The SCOAP3 consortium (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics), which aims to convert journals in high energy physics to open access, has chosen two Springer journals to participate in the initiative. They are the Journal of High Energy Physics, published for the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA – Trieste, Italy), and the European Physical Journal C, published with Società Italiana di Fisica. The selection is the result of an open and transparent tender process run by CERN for the benefit of SCOAP3, in which journal quality, price and publishing services were taken into account.
“Springer has shown interest in SCOAP3 from the very beginning and is committed to the project as an important and pioneering initiative,” said Christian Caron, Executive Editor Physics at Springer. “In preparation for SCOAP3, not only have we been providing open access to all experimental papers and letters in the European Physical Journal C since 2007, we have also significantly increased the proportion of open access content in the Journal of High Energy Physics since taking it over in 2010. We are now looking forward to the next steps.”
“These journals published by Springer, together with SISSA and the Società Italiana di Fisica, have a long tradition in both open access and service to the physics community, and SCOAP3 is pleased that they will be part of this initiative. We look forward to working with Springer and its partners,” said Salvatore Mele, SCOAP3 Project Manager at CERN.
Springer is committed to close cooperation with CERN and the global library community to ensure the launch of SCOAP3 in 2014 (www.scoap3.org). Under SCOAP3, both journals will be converted to fully open access journals with a Creative Commons Attribution license. The costs will be centrally covered by the SCOAP3 consortium through a process of reduction and re-direction of subscription fees.
