The Moroccan Centre National Pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (National Center for Scientific and Technological Research) has joined SCOAP3 on behalf of Morocco, the first African country to do so.
With Morocco, the SCOAP3 consortium has now established partnerships in as many as 25 countries in Africa, Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle East. So far, these partners have collectively pledged over 7 millions Euros per annum towards this innovative Open Access initiative to convert to Open Access the entire literature of the field of High-Energy Physics, corresponding to 71% of the SCOAP3 budget envelope.
As soon as further partnerships are built in Asia and South America, and more U.S. libraries of all sizes will pledge their support, the SCOAP3 international initiative will be ready to move to its next steps: the establishment of an international governance structure and a call for tender for leading publishers in the field of High Energy Physics to convert their journals to Open Access in a way transparent to authors.