Swiss Journal of Geosciences Starts New Era With Pensoft Publishers

One of Europe’s oldest geoscience journals is starting a new chapter in its publishing history. The Swiss Journal of Geosciences, the fully Open Access journal of the Swiss Geological Society, has migrated from SpringerOpen to Pensoft Publishers, a smaller house whose streamlined editorial processes are tailored to the journal’s specific needs. The announcement, published as an editorial by Chief Editor Daniel Marty and society president Jörg Hermann, marks the end of a contract that ran through the end of 2025 and the beginning of the journal’s 119th volume under a new publisher, a new financial model, a slightly broadened scope and a freshly designed logo featuring the Matterhorn and a Swiss cross.

The journal’s pedigree is remarkable by any standard. First published in 1888 as Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae, it has documented more than 135 years of European geology, from the early mapping of the Alps to modern quantitative tectonic analysis. From the 1920s until 2006 it was produced in collaboration with Birkhäuser, the Basel-based scientific publisher that was sold to Springer in 1985. In 2006 the journal merged with the Schweizerische Mineralogische und Petrographische Mitteilungen, a title first published in 1921, and was renamed the Swiss Journal of Geosciences. From volume 100 in 2007 through 2019 it appeared with Springer, and since 2020 it has been published as a fully Open Access journal with SpringerOpen.

That full Open Access transition was closely tied to Swiss research funding policy. The Swiss National Science Foundation decided to no longer support publication in traditional subscription-model journals, including hybrid Open Access titles, and now requires grantees to make the results of SNSF-funded projects available in an Open Access publication or database. Since 2020, all results must be available in Open Access, and researchers can apply for grants from the foundation to cover Open Access publishing costs. This policy reshaped the Swiss publishing landscape and pushed society journals toward fully Open Access models, a shift whose consequences are now playing out in the journal’s latest move.

Negotiations with Pensoft Publishers began in July and contracts were signed in September, with the new journal website active since October 2025. Alongside the Swiss Journal of Geosciences, the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, which has been affiliated with the Swiss Geological Society since 2025, also migrated from SpringerOpen to Pensoft. According to the editorial, working with a smaller publisher will allow processes to be more streamlined to the needs of the journal, which is expected to maintain existing quality standards and enhance the overall quality of the publication in the future. The society emphasizes that the change is not merely cosmetic but structural, affecting how manuscripts move through the editorial pipeline.

The most consequential change for authors is the new financial model. Authors with full funding for Open Access publication, for example through a Swiss National Science Foundation project, are asked to pay the standard Article Processing Charge of EUR 1500, which covers publication of up to 26 pages, with additional pages costing EUR 30 each. While the standard fee is slightly higher than that previously charged by Springer, the editorial stresses that the surplus does not benefit the publisher but the society itself. The revenue will finance the journal and offer more waivers and discounts to authors who lack, or have only limited, funding for Open Access fees.

The waiver system is designed with careful safeguards. Members of the Swiss Geological Society will be granted at least a 25 percent discount, or a full waiver if they lack funding to cover the APC and are the corresponding and/or first author. Authors can apply for a discount or waiver when submitting their manuscript if they can demonstrate that they have no or only limited funding, and the journal asks them to ensure that none of their co-authors has funding to cover the fees, noting that sometimes a co-author’s institution can cover the APC if that author is made corresponding author. Where possible, a short letter from the institution stating that no or only limited funding is available should accompany the cover letter. Crucially, requests must be made before or during the initial submission; the journal will not consider requests made during review or after acceptance, and requesting a waiver has no impact on the review process or the likelihood of acceptance, since every manuscript, even one granted a waiver, still undergoes regular single-blind peer review and must be accepted by the editorial board.

The journal has also slightly broadened its scientific scope. Beyond its traditional focus on the evolution of the Tethys realm, the Alpine/Himalayan orogen and collisional orogens in general, the updated scope explicitly welcomes work on collisional orogens in more general terms and aims to attract more submissions from geophysics, applied geology and Quaternary geology. The journal covers disciplines including Tectonics and Structural Geology, Petrology and Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Sedimentology, Volcanology, Palaeontology, Stratigraphy, Applied Geology, Quaternary Geology, Hydrogeology, Regional Geology, Alpine Geology and Orogenesis. It gives preference to articles of wide interest to the international research community while recognizing the importance of documenting high-quality geoscientific data in a regional context, a balance that has defined Swiss geology for well over a century.

Editorial infrastructure is changing as well. Topical Collections, such as the regular Alpine Workshop collections, will continue, and proposals can be submitted either directly to Chief Editor Daniel Marty or via the website, with articles in Topical Collections continuing to be financed by the SNSF. The editorial board is being enlarged, particularly in Mineralogy, Alpine Geology, Applied Geology and Quaternary Geology, and the society is eager to increase the number of female editors, encouraging women in geosciences to take on editorial roles. Two long-serving Scientific Editors, Stefan Schmid and Wilfried Winkler, stepped back from their positions in 2025, and the editorial gratefully acknowledges their considerable and excellent work over many years. The part-time Chief Editor position, created in 2018 to make the journal run more efficiently and professionally, remains held by Dr. Daniel Marty.

Perhaps the most striking operational decision is the end of print. Although the journal has been fully Open Access since 2020 and was no longer printed by Springer, the Swiss Geological Society continued to print annual volumes and Special Issues for members who specifically requested copies, roughly 115 copies per year. This resulted in high printing costs and a considerable workload for the Chief Editor, and it hindered growth because the society lacked the budget to print many more than 20 articles per year. At the 2025 general assembly, the society decided to stop printing from 2026 onwards. This decision will enable the journal to grow again, ideally publishing about 30 to 40 articles per year while maintaining its aim of publishing high-quality work of wide international interest alongside regionally focused Alpine data. Pensoft offers a high-quality Print-on-Demand service for those still interested in printed copies of individual articles or entire volumes, and all articles are published in English, with professional language editing services available at EUR 18 per 1800 characters, alongside tailored PR campaigns.

The journal’s standing in the citation systems remains solid, an expectation in scientific publishing that matters to many authors, sometimes from a funding point of view. The Swiss Journal of Geosciences has held a Thomson Reuters, now Clarivate, Impact Factor since 2010, and its 2024 metrics place it firmly in the first quartile of Geosciences: a Scopus CiteScore of 4.3 and a Clarivate Web of Science two-year Impact Factor of 2.6. The visibility of published articles is further reflected by 336,853 full-text downloads in 2024. To maintain quality, the journal relies on the Swiss geoscientific community and researchers with fixed positions in Switzerland to submit manuscripts and act as editors or reviewers. Membership of the Swiss Geological Society, together with substantial support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences, finances the journal and allows it to compete with titles published by profit-oriented publishers. As the 119th volume begins under Pensoft, the editorial closes with the society looking forward to making articles on a wide range of geoscientific topics freely available to everyone worldwide, continuing a tradition of Alpine science that stretches back to 1888.

Subject of Research: Editorial – Swiss Journal of Geosciences migrates to Pensoft Publishers

Article Title: Editorial – Swiss Journal of Geosciences migrates to Pensoft Publishers

Article References: Marty, D., & Hermann, J. (2026). Editorial – Swiss Journal of Geosciences migrates to Pensoft Publishers. Swiss Journal of Geosciences, 119, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.3897/sjg.119.181142

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/sjg.119.181142

Keywords: Editorial, Swiss, Journal, Geosciences, migrates, Pensoft, Publishers, scientific research