Sens Public

Academic Journal Publishingsens-public.org

Sens public is an international open-access academic journal published in French, covering humanities and social sciences including arts, literature, history, philosophy, politics, and digital studies for a global scholarly readership, operating as a non-profit affiliated with the Université de Sherbrooke.

Company typePrivate
Founded2003
HeadquartersLongueuil, Canada
Headcount1–10
GTM typeB2C
OfferingDigital Commerce or Content

What Sens Public does

Sens public is an international open-access academic journal founded in 2003 and operated as a non-profit entity affiliated with the Université de Sherbrooke in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. Registered under ISSN 2104-3272, the journal serves scholars in the humanities and social sciences by publishing peer-reviewed essays (Essais), chronicles (Chroniques), interviews (Entretiens), book reviews and critiques (Lectures), creative works (Créations), and thematic dossiers (Dossiers) across disciplines including arts and literature, history, the digital world, philosophy, politics and society, and environmental sciences. Content is published primarily in French with bilingual (French and English) metadata and is freely accessible globally via the sens-public.org website; there is no reader-facing pricing, no subscription model, and no disclosed revenue stream.

The platform itself is a custom digital publishing system conceived and redesigned between 2018 and 2020 by a named cross-functional team of eight editors, designers, and technicians, with version 0.1 of the website launching in March 2020. The organization's editorial and distribution infrastructure is anchored by a foundational institutional partnership with the Université de Sherbrooke, which hosts its headquarters, and a co-development partnership with the ECRINUM digital writing research laboratory. The journal maintains a Mastodon social media presence (@senspublic) as its primary marketing channel and distributes content exclusively through direct digital access on its own website, with no physical distribution, no app, no API, and no SDK.

The journal is editorially led by founder Gérard Wormser and a distributed collaborative of editors, authors, and designers; there are no disclosed investors, no funding rounds, no parent company, and no subsidiaries. Operating geographies are explicitly international, with contributors and readers distributed across multiple continents. The publication functions as a scholarly commons rather than a commercial enterprise: its business model is best characterized as institutionally and editorially sustained open-access publishing with no monetization layer, and its strategic posture centers on topical interdisciplinary dialogue (recent dossiers cover generative AI, sovereign debt, the war in Ukraine, and Amazonian civic engagement) rather than commercial scale.

Sens Public firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Sens Public
Legal name: Sens public
Website: https://sens-public.org
Company type: Private
Founded year: 2003
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 1–10 employees
Short description: Sens public is an international open-access academic journal published in French, covering humanities and social sciences including arts, literature, history, philosophy, politics, and digital studies for a global scholarly readership, operating as a non-profit affiliated with the Université de Sherbrooke.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Sens Public industry classification

Industry

Product category: Academic Journal Publishing
akta.pro primary industry: Humanities & Arts Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAE)
akta.pro secondary industry: Social Sciences Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAD)

Keywords

Open-access journal
Academic publishing
Digital humanities
Peer-reviewed scholarship
Scholarly communications

Where Sens Public is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: Longueuil
HQ country: Canada
HQ region: North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

Sens Public business model

Business model

GTM type: B2C
Offering type: Digital Commerce or Content
Cost components: Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Others

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Sens Public product offering

Product offering

Core offering

Sens Public is an international, open-access academic journal (ISSN 2104-3272) that publishes peer-reviewed scholarly content across humanities and social sciences — including Arts and Letters, History, Digital World, Philosophy, Politics and Society, and Environmental Sciences. Its offering consists of articles (Essais), Chronicles (Chroniques), Interviews (Entretiens), Readings/Critiques (Lectures), Creations (Créations), and Thematic Dossiers distributed free of charge via the sens-public.org platform.

Product overview

Sens Public is a single-platform international digital academic journal (ISSN 2104-3272) that publishes peer-reviewed articles, essays, chronicles, interviews, book reviews, and creative works across humanities and social sciences. The platform organizes content through thematic dossiers and keyword indexing, serving as a collaborative scholarly publication without modular product architecture or add-on services.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

Sens Public Digital Journal Platform An international, open-access digital academic journal (ISSN 2104-3272) that publishes peer-reviewed articles, essays, chronicles, interviews, book reviews, and creative works across humanities and social sciences (Arts and Letters, History, Digital World, Philosophy, Politics and Society, Environmental Sciences), organized through thematic dossiers and section rubrics, and distributed free of charge to global readers via sens-public.org.

Companies that use Sens Public

Customer profile

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Sens Public technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Sens Public partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

Université de SherbrookecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerInstitutional partnership with Université de Sherbrooke, Campus de Longueuil. The university hosts Sens Public at its campus location and displays the institution's logo as a partner. This is a foundational institutional partnership providing physical headquarters and institutional support.
Laboratoire de recherche sur les écritures numériques (ECRINUM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with ECRINUM (ecrituresnumeriques.ca), a digital writing research laboratory. The logo of ECRINUM appears on the Sens Public website indicating collaborative partnership. This research laboratory focuses on digital writing and is aligned with Sens Public's interdisciplinary digital humanities approach.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Sens Public competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Broad incumbents

OpenEdition: OpenEdition is the largest French open academic publishing infrastructure, encompassing journals, books, and research platforms. It operates at significantly greater scale than Sens Public but shares the French-language OA humanities model.
Springer Nature: Springer Nature is a major global academic publisher with extensive open-access journal programs in humanities and social sciences. It represents a much larger established competitor with overlapping disciplinary coverage.
JSTOR: JSTOR is a major digital library archiving academic journals and books across humanities and social sciences. It serves a broader, overlapping scholarly audience and represents a much larger established player in the same space.
Project MUSE: Project MUSE is a leading distributor of humanities and social sciences scholarly content, hosting journals from many university presses. It overlaps with Sens Public's academic journal distribution function at greater scale.

Emerging players

PubPub: PubPub is an open-source, community-driven publishing platform used by academic institutions and journals. It is an emerging alternative to traditional journal infrastructure, with thematic overlap to Sens Public's open publishing model.

Others

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to high-quality open-access scientific and scholarly journals. It serves as an enabling/ecosystem participant rather than a direct competitor, but is highly relevant to Sens Public's discoverability.

Direct peers

Open Library of Humanities: Open Library of Humanities is an international open-access publisher specializing in humanities journals. It shares the diamond/fully OA model and interdisciplinary humanities mission with Sens Public.
Cairn.info: Cairn.info is the leading French-language open-access platform for humanities and social sciences journals, hosting hundreds of peer-reviewed publications. It is the most direct competitor to Sens Public in model, language, and disciplinary scope.
Persée: Persée is a French digital academic dissemination platform digitizing and hosting peer-reviewed journals in humanities and social sciences. It directly competes with Sens Public in French-language scholarly journal hosting.
Érudit: Érudit is a Quebec-based digital platform for Canadian humanities and social sciences scholarly publications. It is a direct peer given joint Canadian francophone origin, shared disciplinary focus, and similar open-access journal hosting model.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Sens Public financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Sens Public leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Sens Public funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Sens Public M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments

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

Frequently asked questions about Sens Public

What does Sens Public do?

Is Sens Public a public or private company?

Sens Public is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.

When was Sens Public founded?

Sens Public was founded in 2003. It employs 1 to 10 people.

Where is Sens Public based?

Sens Public is headquartered in Longueuil, Canada, in the North America region.

Who are Sens Public's main competitors?

Broad incumbents on record are OpenEdition, Springer Nature, JSTOR and Project MUSE. PubPub is listed as an emerging player. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is listed as an others. Direct peers are Open Library of Humanities, Cairn.info, Persée and Érudit.

Does Sens Public have an API?

No public API is recorded for Sens Public.

What industry is Sens Public in?

Sens Public's product category is Academic Journal Publishing. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAGAFAE, Humanities & Arts Scholarly Publishing, with a secondary code of EDAGAFAD, Social Sciences Scholarly Publishing.