American Physical Society and CERN sign an open access agreement for SCOAP3

The American Physical Society (APS) and The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), as the Host Organization of SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics), are pleased to announce that they have entered into an agreement to publish high-energy physics (HEP) articles in three leading journals of the APS - Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, and Physical Review C—under an open access agreement. Under this agreement, authors of articles having a primary designation of "high energy physics" on arXiv will bear no direct cost to publish articles open access in these APS journals, effective January 1, 2018.

This development further strengthens CERN and APS's common interest in better serving the worldwide physics community. APS's CEO Kate Kirby commented that, "APS has long supported the principles of open access to the benefit of the scientific enterprise. As a non-profit society publisher and the largest international publisher of high-energy physics content, APS has chosen to participate in the SCOAP3 initiative in support of this community."

SCOAP3 has a guiding principle of supporting free and unrestricted exchange of scientific information within the global scientific community and beyond, for the advancement of particle physics. Convened and managed by CERN, the SCOAP3 initiative is a global consortium of 3,000 libraries and research institutes from 44 countries, with the additional support of eight funding agencies. Since its launch in 2014, SCOAP3 has made 15,000 HEP designated articles by about 20,000 scientists from 100 countries accessible to anyone.

Under this open access initiative, SCOAP3 pools and redirects subscription payments from SCOAP3 participating organizations for high-energy physics articles published in SCOAP3 participating journals. SCOAP3 then pays publishers for making those articles open access, based on article counts and in return, participating publishers discount the portion of journal subscription prices for HEP papers published open access. The arrangement acts to support the publishing of open access content for wider benefit of the community.

With the new agreement between CERN and the APS, SCOAP3 will cover as much as 87 percent of the literature in the field of high-energy physics. "Open access reflects values and goals that have been enshrined in CERN's Convention for more than sixty years, such as the widest dissemination of scientific results. We are very pleased that the APS is joining SCOAP3 and we look forward to welcoming more partners for the long-term success of this initiative" said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN's Director General.