Monday, April 5 – Sunday, April 11
Pennington, NJ – The Electrochemical Society (ECS) celebrates its fifth annual Free the Science Week from April 5-11, 2021, by taking down the paywall to the ECS Digital Library. Throughout the week, the Society’s online collection of published research is freely accessible to everyone. The ECS Digital Library is hosted on IOPscience and includes over 160,000 scientific journal and magazine articles and meeting abstracts, and the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the oldest peer-reviewed journal in its field.
Launched in 2015, the Free the Science initiative is the Society’s vision for transformative, industry-wide change in the traditional methods of communicating scholarly research. Based on the fundamental principle that research should be free for readers to access and free for authors to publish, the initiative represents the Society’s ongoing, community-driven push to a future embracing open science.
“At ECS, we believe that the research published in our journals is hugely important to the future of our planet. Renewable energy, clean water, food safety, and medical care are just a few of the areas where electrochemistry and solid state science are contributing to positive change. If the research in our journals were openly available to anyone who wished to read it, anywhere in the world, it would contribute to faster problem-solving and technology development, accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, encourage innovation, enrich education, and even stimulate the economy. Free the Science Week gives the world a taste of what that would mean,” said Christopher Jannuzzi, ECS Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer.
ECS’s support for open access has impacted Society publishing significantly. Since ECS began offering open access as a publishing option in 2014, over 35 percent of all journal content has been published as open access—and 47 percent of articles published in 2020 were open access.
The Society’s two peer-reviewed journals, the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, promote open access publishing. Authors whose work is chosen for publication in these journals may select to publish their article as part of the Author Choice Open Access program. This means that their article is freely available online to anyone who wishes to see it. The reader neither has to pay for it directly, nor belong to an institution that subscribes to the journal in which it appears.
To participate in the program, authors pay an article processing charge (APC) or use an article credit. Article credits are available to authors associated with ECS Institutional Members. Benefits for ECS Individual Membership include a 75 percent discount on APCs. Authors affiliated with ECS Plus subscribing institutions have unlimited no-cost open access publishing. (ECS Plus is the Society’s read-and-publish subscription package which includes access to the entire ECS Digital Library. Over 1,000 institutions participate in this program.)
Please join the Society in celebrating the successes and long-term objectives of Free the Science by downloading and sharing at no cost as much ECS research as possible from April 5 to April 11!
ECS, a prestigious nonprofit professional society, has led the world in electrochemistry, solid state science and technology and allied subjects since 1902. By publishing research, hosting meetings, fostering education, and collaborating with other organizations, ECS advances scientific theory and practice. Our 8,000+ member community in 85+ countries develops innovative solutions to major global challenges. The ECS Digital Library, hosted on IOPscience, encompasses 160,000+ journal and magazine articles and meeting abstracts, and the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the oldest peer-reviewed journal in its field. Scientists, engineers, and industry leaders share relevant scientific developments, network, and expand research horizons at ECS biannual, co-hosted, and sponsored meetings.
Learn more about the history of ECS at www.electrochem.org/history-ecs.
Media Contact
The Electrochemical Society
Shannon Reed
Director of Community Relations
609.737.1902, Ext. 107
Shannon.Reed@electrochem.org
