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Note form Antonia Seymour
Chief Executive Officer – IOP ³¾°×½ûÇø  

Each year in this report, we reflect on how we’ve delivered on our commitments to provide impact, recognition and value to the scientific community. For a society publisher of our size, I’m always immensely proud of how much we achieve. We’ve always said that we’re small enough to care, but big enough to deliver. I hope you’ll see from this report that this mantra continues to ring true. I’m confident that the new Purpose-Led ³¾°×½ûÇø coalition formed between three society publishers in the fields of physical sciences: AIP ³¾°×½ûÇø, the American Physical Society and IOP ³¾°×½ûÇø, and the promise we’re making together, will help demonstrate our collective value to the research communities we jointly serve in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The fact that 100% of our proceeds go back into science we believe is an increasingly welcomed distinction and we see opportunities to serve the same global physics community more effectively through the coalition by taking on challenges together.  

In 2023, generative AI exploded onto the scene, paving the way to an extraordinary future. As with any novel technology, exactly how generative AI will change our lives remains to be seen, but scholarly publishers have been quick to explore its potential whilst staying hypervigilant to its ability to scale fraudulent science to an existential level.  

Indeed, with the proliferation of fraudulent content, ensuring research can be trusted is more important than ever. In 2023 we continued to invest significant resources to protect and uphold the highest standards of integrity and the reliability of the content we disseminate. Our in-house peer review model has enabled us to adapt quickly and trial new and progressive approaches to make the peer review process more equitable and transparent.  

Against this backdrop, we continued with our ambitions to make universal access to research a reality and last year, nearly half of all the journal articles we published, and all our conference proceedings articles, were made openly available immediately on publication.  

It’s a time of significant change. As a sector in transition, we’re grappling with transforming for the future, with all the investment into people, data and processes that that requires, while also needing to keep the day-to-day running smoothly. Turbulent times call for us to remain focussed on our goals – determined and, importantly, flexible as well. We’re fortunate that our clear purpose helps to guide us, and a key focus for us has been to build a resilient organisational culture. Success at IOP ³¾°×½ûÇø starts and ends with our people. All the achievements that you’ll read about in this report reflect their hard work and the emphasis that they place on supporting the scientific community. I hope you enjoy finding out more.