Enable sustained coordination and guidance at the European level on institutional non-profit open access publishing

The successful proposal will deliver on the following impacts: “Sustainable high quality institutional non-profit open access publishing services indexed in research information systems adhering to national research assessment standards” and “Increased capacity in the EU R&I system to conduct open science and establishing it as the prevailing approach in modern research approaches”.

Projects are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Broader range of services for developing skills and competencies of institutional non-profit publishers, centrally offered at European and national level, providing access to relevant tools and technologies and supporting capacity-building in institutional non-profit publishing;
• Increased alignment of institutional non-profit open access publishing services across Europe to commonly agreed quality standards regarding aspects such as ownership/governance, editorial/publishing policies and practices, research integrity, open science, and technical service efficiency;
• Well-connected and effective European network focused on institutional non-profit open access publishing, with broad recognition across academic disciplines.

The conclusions on ‘high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing’ that the Council of the European Union adopted in May 2023^[1] highlight the importance of equitable scholarly open access publishing models where authors can publish their work irrespective of their institutional affiliation or funding source, with no fees to them or their readers. EU Member States also called for supporting the development of publishing models led by public research organisations. In recent years, universities, research institutions and other organisations relevant to research have increasingly engaged in setting up their own open access publishing activities and services. This trend has been driven by technological advancements and a growing desire for open access, usually on a non-profit basis. As a result, new mission-driven and bottom-up institutional, non-profit open access publishing models have emerged in Europe and beyond. However, such publishing services have largely evolved without clear strategies for coordination, governance, or sustained funding, and without commonly agreed quality standards. Additionally, the research institutions and universities that host open access publishing services, in particular non-profit ones, often do not perceive them as core activities. As a result, researchers who are faced with a rich but fragmented landscape of institutional non-profit open access services often prefer more familiar and trusted publishing venues.

Therefore, it is essential to provide coordinated and ongoing central support to enhance the quality of the services offered by these institutional non-profit publishers. This support should offer services, resources, activities, toolkits and coordination at the European level. It should visibly enhance the quality of services, align with commonly agreed publishing and technical standards, improve staff skills and competences, and foster network-building among institutional non-profit publishers.

The action supports the ERA Policy Agenda Action 1 – Enable Open Science, including through the European Open Science Cloud^[2].

Proposals should address at least the following:

• Provision of services to institutional non-profit publishing initiatives, including guidance and support for quality assessment, access to tools and technology, and support in meeting technological standards (e.g., interoperability standards). Complementarity between activities at European, national, and institutional level provided by different types of actors must be ensured.
• Organisation of training programmes for all stakeholders in institutional non-profit open access publishing to support the further development of skills and competences, and facilitation of exchanges of electronic publishing specialists across the European Research Area. The activities should aim to achieve support for such publishing services within institutions and help embed them in national research assessment systems.
• Coordination of services and practices with the aim of exploiting synergies and creating efficiencies, including the pooling of resources at European level. Activities should aim to ensure that resources developed are available to all those who are managing institutional non-profit open access publishing in Europe, with attention to equitable access to and distribution of these resources.

The action may build on and valorise the results of earlier projects, in particular projects focused on capacity-building and global cooperation for institutional non-profit open access publishing, as well as of relevant national and European initiatives^[3]. The action should address articles, as well as monograph/book publishing.

The duration of this action should not exceed 3 years.

[1] Council Conclusions on ‘high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing’ 23 May 2023, 9616/23, https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9616-2023-INIT/en/pdf.

[2] https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/ec_rtd_era-policy-agenda-2021.pdf.

[3] Projects funded under HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-43, HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ERA-01-42, HORIZON-INFRA-2022-EOSC-01-02, and HORIZON-WIDERA-2024-ERA-01-08.