The American Physical Society (APS), a leading publisher in physics research, has achieved the highest score in the first open science assessment conducted by the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3). The Society received 20.18 out of 25 points, significantly outperforming other participating publishers in the evaluation conducted between 1 October and 31 December 2024.
The assessment reviewed open science practices across seven publishers, measuring criteria such as data and software availability, persistent identifiers, article metadata, and web accessibility. APS received top marks for its policies supporting data transparency, the use of persistent identifiers like ROR and ORCID, detailed Crossref metadata, and accessible online content. These efforts reflect APS’s sustained investment in improving accessibility, discoverability, and reproducibility in scientific communication.
The evaluation focused on APS’s three journals included in the SCOAP3 initiative—Physical Review Letters, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D—but the Society has implemented these open science practices across its entire publishing portfolio. APS’s commitment to open science dates back to the early 1990s with the introduction of arXiv and support for preprints.
SCOAP3, a coalition of more than 3,000 libraries and research institutions, funds open access publishing in high-energy physics. Its new annual assessment is designed to incentivize publishers to adopt transparent and reproducible research practices by aligning funding with performance in key areas of open science.
APS continues to build on its open science strategy through initiatives such as Purpose-Led Publishing. Current projects include piloting public and transparent peer review models, deploying a peer review assistant, and enhancing research integrity checks. These efforts aim to further increase transparency and support equitable access to scientific publication.
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