By Maricel Estavillo for Intellectual Property Watch

The Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Physics (CERN) has collaborated with funding agencies and libraries of 29 countries to make freely available access to otherwise expensive scientific articles in the field of particle physics.

The project, called the SCOAP3 Open Access initative, was launched at CERN’s office in Switzerland on 1 October. SCOAP stands for Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics.

Under the SCOAP3 model, libraries and funding agencies will pool resources – currently used to subscribe to journal content – and use this funding to support a peer-review model for the scientific papers.

“Journal publishers then make their articles Open Access, which means that anyone can read them. Authors retain the copyright, and generous licenses for re-use are used,” CERN said in a release.

“It is gratifying to see how the model of international collaboration in particle physics has been applied to addressing the important societal issue of open access to scientific information,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer.

Already, publishers of 12 journals have been identified for the project. CERN said more partnerships with key institutions in Europe, America and Asia are underway. The project is scheduled to take off in 2014.