The American Physical Society has received the leading score among publishers participating in the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3) in the first evaluation of open science practices in scholarly publishing. With high marks in elements like accessibility, data availability, and article metadata, the Society earned a total score of 20.18 out of 25 — almost double that of the next highest scorer.
“We’ve worked hard to champion open science over the past 30 years,” said Rachel Burley, chief publications officer for the American Physical Society. “We’re thrilled to see those efforts recognized with these results.”
SCOAP3 is a coalition of more than 3,000 libraries and research institutions that funds open access publishing in high-energy physics research. With this new annual assessment, SCOAP3 incentivizes publishers to improve their open science practices by adjusting compensation for those who do so successfully. Of the seven participating publishers reviewed from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, the Society earned the highest scores for its data and software availability policies, detailed metadata in Crossref, persistent identifiers like ROR and ORCID, accessible web content, and more.
“We’ve taken these steps because it’s the right thing to do for science,” said Colin Adcock, the open science publishing manager at the American Physical Society. “Increasing accessibility, discoverability, openness, and transparency ensures that our journals are poised to make a greater impact for the research community as a result.”
While the American Physical Society was rated for its three journals that participate in SCOAP3 — Physical Review Letters, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D — each of the scored initiatives are in place across all of its journals, following the Society’s long-standing open science mission that started with the launch of the arXiv and preprints in 1991.
But the work is not complete. In addition to exploring pathways towards public and transparent peer review, the Society is trialing a peer review assistant and research integrity checks as part of their ongoing work with Purpose-Led Publishing. It will continue to invest in improving the transparency, openness, and reproducibility of research while ensuring routes to access and high-quality publication are available to all.
“Supporting open science initiatives maximizes the impact of investment in scientific research,” said Jeff Lewandowski, the director of publishing at the American Physical Society. “We’re excited to continue these efforts in collaboration with CERN and other society publishers.”
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The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance physics by fostering a vibrant, inclusive, and global community dedicated to science and society. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and around the world.
Media Contact: media@aps.org