JINR becomes the first organisation in Russia to pledge financial support to the SCOAP3 project to convert to Open Access the literature in High Energy Physics. This partnership is very important for the success of this novel Open Access initiative, which now has gathered support in 24 countries across the world. Literally hundreds of partners, from research institutions to funding agencies, from library consortia to individual libraries, have collectively pledged over 7 Million Euros per annum to SCOAP3, over 70% of its projected budget envelope.

The SCOAP3 initiative is now getting closer to embarking in next steps, the establishment of an international governing board and a call for tender to publishers in the field, as soon as further partnerships are built in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America and more U.S. libraries will pledge their support.

Note for editors: JINR is an intergovernmental scientific research organisation focussing on theoretical and experimental studies in elementary particle physics, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics. It has 18 Member States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.