Paris, France, 7 July 2020: EDP Sciences is pleased to announce an exciting development in its commitment to open access. Following the successful transition of Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena (MMNP) to open access under the Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot earlier this year, a further five maths journals will transition to open access under this model from January 2021. The journals are:

• ESAIM: Control, Optimisation and Calculus of Variations (COCV)

• ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis (M2AN)

• ESAIM: Probability and Statistics (PS)

• RAIRO – Theoretical Informatics and Applications

• RAIRO – Operations Research

MMNP was the first mathematics journal in the world to adopt the S2O model. The transition of the other maths journals to open access under this model will have a significant impact on international mathematics publishing and places EDP Sciences and its partners among the champions of this model. The mathematics community is particularly supportive of open science and keen to embrace initiatives that further the transition to open access. Transitioning journals on this scale is bound to have a positive evolutionary effect within the community and support has already been expressed by a range of colleagues and stakeholders.

“We believe a diversity of publishing models guarantees the long-term scientific independence of researchers and are encouraged by the support from the community for this model,” observed Agnès Henri, Managing Director. “As a publisher with a long-standing commitment to open access, EDP Sciences is pleased to extend MMNP’s modest, but successful, Subscribe to Open pilot to a further five journals”.

Dr Henri went on to explain “Not only did all MMNP subscribers support the transition, but we also saw a rise in submissions suggesting there is a genuine appetite for this model. While S2O does not guarantee success in every field or for every journal, we encourage the community to support this initiative across our maths portfolio as active participation will help the model to thrive.”

Under the S2O model, existing subscriber institutions are asked to subscribe as usual, and as long as EDP Sciences receives the expected subscription income, then the current year’s content is made available to all in full open access. In this way, institutions support journals for the common good of the academic community and demonstrate their commitment to the long-term sustainability of open access. For its part, EDP Sciences has announced recently a price freeze across all journals for the year 2021.

Authors will be able to publish in these journals in open access, free of charge. Articles will be published under a CC-BY 4.0 license allowing authors to retain the copyright and others to share and adapt the content. A Creative Commons license also enables authors to be fully compliant with the open access requirements of their institution or funding organisation(s).

The Subscribe to Open (S2O) model marks an important milestone for EDP Sciences in its longstanding commitment to open access. This model represents a sustainable and ethical way of transitioning journals to open access. There is no lock-in; the decision as to whether the content will be open or closed is made annually based on subscription income received.

About Subscribe to Open

Subscribe to Open (S20) is one of the transformative models that aims to move subscription journals to open access. S2O was initiated by Annual Reviews and was recently embraced by Berghahn Books. Although a relative newcomer, this innovative model has quickly become an accepted approach to achieving open access and builds on collaborative initiatives such as SCOAP3 and Knowledge Unlatched.

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About EDP Sciences

EDP Sciences is an international academic publisher which was founded by learned societies in 1920. EDP Sciences publishes high-quality scientific journals, conferences proceeding, books and magazines, many of which are open access.

Several journals are published in partnership with learned societies and the journal 4open is expressly built on the four pillars of open science. EDP Sciences also offers EDP Open Books - a comprehensive open access publishing solution.

EDP Sciences was founded by eminent scientists including Marie Curie and Paul Langevin. Since November 2019, it is owned by Science Press which is itself majority-owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). CAS is the world’s largest research organisation and a prestigious learned society. EDP Sciences has therefore always been, and continues to be, the publishing partner of scientific communities.

For more information contact:
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Senior Publishing Editor, EDP Sciences