Publications

The following table gives the number of publications per year, for each of our Journals.

The simple observations we can make are:

• Our output was reduced, the most important reduction being for Proceedings, which was throttled further due to lack of resources

• SciPost Physics had a reduction of about a quarter

• Other journals were stable or showed some growth (Codebases)

• We are sitting on much unexploited potential in our activities in fields other than Physics

Submissions

We can build a similar table for the number of submission streams (i.e. not counting resubmissions) targeting each Journal:

The total number of Submissions has thus slightly increased as compared to 2023 (still lower than 2022), but again fluctuations with Proceedings mean that it's best to look at the data for individual Journals. For example, for SciPost Physics, there was no increase or significant decrease since last year.

Statistics and Metrics

More detailed statistics are visible on each Journal's detail page. For example, to get info on SciPost Physics, you can follow the Journals link in the navbar, click on SciPost Physics (namely: scipost.org/SciPostPhys) and then on the About navbar item. You will see a little box with simple metrics, but you can also follow the view detailed metrics link (namely: scipost.org/SciPostPhys/metrics) where you will find more detailed graphs, and have the ability to filter by each Specialty covered by the Journal. All our Journals have this metrics page active, and the data is automatically kept updated.

Expenditures, Income and Balance

An itemized table summarizing our expenditures looks like this:

This compares to €326k for 2023, €266k for 2022 and €220k for 2021. The bulk of the increase is due to increased personnel costs, which went from €313 in 2023 to €395k in 2024.

Our total income was €363568.71 (was €295974.59 in 2023). Our financial balance for 2024 thus takes the form:

Our expenditures over 2024 thus exceeded our income by about 12%. The deficit for 2023 was €30781.19, which then represented 9% excess of expenditures over income.

APEX

Our business model defines an APEX (average publication expenditure) by spreading our yearly expenditures on to the publishing output. You can find detailed breakdowns on our APEX page .

For 2024, our APEX has substantially increased as compared to last year: for SciPost Physics, this now stands at €828 (was €495 for 2023). (Lecture Notes are rated 50% higher at €1242, while Proceedings are rated at half, €414).

This large increase is due to higher expenditures (25% increase) and the approximately 30% reduction in our output.

For 2025, we hope to bring back our unit costs to somewhere in the region of €500, which remains our long-term goal.

Sponsorships

Our total income in sponsorships and grants for 2024 was €363569 (for 2023 it was €295975, so this is a 20% increase).

SCOSS membership

In 2024, we successfully became members of the SCOSS Family of Essential Open Science Infrastructures, by being included in its 6th pledging round for funding.

SCOSS is a network of influential organisations committed to helping secure OA and OS infrastructure well into the future. Established in 2017, it has helped a number of initiatives on their way to financial sustainability. Although membership costs us a substantial amount (€25k, one-off), we hope to recoup this many times over by exploiting the increased recognition this gives to SciPost, and by leveraging the networks that this gives us access to.

Financial balance and resources

Our balance as of 2024-12-31 was €82k.

To make information about our liquidities more easily accessible, we have added a red box containing this number on our finances page, more specifically in the Current Resources & Sustainability Level section. This red box also contains an estimate of how long it would take use to deplete these liquidities, if no further income comes in.

2024 saw us face a very severe liquidities crunch. Already at the start of 2024, and in view of the 2023 deficit, we took preemptive action by launching our "Sustain Our Services" campaign. Separately, and in preparation for our SCOSS application, we formally adopted the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure and published a detailed self-audit demonstrating our natural alignment with those principles, but our challenge at achieving sustainability.

Looking at our country-level data shows a marked differentiation between countries as far as levels of use and support are concerned. Top of the table (as far as positive impact on reserves) are the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Norway (in fact, these are the only countries with a positive balance). Any reserves we have are however being consumed by countries currently at the bottom of the table like the United States of America, Italy, China, Japan, India, Spain, Israel etc.

In the autumn, institutions were contacted with a first, generic email, followed up with a targeted one including detailed information pertinent to that particular institution's impact on our reserves. Although the percentage of positive responses remains shockingly low (~10%), some institutions did step up, providing us with enough income to finish the year.

Prognosis

As you can see from Current Resources & Sustainability Level, our current situation is still very concerning.

The financing campaign we started last year thus needs to continue with redoubled efforts in 2025.