• Open Access in EPJ Open journals
• Special Open Access initiatives
• NIH-funded research
• Open Access in traditional subscription-based EPJ journals
• Global availability of EPJ

Open Access in EPJ Open journals

The European Physical Journal wishes to foster the development of the Open Access publishing model in the physical sciences. For this reason we have launched a new suite of electronic journals freely available to the global scientific community. These journals will draw on the combined strengths of Springer, EDP Sciences and SIF - with their global presence and long standing traditions in physics publishing – as well as on the expertise of BioMed Central - who operates a large portfolio of open access journals since over a decade.

Articles published in these journals will be freely and permanently accessible online. Authors retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License, and are free to reproduce and re-distribute it without restrictions, as long as the original work is correctly cited.

EPJ Data Science

EPJ Photovoltaics

EPJ Web of Conferences

EPJ Nonlinear Biomedical Physics

Special Open Access initiatives

In order to promote the latest research results rapidly, the "letter" articles in EPJ A and C will automatically be published open access without incurring any fee. For EPJ C an extended Open Access scheme is currently in place: In anticipation of successful negotiations with interested Open Access funding agencies, the "open access" publishing fees for all experimental papers submitted to and accepted for publication by The European Physical Journal C - Particles and Fields will be waived. The paper categories concerned are both regular articles and scientific notes, on experimental physics.

Authors whose research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust can opt to publish with Open Access. In this case the Open Access fee will be covered by the Wellcome Trust. For more information visit

http://www.springer.com/open+access?SGWID=0-169302-12-641999-0.

NIH-funded research

If your research has been funded by the NIH and you want the publisher to deposit the author’s accepted version in PubMed Central on your behalf and have it opened up for the public within 12 months, please go to http://springer.com/nihauthors and fill in the respective form.

If you opt to publish your article with Open Access, depositing it in the public repository is not necessary. For more information visit http://www.springer.com/open+access?SGWID=0-169302-12-467999-0.

Open Access in traditional subscription-based EPJ journals

Since November 2006, all EPJ journals have offered an "Open Access" option for papers that have successfully passed the peer-review stage, through the payment of an open access fee prior to publication. Authors who elect to use this option are provided with the same extensive publishing services as those for papers published in the subscription mode, but with the following additional services:

a. The online version of an open access article will be perpetually, universally and freely accessible.
b. The initial copyright holder (by default, the author) is entitled to keep his/her copyright.

Authors wishing to publish an accepted paper as "Open Access" should inform the editorial office of the corresponding EPJ journal, following receipt of the acceptance letter. They will then be contacted regarding the corresponding payments, where applicable. The current standard open access fee is at a special reduced rate of € 1,000 per article. No taxes are included in this charge. Authors resident in any European Union country have to add Value-Added Tax (VAT, currently 20%). Institutions paying the fee on behalf of the author can in most cases have the VAT refunded, or by providing their VAT registration number avoid paying VAT altogether. The article will be tagged "Open Access" and will be published and disseminated as such once the payment has been received.

Authors who are members of the Physical Societies represented in the EPJ Scientific Advisory Committee receive a 10% discount on the open access fee.

Please note that some of the consortia agreements negotiated by Springer have a built-in open access component. Accepted papers, with at least one author from such an "Open Access affiliation", will automatically be published open access.

For "open access" papers, authors should use the following license agreement (based on the Creative Commons license) instead of the usual EPJ copyright transfer statement and send it to the responsible production editor.

Global availability of EPJ

Presently, all sections of this journal are read in over 7,000 institutions worldwide through subscriptions. The journal is further freely available in many so-called developing countries through various initiatives in which the publishers of EPJ participate.

The EPJ publishers are prepared to move the EPJ journals to "Open Access-only", which will entail seeking sponsoring models and the cooperation with funding agencies and consortia that will guarantee long-term financial support for Open Access publishing at realistic article processing fees, while maintaining the efficiency and flexibility of the present system of dissemination of scientific content and metadata in its usual high quality and to the entire spectrum of hosting, abstracting, indexing and archiving services in keeping with international norms and conventions. In particular, EPJ is seeking sponsoring models and joint projects with funding agencies and consortia willing to sponsor all types and categories of papers accepted by the editors of the EPJ journals on the basis of their intrinsic scientific quality and relevance.