Governance

Tasks

The Steering Committee is responsible for:

• defining the priority development axes and the financing model of Episciences;
• monitoring the existing disciplinary scientific boards;
  and encouraging the creation of new disciplinary scientific boards;
• developing an international dissemination and communication strategy;
• to set the conditions of access to the platform (admissibility criteria*) and the GCU;
• decide on the acceptance of journal applications to the platform that have been previously examined by the disciplinary scientific boards.

The Episciences Steering Committee operates within the framework validated by the Steering Committee of the CCSD.

The Episciences Steering Committee is kept informed of the platform’s activity and technical developments by the CCSD.

The CCSD is the final decision making body.

_{* Registration within the scope of Episciences (journals, data paper, software paper, any scientific discipline, existing or new publication), respect of open publication standards (peer review, commitment to the Episciences diamond model, transparency on evaluation procedures, editorial policy, composition and functioning of editorial bodies) and operational feasibility (organisation and technical capacity of the journal).}

Functioning modalities

The Steering Committee meets every six weeks. It appoints a chairperson from among its members. The Chair of the Steering Committee sits on the Steering Committee of the CCSD.

The CCSD has a new governance in 2021. A review of the functioning of each of the new bodies and their interactions is planned after three years. For the sake of consistency, the mandate of the members of the Episciences Steering Committee will end in 2023.

Composition

The Steering Committee is composed of representatives of the supervisory bodies of the CCSD and of the institutions and actors that contribute to the smooth running of Episciences:

• The Director of the CCSD ;
• A representative of the CNRS;
• A representative of Inria;
• A representative of INRAE;
• A representative of the Institut Fourier;
• A representative of MESR;
• One representative of each disciplinary scientific board;
• A representative of the Directorate of Culture and Scientific Information (DCIS) of Inria;
• The Head of the Episciences platform.

The members of the Steering Committee are:

• Jos Baeten (CWI/epiIAM)
• Serge Bauin (CNRS-DDOR)
• Vincent Beffara (Institut Fourier)
• Stéphane Druel (Université Lyon 1/epiMaths)
• Nathalie Fargier (CCSD)
• Anne-Solweig Gremillet (MESR)
• Claude Kirchner (Inria), president of the Steering Committee
• Olivier Le Gall (INRAE)
• Hélène Lowinger (Inria-DCIS)
• Marianne Reboul (epiSSH)
• Ariane Rolland (Institut Fourier)
• Laurent Romary (Inria-DCIS)
• Raphaël Tournoy (CCSD)

Three disciplinary scientific boards, for mathematics (epiMaths), computer science and applied mathematics (epIAM) and social sciences and humanities (epiSSH), made up of internationally renowned experts, work to promote Episciences, in conjunction with the steering committee.

Tasks

The role of the disciplinary scientific board is to set the scientific policy of the platform for the disciplines concerned and to stimulate the creation of editorial boards likely to organise new overlay journals, particularly in areas where they need to be developed.

To this end, the disciplinary scientific boards are responsible for:

• evaluating or having evaluated by experts from the academic world the applications of journals wishing to join the platform;
• encouraging experimentation (e.g. open peer review) and, more generally, the appropriation of the platform by researchers;
• be ambassadors of the platform in its scientific community.

The disciplinary scientific boards guarantee the impartiality of the evaluation of applications and the scientific quality of the journals.

Operating procedures

Each scientific board has a charter setting out its operating procedures. The charter specifies the composition of the scientific board (number of members, length of terms, election, renewal), its internal communication (meetings, exchanges) and decision-making (voting procedures).

The Episciences IAM (Informatics and Applied Mathematics) thematic community wishes to offer a means of rapid communication of scientific results, validated and accredited by top-level journals in the field of computer science and applied mathematics.

The journals are selected by the scientific board, which guarantees their scientific quality while encouraging the emergence of new journals in areas that are currently under-represented. The scientific board takes responsibility for the editorial coherence of the journal portfolio and the ethical aspects that accompany it.

Members of the scientific board

• Samson Abramsky, Oxford University
• Jos Baeten, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Chair
• Ruzena Bajcsy, University of California—Berkeley
• Nachum Dershowitz, Tel Aviv University
• Irene Fonseca, Carnegie Mellon University
• Carole Goble, University of Manchester
• Jun Murai, Keio University

Inria has taken the initiative to launch the Episciences IAM community and aims to collaborate in coordination with institutions and establishments wishing to get involved in this type of project. Expected collaborations can take, for example, the form of a financial contribution, the provision of personnel or access to an open repository.

Editorial support

• Hélène Lowinger, coordinator of the Scientific Publishing Division of the Scientific Information and Publishing Department (IES, Inria);
• Catherine Scotton, Publishing Manager (IES, Inria);
• Emmanuelle Perrin, Publishing Manager (IES, Inria).

Contact

• support.iam at episciences.org

EpiMaths is a project led by the Institut Fourier (UMR 5582) CNRS and the University of Grenoble Alpes, within the framework of the Episciences project.

The journals resulting from the epiMaths project are supervised by a scientific board composed of internationally renowned mathematicians. Its role is to stimulate the creation of editorial boards likely to organise new overlay journals, particularly in areas of mathematics where they need to be developed. The scientific board may be called upon to manage the ethical and professional problems of existing journals. Members of epiMaths may take responsibility for an overlay journal if they wish.

Members of the scientific board

The scientific board is composed of 12 to 24 members. Each member has a mandate of 4 years, renewable once.

As of 6 December 2021, the scientific board is composed of the following persons:

• Ingrid Daubechies, Duke University, Durham, USA
• James Davenport, University of Bath, UK
• Stéphane Druel, Université Lyon 1, France [Chairman]
• Emmanuel Grenier, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
• Kengo Hirachi, University of Tokyo at Komaba, Japan
• Jun Muk Hwang, IBS Center for Complex Geometry, Korea
• Claudio Landim, IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Thomas Peternell, Universität Bayreuth, Germany
• Terence Tao, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
• Shing-Tung Yau, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
• Xiangyu Zhou, Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Technical Committee

• Ariane Rolland, research engineer, Institut Fourier

Contact

• epimaths-contact AT episciences.org

The Episciences platform is open to applications from journals in the Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences who wish to publish in overlay journal format. It is possible to join the platform if you are creating a journal or if you wish to migrate an existing journal to Open Access (green path, no publication fees).

The epiSSH committee can answer your questions when designing your overlay journal project in SSH. See the epiSSH wiki for more information.

Members of the scientific board

• Paul Bertrand, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgique | Histoire médiévale et DH ;
• Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé, CNRS, UMR 5317 IHRIM | Littérature française ;
• Julie Giovacchini, CNRS, UMR8230 – Centre Jean Pépin | Philosophie ancienne et sciences de l’Antiquité, Humanités numériques ;
• Marianne Reboul, ENS de Lyon, UMR 5317 IHRIM | Humanités numériques et Lettres classiques.

Former members (2021-2023)

• Anne Baillot
• Jonathan Chibois
• Daniel Florentin
• Séverine Sofio

Contact

• epishs AT inria.fr

Editorial support

• Céline Barthonnat, Publishing Officer