EDP Sciences was founded in 1920 under the name "La Société du Journal de Physique et Le Radium". It thus took over publication of Journal de Physique (established in 1872) on the occasion of its merger with the journal Le Radium (created in 1904). Among the founders, figure the Société Française de Physique (French Physics Society) and several renowned scientists and industrialists like:

•     Paul and Louis de Broglie, Nobel Prize in Physics 1929,

•     Marie Curie, Nobel Prize in Physics 1903, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911,

•     Paul Langevin,

•     Louis Lumière,

•     Jean Perrin, Nobel Prize in Physics 1926

•     as well as patrons such as Prince Albert 1st of Monaco.

The company continued to publish the different sections of the Journal de Physique until the 1980s, at which point, it started expanding into other areas of physics, particularly astrophysics. Likewise, EDP Sciences expended into the publication of books, such as the Monographies de physique, which dates from this period.

Finally, in 1997, it was decided to expand and develop the company in the direction of other scientific communities. This development led us to change our previous name Les Éditions de Physique to EDP Sciences (Édition Diffusion Presse Sciences) in 1998.

Since then, the company services have been developing their skills to serve the communities of numerous scientific domains such as, of course, physics and astrophysics, but also mathematics, engineering sciences, life sciences and even more recently the medical field. EDP Science’s mission is to further extend our publishing platform in a concept of partnership with the scientific communities concerned.

Today, EDP publishes 50 scientific journals, which represents approximately 60,000 pages per year. All of them have an online version; some of them no longer have a paper version.

Over the last decade, EDP’s book publication policy has been redefined and today publishes monographs at Masters level or higher, as well as undergraduate teaching texts, professional works or popular science books. Every year, EDP’s catalogue increases by 50 new books or references.

EDP Sciences is a scientific publisher with an international mission with a French base.

EDP Sciences is under the joint ownership of the Société Française de Physique (French Physics Society), the Société Chimique de France (French Chemical Society) and the Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (Society of Applied and Industrial Mathematics).