific output. More productive countries pay more, while lower-output countries pay less.

Participating journals

SCOAP³ supports journals mostly publishing High-Energy Physics content fully, and those articles in other journals that have been submitted by their authors to a High-Energy Physics category on arXiv.org. Each year more than 4,000 articles are published in open access as part of the initiative. In 2012, SCOAP³ reached agreements with 12 subscription journals to make their articles openly accessible. This agreement would cover 90% of all published particle physics articles from 2014 onwards. Of the original 12 journals, two journals pulled out of the agreement: ''

Physical Review C Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, clinical examination, or medical checkup, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a Disease, medical co ...

'' and ''

Physical Review D Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, clinical examination, or medical checkup, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a Disease, medical co ...

''. On April 19, 2016, SCOAP3 announced the extension of the initiative until 2019 with 8 journals participating. From 2018 on also APS joined with three journals to a total of 11 supported journals at the moment. The following journals participate currently, or have participated in the first phase of the consortia:

Book programme

In 2022 SCOAP³ entered into partnerships with leading academic publishers, including

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

Springer Nature Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macm ...

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i ...

, and

World Scientific World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, with more than 170 journals in var ...

, to make over 100 textbooks available open access.

Members

Countries are usually represented by one or few library consortia, funding agencies or research organizations that act as a coordinator for the country. Currently, 44 countries as well as 3 intergovernmental organisations (

IAEA The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...

JINR The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, ), in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (110 km north of Moscow), Russia, is an international research center for nuclear sciences, with 5,500 staff members including 1,200 researchers holding over 1,000 ...

) are members of the consortium.

References

External links

* {{authority control Open access projects Physics organizations CERN Particle physics journals

Participating journals

Book programme

Members

References

Further reading

External links