Paris, France, 3 December 2020: EDP Sciences and the Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (SMAI) are delighted to learn that SMAI’s application for funding from the Fonds national pour la science ouverte (FNSO) has been successful. SMAI and EDP Sciences can therefore press ahead with plans to transition the maths journals¹ they publish in partnership to open access under the Subscribe to Open model with the necessary financial support to give this initiative the best possible chance of success.

The FNSO launched its first call for projects in December 2019 with a view to funding open science publishing including “editorial projects which contribute to consolidating the French open science publishing ecosystem”. In total, 105 projects were submitted of which 22 were successful after consideration by an international jury supported by more than 50 experts.

“We are so pleased that our submission has been successful,” commented Amandine Véber, Secrétaire générale adjointe aux publications, SMAI. “This is a real boost to our work to promote fair open access, anchored in a long-standing collaboration between SMAI and EDP Sciences, and it confirms its importance. Working closely with our colleagues at EDP Sciences, we will use the funds to promote the transition to open access for our journals under a relatively new, but increasingly accepted collaborative model in which mathematical libraries play an essential role.”

“If S2O is supported, there will be no fees to publish articles in full open access with a CC-BY licence in the journals participating in the initiative next year. This innovative open access model is viewed by many as a ‘game-changer’ in open access publishing,” commented Anne Ruimy, Senior Publisher, EDP Sciences. “The mathematics community is particularly supportive of open science and we are keen to do all we can to support both maths and open science in a fair and sustainable way.”

According to Frédérique Vidal, Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the minister in charge of FNSO, “The creation of a national fund for open science constitutes a major element of the national plan for open science which I launched in Lille in July 2018. The results from this first call for tenders on open science contribute fully to support the pillar of scientific publishing, to which I committed.”

Following the success of the first round, the FNSO has already announced a further call for projects for open science publishing in 2020 and another with a focus on research data in 2021. EDP Sciences is fully committed to open access and open science and foresees these areas being the focus of much of its work for many years to come in conjunction with its academic partners.

¹The journals are: ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis, ESAIM: Control, Optimisation and Calculus of Variations, ESAIM: Probability and Statistics, RAIRO – Operations Research and Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena (MMNP). A pilot project has already allowed MMNP to successfully transition to open access in 2020. A sixth maths journal published by EDP Sciences, RAIRO – Theoretical Informatics and Applications, will also transition to S2O next year although it is not part of the SMAI portfolio and is not covered by this funding.

About SMAI

La Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (SMAI) was founded in 1983 by French applied mathematicians who were aware of the specialist nature of their subject and who wished to support its expansion and development.

The aim of the Society is to contribute to the development of applied mathematics through research, applications in business and industry, publications, the teaching and training of researchers and engineers.

Its journal, Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena, was the first mathematics journal in the world to adopt the S2O model and its transition to open access at the start of 2020 was timely in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and the significant role mathematical modelling has played in recent events.

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About FNSO

The Fonds national pour la science ouverte (FNSO) is part of the Plan national pour la science ouverte which was launched in 2018 by the Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation with the aim of supporting open science in France.

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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.

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 has been embraced by a number of publishers who have come together in the S2O Community of Practice. This innovative model has quickly become an accepted approach for achieving open access and builds on collaborative initiatives such as SCOAP3 and Knowledge Unlatched.

Under the S2O model, existing subscriber institutions are asked to subscribe as usual. Following the subscription renewal cycle, a journal joining the S2O programme will publish its newly-accepted content in open access as soon as all subscription renewals have been received, typically at the end of February in Year 1. 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. New subscribers may join the Maths S2O programme at any time and additional participation will support the model over time.

Authors are able to publish in S2O journals in open access, free of charge under a CC-BY 4.0 license so they are fully compliant with the open access requirements of their institution or funding organisation.

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