Diamond sustainability requires sustenance
Posted on 2024-10-07 by Jean-Sébastien Caux
Genuine Open Access publisher in the physical sciences.
Nearing 3000 publications from more than 7000 authors associated to more
than 1200 organizations, we exemplify the fact that quality Diamond
publishing is a compelling, scalable and affordable alternative for
professional scientists.
We need your help to make our operations sustainable.
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SciPost's business model
Urgent call to action
Diamond sustainability requires sustenance
An open letter to academic organizations
For more than 8 years, SciPost has been operating as a community-based Genuine Open Access publisher in the physical sciences.
Nearing 3000 publications from more than 7000 authors associated to more than 1200 organizations, we exemplify the fact that quality Diamond publishing is a compelling, scalable and affordable alternative for professional scientists.
By not charging authors, our cost-slashing model provides a much-needed antidote to overinflated Article Processing Charges (APCs) and failing Transformative Agreements. Our activities safeguard library and research budgets, although this often remains unnoticed (a non-existent APC isn't quite as noticeable as one you have to pay).
Being a successful Diamond publisher is however a difficult task: the current funding structures favour APCs and incumbent publishers, not innovative initiatives such as ours.
Not charging authors does not mean our operations are without costs. We have assembled a highly skilled and professional team to run our services, which are used at scale (as a comparison, 4x that of the much better funded Open Research Europe) by an appreciative community. As a publisher, we are succeeding.
This success is however not reflected in our fundraising; we can no longer sustain our services without significantly increased community support.
Of more than 1200 benefitting organizations, only 135 have contributed to our sustenance. We have survived up to now thanks to a minority of overly generous sponsors compensating for numerous bystanders. This is neither equitable nor sustainable.
We are urgently appealing for your help since we are approaching a financial red line. Without your support, SciPost will run out of liquidities before the end of the year. Our sustainability cannot be achieved without your sustenance.
How can you help?
If you are a librarian/OA officer/funding agency representative:
- Has your organization not supported us before? We need you to join our list of sponsors.
- Has your organization supported us, but not enough to ensure our sustainability? We need you to scale up your contribution.
- Does your organization foresee the much bigger impact we can have, and grasp the economies we represent? We need you to help us consolidate.
- Do you have colleagues working at other institutions which do not support us? Encourage them to do so, and put them in touch with us.
Are you a scientist benefitting from our services?
- Does your home institution not support us (enough)? We need you to press them into doing that.
How much help do we need?
- 1k euros sees us operating one more day at the current scale.
- 10k enables us to publish around 20 papers (compare this to the APCs you are currently paying).
- 100k gives us the resources to unblock frozen expansion plans (e.g. datasets; reviews; launching our services in another field of academia).
- 1M can help turn us into a truly gamechanging publisher.
A one-off contribution provides temporary reprieve. A multi-year agreement gives us much-needed security for the future.
If you are ready to help, get in touch with us at sponsors@scipost.org .
Please feel free to recirculate this letter to anybody who could help.
I and the entire SciPost team thank you in advance for helping preserve our services. Though we do it all for you, we can't do it without your support.
J-S Caux
On behalf of the whole SciPost team
Further links:
- Homepage: https://scipost.org
- Bullet points: https://scipost.org/blog/post/2024-03-07/things-you-should-know-about-scipost
- Business model: https://scipost.org/finances/business_model/
- Benefitting organizations: https://scipost.org/organizations/
- Example of individual Organization's impact on our reserves (see the Support history tab): https://scipost.org/organizations/16/
- Country-level data: https://scipost.org/finances/country_level_data
- Sponsors: https://scipost.org/sponsors/