SciPost is a non-profit foundation dedicated to developing, implementing and maintaining innovative forms of electronic scientific communication and publishing. It is notable for operating the scipost.org

open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

scientific publishing portal.

The SciPost Foundation

The foundation is headquartered in Amsterdam and registered under Dutch Chamber of Commerce. It was established in 2016. Its chairman is

Jean-Sébastien Caux Jean-Sébastien is a French masculine given name. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Sébastien Aubin (born 1977), Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender * Jean-Sébastien Bach, francized name of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) * ...

, with Joost van Mameren acting as secretary, and Jasper van Wezel as treasurer.

Open Access publishing activities

SciPost published the 2000th article in 2023, an article in SciPost Physics. The authors included

Giorgio Parisi Giorgio Parisi (born 4 August 1948) is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods ...

, a Nobel Prize winner.

Journals

Authors are encouraged to make use of preprint servers (for physics, the

arXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...

e-print archive) but can also submit directly. The recommendation of using preprints leads to SciPost often being thought of as an overlay journals system. This is incorrect since the platform self-hosts all its publishing workflows and results. Refereeing at SciPost uses an open procedure known as peer-witnessed refereeing. Submitted manuscripts must be picked up for editorial processing by one of the Fellows of an Editorial College. Besides invited referees, registered contributors can also volunteer reports. The contents of the reports are made publicly visible (the referee can choose to remain anonymous or not). Publication decisions are taken by the Editorial College by majority voting. Publications carry a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license. Metadata is deposited at Crossref and at the

DOAJ The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a website that hosts a community-curated list of open access journals, maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). It was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals. The miss ...

(all journals carry to DOAJ Seal). As a participant in the Initiative for Open Citations ( I4OC), SciPost makes all its citation data open.

Business model

SciPost is funded through a consortial business model whereby universities and research funding agencies worldwide contribute to pooled resources used to run operations. No

article processing charge An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors. Most commonly, it is involved in making an academic work available as open access (OA), in either a full OA journal or in a hybri ...

s are levied. Sponsors and further benefitting organizations are publicly listed with tallies of linked publications. This data is used to suggest sponsorship levels for sustainability. The SciPost model resembles the one used by the

Open Library of Humanities The Open Library of Humanities is a nonprofit, diamond open access publisher in the humanities and social sciences founded by Martin Paul Eve and Caroline Edwards. Founded in 2015, OLH published 27 scholarly journals as of 2022, and as of 2025 ...

and is similarly mentioned in discussions on the reform of publishing business models. Organizations which have sponsored SciPost in its early stage include the NWO (

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research The Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) is the national research council of the Netherlands. NWO funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course o ...

), the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

/ Max Planck Digital Library, the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

, the EPFL, TU Dortmund, VSNU, OpenAIRE, the

University of Lorraine The University of Lorraine (), abbreviated as UL, is a public research university based in Lorraine, Grand Est region, France. It was created on 1 January 2012, by the merger of Henri Poincaré University, Nancy 2 University, Paul Verlaine Un ...

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

, the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

Technical University Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a Public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied science, applied and natural sciences. Est ...

Forschungszentrum Jülich Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ; “Jülich Research Centre”) is a German national research institution that pursues interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, information, and bioeconomy. It operates a broad range of research infrast ...

Johannes Kepler University Linz The Johannes Kepler University Linz (German: ''Johannes Kepler Universität Linz'', short: ''JKU'') is a public university in Austria. It is located in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. It offers bachelor's, master's, diploma and doctoral degre ...

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

, VU Amsterdam,

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

, an Austrian national consortium led by the FWF Austrian Science Fund.

Community feedback

In the context of

Plan S Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from ...

, Robert-Jan Smits singled out SciPost and suggested classifying it as a "Rhodium" publisher. In a Nature editorial on the evolution of journals into "information platforms", SciPost was qualified as "most impressive".

References