Persée

Name

Persée

Legal name

UAR 3602 Persée

Website

https://persee.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open Access Scholarly Repository

NAICS

Book Publishers (513130), Periodical Publishers (513120), Periodical Publishers (51312), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519), Publishing Industries (513)

SIC

Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731), Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Content Aggregation, Curation & RSS Platforms (BPAMAJAI)

akta.pro secondary industry

STM Publishing (Science, Technical & Medical) (MPAJABAD)

Keywords

• Open access publishing
• Scholarly repository
• Document digitization
• Scientific publishing platform
• Open science infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Public funding (non-commercial): Persée is a publicly funded research infrastructure (UAR 3602) supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR), CNRS, and ENS de Lyon. All services are provided free of charge to users worldwide for private, scientific, and pedagogical purposes. No commercial revenue is generated.

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Persée operates a digital library platform that provides free, open-access dissemination of complete collections of scientific publications, including journals, books, conference proceedings, serial publications, and primary sources. The platform enriches these materials with structured metadata, authority files, and semantic web links, while also providing thematic research corpora (Perséides) and a linked-data triplestore (Data Persée) for programmatic access.

Product overview

Persée is a French public research support unit (UAR 3602) that operates a digital platform for the digitization, enrichment, and open-access diffusion of scientific heritage collections. Its core offering is the Persée Portal (persee.fr), which hosts more than 400 collections of journals, books, conference proceedings, and primary sources with over 1.1 million documents. The portfolio also includes Perséides (thematic research corpora such as Archives Parlementaires, FemEnRev, ATHAR), Data Persée (a semantic web triplestore with SPARQL access), and the Collex-Persée research infrastructure. The jGalith tool manages the internal processing pipeline. Persée also collaborates on projects like RAPIDO (automated text enrichment via NER and machine learning) and ISOLDe (long-term open science heritage). All offerings are free and open access, supporting the broader French open science ecosystem.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Perséides: Thematic digital research corpora developed and implemented by Persée UAR, containing collections of sources gathered through a collection process carried out by researchers
• Data Persée

Products and services

• Portail Persée The main web portal providing free open access to complete collections of scientific publications (journals, books, conference proceedings, serial publications, primary sources) with search, navigation, citation, and PDF export tools. As of 2024, the portal hosts over 400 collections with more than 1.1 million documents and recorded 61 million visits.
• Perséides Thematic research corpora developed and deployed by Persée, consisting of source collections assembled through a researcher-led collection process. Each Perséide focuses on a specialized topic (parliamentary archives, feminist periodicals, archaeological corpora, etc.) with rich metadata, authority-controlled access, and enrichment tools, accessible both via dedicated sub-portals (e.g., Femenrev.persee.fr) and through the main persee.fr portal.
• Data Persée A semantic web triplestore that aggregates structured data describing all resources produced by Persée and Perséides, organized according to RDF and linked data principles. Provides SPARQL endpoint access to author authorities, taxa, monument references, and external repository links, enabling developers and researchers to query and reuse Persée's metadata programmatically for text and data mining, bibliometric analysis, and semantic navigation.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 1.1 million documents in free open access on persee.fr portal
• +6 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration9 records

AI capability6 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

28 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Inist-CNRScoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Inist-CNRS (Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique) is a key technology partner in the RAPIDO project, developing named entity recognition (NER) tools and text mining capabilities. Inist provides tools developed for ISTEX, which are used to automatically detect and annotate geographic entities (toponyms) in Persée's archaeological journals, achieving an F1-score of 85%. Inist and Persée co-authored a research article and poster presented at CORIA-TALN 2025. The collaboration extends to joint service offerings around corpus enrichment.
• AbescoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2022Abes (Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education) maintains the IdRef authority repository, which Persée uses to align its author and person authorities. Abes provides the IdRef corpus for the RAPIDO project, enabling toponym-IdRef alignment. Persée's authority management tools are backed by IdRef through this partnership, improving data quality and interoperability across the French higher education and research information ecosystem.
• École française de RomeminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Partner in the RAPIDO project, contributing expertise in archaeological publications from the French Schools abroad. Provides domain expertise for validating toponym annotations in archaeological corpora and contributes to the methodology for automated named entity recognition.
• École française d'AthènesminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Partner in the RAPIDO project, providing scientific expertise for validating toponym annotations and toponym alignment. Experts from the French School at Athens reviewed candidate toponyms from the training corpus, providing essential scientific validation of the NER model.
• PrairialcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Prairial is a digital publishing platform for SHS journals created by Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (2017) and supported by the journal support pole for Lyon-Saint-Étienne. Persée and Prairial signed a partnership for enriched retrospective digitization of printed journals, with Prairial providing journals for digitization and Persée providing digitization services and training in fine article structuring. Two journals (Cahiers du Gadges and Modernités Russes) were the first to be processed.
• CollEx-PerséecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2003CollEx-Persée is a national research infrastructure (listed on France's national infrastructure roadmap) that brings together research libraries, documentation centers, and research teams to support access to and use of scientific collections. Persée is a central pillar of this infrastructure. CollEx-Persée facilitates coordinated national digitization programs, supports partner libraries through shared digitization initiatives, and enables Persée to work with research teams to co-construct thematic corpora (Perséides). The infrastructure funds digitization through grants to delegating libraries and multi-year project calls (2020-2022).
• Université de Lyon (UdL)coreOthersUniversité de Lyon is one of the three governing authorities (Tutelles) of UAR Persée 3602, alongside CNRS and ENS de Lyon. The UdL mandates ENS de Lyon to exercise its rights and obligations on behalf of the consortium.
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)coreOthersCNRS is one of the three governing authorities (Tutelles) of UAR Persée 3602. It provides institutional support and scientific oversight. ENS de Lyon has received a mandate from CNRS to exercise its rights and obligations on behalf of CNRS in the context of the Persée program.
• École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon)coreOthersENS de Lyon is the lead governing authority (Tutelle) of UAR Persée 3602, having received mandates from UdL and CNRS. It hosts Persée's infrastructure, serves as the publisher's legal representative (director of publication), and acts as the site's host. Stéphane Parola (Vice-President Strategy) represents ENS de Lyon at key events.
• Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche (MESR)coreOthersMESR (Ministry of Higher Education and Research) provides the primary public funding for Persée and exercises supervisory authority. The ministry supports Persée's archiving mission, digitization programs, and Open Science initiatives. Pascale Bourrat-Housni (Deputy Director) has represented MESR at Persée events.
• CINES (Centre Informatique National de l'Enseignement Supérieur)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCINES has been Persée's third-party digital archiving provider since 2008. It provides long-term digital preservation services including data integrity controls, secure storage architecture, remote replication, physical and logical data migration, activity logs, and 24-hour support response. CINES operates under a mission of national long-term archiving of electronic data for French higher education. In the event Persée ceases operations, CINES will transfer archives to a competent French public archives service.
• Académie Royale de BelgiqueminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorThe Royal Academy of Belgium partnered with Persée to digitize and distribute over 200 years of its Mémoires (Memoirs) publications and Bulletins on the persee.fr portal. Nearly 500 numbers are being processed across multiple phases, with 186 already accessible. This partnership extends Persée's reach into Belgian francophone scientific heritage.
• Bibliothèque Henri-PiéronminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Bibliothèque Henri-Piéron (Université de Paris) is a CollEx delegate partner working with Persée on the national concerted digitization program for psychology and psychoanalysis journals. It coordinated with 25 research laboratories to identify priority titles, secured publisher permissions, and provides editorial validation. The Bulletin de psychologie (1948-2004, 52,000 pages) was the first title digitized under this program.
• Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3minorOthersUniversity that created and hosts the Prairial digital publishing platform, a partner of Persée for the digital transition of SHS journals. Lyon 3 is part of the broader Lyon-Saint-Étienne editorial support pole.
• OpenEditionminorOthersOpenEdition is a major French open-access publishing infrastructure. Prairial became an official OpenEdition incubator in 2018. Persée works with the broader Open Science ecosystem that includes OpenEdition, HAL, and other national platforms.
• Université de Bourgogne / Presses universitaires de DijonminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the PEPSO-BFC project (FNSO 3, awarded), a regional editorial pole involving both presses (EUD and PUFC), MSH Dijon and MSHE Besançon, and university libraries. Persée's role includes digitizing and open-access distribution of retrospective collections and formalizing best practices for rights collection.
• Université de Franche-Comté / Presses universitaires de Franche-ComtéminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the PEPSO-BFC project, forming a regional editorial pole with EUD, two MSH units, and university libraries. Persée contributes digitization and best practices development for open-access publishing.
• MSH Dijon (Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Dijon) / MSHE Besançon (Maison des Sciences de l'Homme et de l'Environnement)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerTwo CNRS UAR research support units involved in the PEPSO-BFC project, contributing to open science editorial activities in the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region alongside Persée.
• InVisu (UMR3103 INHA-CNRS)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInVisu laboratory co-developed the ATHAR project (open-access corpus of documents on Arabic art monuments in Mediterranean cities) with Persée, and partnered on the Perséides 'Magasins' project (commercial and industrial catalogs, 1830s-1990s).
• Keepers Registry / International ISSN Center (CIEPS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPersée became the 20th institution to join the Keepers Registry on March 13, 2025, a service coordinated by the International ISSN Center (CIEPS, an intergovernmental organization under UNESCO auspices). This gives international visibility to Persée's long-term archiving mission, making its archiving status globally traceable, identifiable, and interoperable. The ISSN Center coordinates a network of 95 national centers for serial publication identification.
• Scuola Normale SuperioreminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the BTCGI (Bibliografia Topografica della Colonizzazione Greca in Italia e nelle isole tirreniche) project, which made 21 volumes of the bibliography of Greek colonization available on Persée for the period 1977-2012.
• École française de RomeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner alongside Scuola Normale Superiore and Centre Jean Bérard in the BTCGI project, making the bibliography of Greek colonization available on Persée.
• Centre Jean BérardminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the BTCGI (Bibliografia Topografica) project alongside Scuola Normale Superiore and École française de Rome, making the bibliography of Greek colonization available on Persée.
• Fonds National pour la Science Ouverte (FNSO)coreOthersFNSO is the French National Fund for Open Science that provides grant funding for open science projects. Persée is a partner in two FNSO-funded projects: PEPSO-BFC (FNSO 3, awarded) and ISOLDe (FNSO 4, 2026-2028). The FNSO supports Persée's ongoing development and innovation in open science infrastructure.
• Bibliothèque Universitaire d'Angers (BUAngers)minorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorPartner contributing to the FemEnRev Perséide (feminist journals digitization project), providing content and support for the digitization of feminist periodicals from the 20th century.
• Bibliothèque Marguerite-DurandminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorPartner contributing to the FemEnRev Perséide, providing archival content for feminist journal digitization.
• Université Côte d'Azur / LIRCESminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorAcademic research laboratory (LIRCES) partner contributing to the FemEnRev Perséide project for feminist journals digitization.
• Université d'AngersminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorUniversity partner contributing to the FemEnRev Perséide feminist journals digitization project.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• HAL (Hyper Articles en Ligne): France's national multidisciplinary open archive, hosted by CNRS, providing open access to scientific publications including preprints and accepted manuscripts. Co-referenced with Persée as part of France's national Open Science ecosystem, serving overlapping researcher communities.
• BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine): One of the world's largest academic search engines for open-access scholarly resources, harvesting data from 10,000+ repositories. Comparable role as an open-access discovery layer for scientific publications, serving similar international researcher audiences.
• Érudit: Canadian open-access digital platform for social sciences and humanities publications, with a comparable French-language corpus, TEI-based publishing workflow, and university consortium governance model. Persée's technology stack actually references Erudit-XML as an output format.
• CAIRN.Info: Leading French-language open-access publisher for HSS journals and e-books, providing similar digitization, enrichment, and dissemination services to libraries and researchers. Directly comparable business model and target audience to Persée's core portal.
• OAPEN: Open Access Publishing in European Networks—cooperative initiative for open-access book publishing with quality-controlled peer review and standardized metadata. Directly comparable open-access publishing model for scholarly content with multi-institutional governance.
• OpenEdition: France's leading open-access publishing infrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences, operating platforms like Revues.org, Hypothèses, and Calenda. Persée and OpenEdition are explicitly co-referenced as pillars of French Open Science, with overlapping audiences and complementary roles.

Broad incumbents

• JSTOR: Large-scale digital library founded in 1995 offering digitized academic journals, books, and primary sources. Comparable in providing scholarly content discovery and access, though JSTOR operates under a subscription/paywall model while Persée is fully open access.
• Europeana: EU-funded European digital platform aggregating cultural and scientific heritage from thousands of institutions. Comparable aggregator role across Europe's research and cultural content, with similar semantic web infrastructure and open-access mission.
• Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France): BnF's flagship digital library providing free access to millions of French heritage documents. While broader in scope (including manuscripts, images, maps), it shares Persée's mission of digitizing and disseminating French cultural and scientific heritage via open access.

Emerging players

• Internet Archive: Nonprofit digital library with a mission of universal access to all knowledge, including long-term preservation of digital content (similar to Persée's CINES archiving via Keepers Registry). Overlaps in open-access heritage preservation and digital archiving mandates, though much broader in scope.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/perseefr
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/programme-pers-e

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Persée