Highlights Report 2024

Note from Antonia Seymour, Chief Executive Officer – IOP Publishing 

“2024 has been a year of significant transformation and growth for IOP Publishing (IOPP), marked by a healthy increase in submissions and published articles, all while maintaining high standards in peer review and research integrity. I’m incredibly proud of everyone who has helped to deliver these results while we’re navigating a period of transition.

We have continued to invest in scalable, secure and resilient technologies to deliver and maintain exemplary digital experiences for our communities and colleagues, and are exploring ways to integrate and respond to one of the most transformative technologies of our time—artificial intelligence. The opportunity has never been greater to improve the way research is shared and disseminated in the future, and it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in scientific publishing. 

We have strengthened our leadership in peer review with initiatives such as our reviewer feedback programme, co-review, and double-anonymous peer review, enabling greater inclusivity and recognition. Our free Peer Review Excellence training and certification programme, dedicated to the physical sciences, continues to equip researchers globally with valuable skills for effective evaluation and ethical conduct.  

Together with AIP Publishing and the American Physical Society, we formed the Purpose-Led Publishing Coalition to better serve our joint communities. United by a shared purpose, a common goal to accelerate science, a collective desire to innovate and an imperative to ensure trust in science, there is much this Coalition can achieve in the coming months and years.  

As an open-first publisher, IOPP has continued to offer increasingly open, transparent and inclusive publishing solutions to the global scientific community. Through our growing number of open access journals, our conference proceedings journals and our thriving transformative agreements, we’re widening the reach and impact of our authors’ research. We also believe that research data should be open, accessible and reusable, and we strongly encourage our authors to share their data while better understanding the barriers to doing so and finding ways to alleviate those challenges.   

Our continued success in a time of great change in scholarly communications is a testament to our guiding purpose, the strength of our people and the trust we’ve earned within the research community.

As we look back on 2024, our commitment to making science better together has been the driving force behind everything we’ve achieved.” 

47%
percentage of all journal articles published open access on our platform.

36,011
total number of journal articles published, up by 24% on 2023.

87 million
total number of downloads of articles from IOPscience, up by 12% on 2023 (including Conference Series).

15,000+
reviewers now have IOP Trusted Reviewer status.

100%
of article publication charge income collected from retracted papers donated to Research4Life.

15%
of the articles accepted by our open access journals were from authors in lower-income economies, supported by our APC discount and waiver program.

Number of articles published by top 10 countries in all our journals 

Top 10 countries / regions by article downloads
 

In 2024, we launched five new journals—four IOPP titles and one partner journal—to meet growing demand in key research areas. Among these, the diamond open access Journal of Reliability Science and Engineering showcases high-quality reliability research with no publishing costs for authors, while Environmental Research: Water became the latest addition to IOPP’s Environmental Research series with the goal of addressing critical sustainability challenges for the planet. 

Our Machine Learning series, the world’s first journal series dedicated to machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the sciences, was successfully launched with innovative formats like dataset and benchmark articles. Additionally, the Progress In series™, including the new journal Progress in Energy, builds on our prestigious journal Reports on Progress in Physics and was introduced to unite communities advancing progressive research across the physical sciences. 

16,849
articles published on behalf of our partners.

118
books published.

21,696
conference proceedings published.

Thought-provoking physical science coverage

Our science news programme represents a key part of our commitment to communicate world-class research and innovation to the widest possible audience. The top three most read articles on the Physics World website in 2024 were all about quantum science and technology. 

Physics World Live, our new series of online panel discussions with leading experts generated 2,315 registrations throughout the year. 

The Physics World Jobs Partner Network Jobs Hub was launched, to pull resources together from Physics World and Physics World Jobs, in addition to other materials available from IOP Publishing and the Institute of Physics. 

2.3 million

active users of Physics World content.

500,000

people listened to Physics World podcasts.

114,632

people read Physics World’s most-read article: Physicists reveal the role of ‘magic’ in quantum computational power.

The impact of the work we publish remains strong. More than 3,600 of the articles we published in 2024 featured in the top 10% of cited research for the physical sciences, and 27 of our journals now feature in the top quartile of their relevant Journal Citation Reports subject category, up from 15 in 2023. 

Recognising researchers for their important work 
In 2024, we celebrated and recognised researchers for their important work and for helping us to expand the world of physics through a range of awards and prizes.

• Bergmann-Wheeler Thesis Prize
• Bernard Wheatley Award
• Britgrav Best Student Talk Prize
• Chinese Physics B: CPS Excellence Awards
• Environmental Research Letters Editor’s Choice Awards
• EPL Awards
• Hershkowitz Early Career Award and Review
• Gravitational Physics Group Thesis Prize
• International Quantum Technology Awards

• IOP Outstanding Reviewer Award
• Journal of Physics A Best Paper Prize
• Journal of Physics D Emerging Leaders Award
• Journal of Physics Energy Early Career Award
• Journal of Physics Photonics Early Career Award
• Mark Reed Young Researcher Award
• Martin Black Award
• New Journal of Physics Early Career Award
• Nuclear Fusion Award

• Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Outstanding Paper Prize
• Roberts Best Paper Prize
• Rotblat Medal
• Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award
• Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties Award
• Top Cited Paper Award (China)
• Top Cited Paper Award (India)
• Top Cited Paper Award (North America)

Open Physics

Improving access, transparency and inclusivity

As a learned society publisher, we are deeply connected to the physical science community and aim to make open physics a reality—a mission we’ve been dedicated to for many years. 

Making sure open access publishing is an option for all researchers is a priority for us. We support authors from lower- and lower-middle-income economies by applying article publication charges (APC) discounts and waivers automatically across all IOPP-owned journals. Additionally, we offer APC discounts to our valued reviewers in recognition of their contributions.

Mandating transparent reporting of sex and gender equality in research 

Together with our partner, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, we have introduced mandatory reporting guidelines for sex and gender balance in all manuscripts submitted to the journal Physiological Measurement. Following the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines, authors must declare the sex and gender balance of subject groups, justifying any imbalance. 

Assessing editorial board diversity and setting improvement targets 

We also benchmarked the diversity of our editorial boards against our submitting authors to assess how well our boards represent the communities we serve and established targets for improvement. 

Advancing equity

In 2024, our commitment to creating a more equitable publishing environment led to growth in submissions, accepted articles, reviewer invitations and completed reviews from women and authors in low- and middle-income economies.

Notably, 30.6% of submissions were from authors in low-income economies, highlighting the impact of our ongoing efforts to broaden representation. 

Double anonymous
Our double-anonymous peer review process has benefited many authors, particularly women and non-binary researchers. Especially non-binary authors are significantly more likely to have their manuscripts accepted when they choose to anonymise their submissions.

Supporting our partners to thrive 

As a trusted partner to 24 learned organisations worldwide, we provide publishing expertise and infrastructure that support the publication of 40 journals. Our strategic collaboration with our partners remains strong, reflected in a 9% increase in articles published with them compared to the previous year. This growth underscores our dedication to meeting the unique needs of each partner organisation and the research communities they serve. 

9%

more articles published with our partners compared to 2023.

Making access to article information easier

To enhance researcher access and uphold scientific integrity, we have expanded the use of Get Full Text Research (GetFTR) on our IOPscience platform. The GetFTR article flag allows readers to identify available full-text articles—whether open access or via institutional subscriptions—at a glance and provides direct links for seamless access. We’ve also integrated retraction and errata indicators which flag updates to scientific content directly on article pages to ensure accuracy and trustworthiness.

Enhancing discoverability

Our partnership with Baidu Scholar integrates our content onto the popular Chinese academic search engine. The move improves search efficiency for researchers and promotes our journals with an ‘official certification mark’. It also includes an ‘online submission’ button, enabling a seamless one-click submission process for Chinese scholars.

Tracking article progress

2.4 million

Our ‘Track my article‘ tool has been used more than 2.4 million times.

Providing reliable and continuous service

99.98%

Our research platform, IOPscience, remained virtually uninterrupted, ensuring seamless access for researchers 99.98% of the time.

Supporting librarian customers  

We gathered valuable feedback from our institutional customers about their experience of working with us. Through this feedback, we can understand how well we are meeting their needs and where there are opportunities for improvement. We are pleased to report a high level of satisfaction, signalling strong loyalty and advocacy. 

90%

of our librarian customers say they are satisfied with our service.

36

With a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 36, our librarian customers are likely to recommend our services to others.  

Research integrity

Maintaining high standards of research integrity 
In response to the papermill crisis and other research misconduct, we have strengthened our research integrity team, to six full-time staff members. Thanks to their efforts, we are consistently intercepting suspicious work, with an estimated 5–10% of manuscripts rejected due to ethical concerns before they even get into the peer review process. More than half (54%) of the cases raised this year were related to issues identified before publication, highlighting the rigorous checks and hard work happening before papers are considered for publication. 

Embedding integrity tools for stronger outcomes
In 2024, we continued to integrate and work with the STM Integrity Hub’s technological solutions to help maintain research integrity. In addition, we introduced Signals and ImageTwin to support proactive monitoring throughout the publication lifecycle.

Advancing peer review

Highlighting the importance of respect in peer review

To mark Peer Review Week (September 23–27), we released a short video showing the importance of respectful and constructive feedback in peer review. Featuring renowned researchers, the video highlights the emotional impact that unprofessional reviewer comments can have on researchers, especially early in their careers.  

Read more about our peer review innovations in this thought piece for Nature. 

Trusted Reviewers

We reached 15,000 IOP Trusted Reviewers, celebrating the expertise and dedication of our top reviewers.  

19%

We expanded our reviewer pool by 19%, enhancing our capacity to support timely, high-quality peer review.

Empowering reviewers through feedback

Since launching reviewer feedback in November 2023, 23,425 peer reviewers have opted in to receive feedback on their reviewer reports. This feature was introduced to enhance the quality of peer review and to strengthen best practice in the physical sciences. The response from our reviewer community has been overwhelmingly positive, with 84% of those who shared their experiences reporting that they found the feedback useful or very useful. 

Rewarding peer reviewers

IOP Publishing recognises the valuable contributions of its reviewers through a reward program offering open access discounts. Reviewers who evaluate manuscripts for an IOP Publishing journal are eligible for a 10% discount on the publication fee for their own manuscripts in any IOP Publishing journal under the gold open access model.

State of peer review report

Released in May, our State of peer review report revealed key insights into peer review dynamics worldwide.

15,000
reviewers now have IOP Trusted Reviewer status – selected as the very best peer reviewers in the physical sciences. 

5708
people graduated IOP Publishing’s Peer Review Excellence programme since the start of the programme in 2020, enhancing their academic credentials and supporting their professional development in scholarly publishing.

23,425
peer reviewers have received feedback on their reviewer reports since the launch of the programme in November 2023.

Science is our only shareholder: Purpose-Led Publishing

Together with AIP Publishing and the American Physical Society, we have formed Purpose-Led Publishing (PLP), a new coalition with a promise to always put purpose above profit.  

As three society publishers, we are united by our not-for-profit status, with all the funds made from publishing going back into the research ecosystem. Our collective contributions support the physical science community globally through a range of initiatives, including educational training and mentorship programmes, and awards and grants — all geared toward making science accessible and inclusive to everyone.

This year, the Purpose-Led Publishing coalition will co-host satellite sites for the 2025 APS Global Physics Summit to make the conference more accessible.

In 2024, we further reduced our carbon emissions annually by working closely with our supply chain and collecting primary emissions data. Although our relocation to the new headquarters temporarily increased emissions in 2022 due to the simultaneous operation of two buildings, the new facility’s outstanding environmental performance will greatly boost our long-term sustainability. Additionally, we achieved ISO 14001 certification, embedding sustainability into our operations and decision-making processes while ensuring ongoing environmental compliance. 

Physics World’s international member subscriptions moved to digital-only from April, further reducing outbound logistics and supporting our commitment to sustainability

Colleague engagement

In 2024, we organised 11 talks to inspire colleagues to reduce their carbon footprints and encouraged them to take part in challenges like the Employee Race to Zero, a global two-week sustainability competition. Over 30 organisations completed 5,307 activities, avoiding 33,960 kg of carbon, the equivalent to 890 short-haul flights. The IOPP team placed 9th, completing 71 steps and taking 202 actions.

Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals

As a signatory of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Publishers Compact, we support the UN SDGs by providing free access to research on sustainability and equity through our Sustainability Collection. This collection now includes 10,500 freely accessible articles, which were downloaded 7.5 million times in 2024

97%
of our employees say they are treated with fairness and respect at IOPP.

85%
of employees say they feel a strong sense of belonging to IOPP.

90%
of our employees recommend IOPP as a great place to work.

97%
of our employees say they have flexibility over their working hours.