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History

Where it all started

Frontiers was founded in 2007 by Henry Markram and Kamila Markram, two neuroscientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Henry and Kamila launched Frontiers with a vision to make science open, peer-review rigorous, transparent, and efficient and harness the power of technology to truly serve researchers’ needs. 

Initially starting in the field of neuroscience, Frontiers now spans hundreds of academic disciplines and is one of the most cited and largest research publishers in the world. 

Dr Kamila Markram speaks about open science and the vision behind Frontiers at Tedx Brussels, 2017. 

The people behind Frontiers

2007. Frontiers is launched as a not-for-profit foundation, the relying on philanthropic donations to operate. The foundation continues to exist today, supporting purely philanthropic initiatives, including Frontiers for Young Minds and the Frontiers Planet Prize. 

2008. Operations are taken over by Frontiers Media SA, a company created by the founders to enable long-term economic and operational sustainability. The gold open access business model is adopted. 

The same year, Frontiers receives an investment from Kaltroco, the private holding company of the Koltes family. They strongly support the vision to make science open and their investment kick-starts the ensuing growth of Frontiers. 

2013. The Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (at the time, owner of Nature Publishing Group and later majority shareholder of Springer Nature) makes an investment in Frontiers, enabling further growth of the open science vision. The founders remain the main shareholders of Frontiers. The two organizations run as independent businesses.  

Our long-term commitment

The spirit behind Frontiers – shared by its founders, investors, employees, and editorial boards – is a long-term vision to make all of science open. We want to enable society to generate knowledge faster and more efficiently and ultimately accelerate innovation, health, and prosperity for all. 

The fundamental measure of success will be the full transition to open access as the default method of publishing quality-controlled research findings. Thanks to the relentless work of the dedicated people who work at Frontiers, as well as the participation of our research communities, we are confident that together we can make the future of science fully open and accelerate the solutions we need to live healthy lives on a healthy planet. 

Timeline