CTK becomes the national contact point for the initiative SCOAP3 for open access publishing in the field of particle physics.
SCOAP3 (ang. Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is a partnership that makes scientific publications in the field of particle physics open access at no cost to the authors. It is managed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Currently in SCOAP3 more than 3,000 institutions (libraries, universities, research organisations and funders) from 47 countries, regions or territories are involved. Slovenia joined the partnership in 2025 and the national focal point is Central Technical Library at the University of Ljubljana (CTK).
Operation of SCOAP3 and funding for publications
CERN manages a common fund to pay for the costs of publishing Open Access (OA) articles. Article Processing Charge oz. The final amount contributed to the Fund by the participating institutions is proportional to their total share of publications in the field of particle physics. SCOAP3 The funds raised are then channelled to publishers to fund open access publications in selected journals. In this way, authors of open access articles do not incur any costs upon publication. The funding for Slovenia is provided by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and paid into the fund by CTK.
Benefits for authors
Publication of an open access article in the field of particle physics, published by participating publishers or journals of the SCOAP consortium3means the following for authors:
- instant open access to articles (open licence CC-BY);
- preserving material copyright;
- archiving in SCOAP repository3 at the time of publication, thus meeting the requirements of the funders;
- publishing without any financial or administrative barriers.
Publication support and list of SCOAP journals3
CTK provides advice on publishing and selecting journals for open access publication, including in the field of particle physics. On the SCOAP website3 is available list of journalswhere open access publishing under this model is possible. CTK will shortly be making a presentation to researchers on how to publish in SCOAP3.
More information on how SCOAP works3 can be obtained by email: tadej.mauhar@ctk.uni-lj.si
