SCOAP³ — Open Access in High-Energy Physics

APS participates in SCOAP³ (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics), an international coalition of more than 3,000 libraries and research institutions from over 45 participating countries. Managed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), it funds open access publishing in high-energy physics research.

Under the SCOAP³ model, high-energy physics papers posted to the arXiv and published in Physical Review Letters (PRL), Physical Review C (PRC), and Physical Review D (PRD) can be published open access, without any article publication charges (APCs) to authors.

APS has been participating in SCOAP³ since Jan. 1, 2018 and the current arrangement extends to articles published through 2027.

How It Works

1. Post your high-energy physics (hep) paper to the arXiv with a primary category of hep-ex, hep-th, hep-ph, or hep-lat.*
1. Note arXiv moderators have the right to review and change categorization if it is deemed incorrect.
2. Submit your article to PRL , PRC , or PRD .
1. Provide your arXiv ID to APS during submission, or as soon as possible afterwards. It must be received before publication. Delays may occur if the arXiv ID is received after the article is accepted for publication.
3. APS will automatically check eligibility with the arXiv
4. Authors must agree to publish their article with a CC-BY license .
5. Articles will be published open access, without any cost to authors, and include the text ‘Funded by SCOAP3’.

SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE

*Articles must be posted to the appropriate category. arXiv.org is a fully independent service and neither APS nor the SCOAP³ collaboration can challenge the decision of arXiv moderators regarding a possible reclassification of an article.

Open Science Elements
From 2025, the SCOAP³ initiative includes a new open science element that aims to enhance open science practices across high-energy physics through scoring publishers on a range of metrics.

In 2025, the American Physical Society received the leading score 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.

More information on APS’ scores and those of other publishers is available from SCOAP³.

Information for Subscribers
APS directly offsets revenue received for open access publishing from SCOAP³ by reducing subscription fees for PRL, PRC, and PRD. Institutional, library consortia, and multi-site subscribers to APS online packages and participating journals will receive an offset reduction to the cost of their annual online subscription.

We encourage all subscribers to engage with the SCOAP³ initiative and participate in the funding model. This will help ensure the long-term sustainability of equitable open access publishing in high-energy physics.

If you have any questions regarding your subscription please contact subs@aps.org.


Which papers are covered by SCOAP³?
* HEP papers covered by SCOAP³ are all those posted on arXiv.org – with a primary category of hep-ex, hep-th, hep-ph, or hep-lat – prior to publication in PRL, PRC, or PRD.
* HEP papers published in the three participating APS journals on or after January 1, 2018 have been published open access under this initiative, even if the manuscript was originally submitted prior to this date.
* Papers may qualify irrespective of the authors’ institutional affiliations or countries of origin.

Which license will be used for SCOAP³ papers?
Papers will be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. Authors will not be required to pay the open access Article Publication Charge (APC) fees for their articles as these will be covered centrally by SCOAP³. Authors will need to execute the appropriate right-to-publish agreement.

How are SCOAP³ papers identified after publication?
Papers published under the agreement will be marked as ‘Funded by SCOAP³’ in the license statement on the first page of the paper.

How are SCOAP³ papers treated during the peer-review process?
The peer-review process is independent of whether a paper qualifies for SCOAP³ and is solely based on the scientific merit of the work. Physical Review staff will check arXiv identifiers and verify that papers have an appropriate HEP primary category. Submitting directly from arXiv.org via our Submissions server or providing the arXiv id during the submission process are the preferred methods for conveying a paper’s arXiv id. Papers without an arXiv id which would otherwise likely qualify (based on the content of the paper) will be marked as a SCOAP³ candidate during the peer-review process. Authors will have the opportunity to either supply an arXiv id throughout the peer-review process (all the way through the production proof stage) or to convey their intention not to put the paper on arXiv.org. Candidate papers will be held from final publication until authors explicitly inform us of their choice. Further delays in publication may occur if an author has to redo their right-to-publish agreement because they have changed their mind late in the publication process.