OPERAS welcomes EU Council Conclusions ‘supporting diversity and ensuring equity in scholarly publishing’
OPERAS 2023-05-25
The Council of the European Union adopted on May 23 conclusions on the ‘high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing’, in which it calls for immediate and unrestricted Open Access in publishing research involving public funds (Council conclusion).
OPERAS welcomes this official positioning of the council on diversity and equity in publishing academic results and the emphasis on:
that immediate and unrestricted open access should be the norm in publishing research involving public funds, with transparent pricing commensurate with the publication services and where costs are not covered by individual authors or readers
(Council conclusion p. 5)
The OPERAS Research Infrastructure aims to make Open Science a reality for research in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and achieve a scholarly communication system where knowledge produced in the SSH benefits researchers, academics, students and more generally the whole society across Europe and worldwide, without barriers.
To express our compliance with and pleasure about the conclusions we participate in a joint statement:
Open Science: stakeholders welcome European efforts towards publicly owned and not-for-profit scholarly communication
For European public research and innovation actors, scholarly knowledge is a public good. Publicly funded research and its results should be immediately and openly available to all without barriers such as subscription fees or paywalls. This is essential in driving knowledge forward, promoting innovation and tackling social issues.
Key representative organisations of the public research and innovation sector have welcomed today’s adoption of the ‘Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy, and equitable scholarly publishing’.
In a joint response, the signatories urge EU member states and institutions to continue their efforts towards a high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly communication ecosystem, through stakeholder engagement, constructive dialogue with the public research and innovation sector, and with evidence-based reforms underpinned by the principles of open science.
Signatories include the European University Association (EUA), Science Europe, the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA), the Association of ERC Grantees (AERG), the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc), cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR).
The public research and innovation sector is actively pursuing a not-for-profit scholarly communication ecosystem. Notable examples, among other initiatives, include: backing for not-for-profit open access publishing models (e.g. the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access); demand for more dependable and comparable data on the state of scholarly communication (e.g. the Journal Comparison Service); and emphasis on infrastructure development (e.g. OPERAS).
As such, the statement welcomes the Council of the EU’s encouragement of initiatives that align with the objective of developing a not-for-profit scholarly communication ecosystem and reiterates the signatories’ commitment to launch activities that will further engage their members in shaping the future of scholarly communication.
And OPERAS is especially delighted about the mentioning of Open Access books in the conclusions, a topic OPERAS has advocated for since its beginning:
ACKNOWLEDGES that publishing practices vary across disciplines, and EMPHASISES that some publication formats, such as monographs, books and long-text formats, especially in the social sciences and humanities, should continue to be supported, while promoting open access publishing and allowing for a diverse range of formats to co-exist, and for publishing in a range of languages
(Council conclusion p. 5)
The OPERAS Research Infrastructure develops services to directly support researchers, publishers, scholarly communication service providers and more on this path to publicly owned and not-for-profit scholarly communication.
Besides the services catalogue OPERAS supports three EU-funded projects supporting community-driven pathways to equitable open scholarly publishing. OPERAS participates in CRAFT-OA and coordinates Diamas and PALOMERA. Despite their separate focus areas, together their efforts work towards a broad and common vision for a more open and equitable scholarly publishing ecosystem.
Join us on 20th June at 1 PM CEST to learn how three EU-funded projects – CRAFT-OA, DIAMAS, and PALOMERA – are working for an equitable future for scholarly communication, with academic communities at the centre.
In the webinar, you will be introduced to each project and their individual aims. Following this, the discussion will focus on how, despite their separate focus areas, their efforts work towards a broad and common vision for a more open and equitable scholarly publishing ecosystem.
CRAFT-OA empowers regional journal platforms and publishing service providers to upscale, professionalise, and reach stronger interoperability with other scientific information systems, by providing services and tools.
The DIAMAS project is developing common standards, guidelines and practices to build capacity for the Diamond publishing sector. Formulating recommendations of this kind aims to create a more sustainable future for Open Access Diamond Publishing in Europe.
PALOMERA has set out to provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for Open Access books. Doing so involves assessing challenges and bottlenecks that currently slow the widespread implementation of Open Access book policy.