The presentation discusses the current largely commercial-based publishing system and contextualizes it within the research assessment system. It presents institution-based non-for -profit publishing initiaves and the European Commissions policies and supports in the direction of empowering this type of scholarly communication.

1. Open access and feasible publishing
models: the EU perspective
Victoria Tsoukala, PhD
European Commission
Directorate General Research & Innovation
Unit ‘Open Science’
‘Scientific Publications in a phygitalworld: new
challenges for authors, publishers, readers’, The
Research Centre for the Humanities and the
Independent Social Research Foundation
25 November 2021

2. • Focus on ‘stars’ rather than
collaboration
• Skewed perceptions of quality;
reproducibility
• Publishing in a market where client
is not the king
• Obsession with rankings
• Risk-averse research
• Hyper-publishing and hyper-
authorship
• Fight for funding
• Research assessment
Some of the challenges in research
Slide adapted from a presentation by Danny Kingsley, Flinders University

3. Open science: sharing knowledge, data and tools as early as possible in the
research process in open collaboration with all relevant knowledge actors
• Open science has the potential to increase:
• Quality & efficiency of R&I, if all the produced results are shared, made
reusable, and if their reproducibility is improved
• Creativity, through collective intelligence and cross-disciplinary research
that does not require laborious data wrangling
• Trust in the science system, by engaging both researchers & citizens
What is Open Science and why do we need it?

4. • Increasing market size: 27 billion$$ in 2018 to an expected 28 in 2023 [back to pre-Covid
numbers]
• NB: Per 2015 study 5 publishers prevail in the market [Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The Oligopoly
of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era. PLOS ONE, 10(6), e0127502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127502 ]
• Steady growth of articles and journals (4 and 5%, respectively), including SSH. Journals
will overtake books in SSH as publications by 2025
• Books in print were hit hard by the pandemic
• Open Access publishing is growing super fast; revenues projected to increase at 11.5%
and output at 12.5% (compound annual growth rates) from 2019-2022
• NB the subscription market is gradually being flipped to an OA one; some of the most ‘prestigious’
journals with high JIFs are ‘hybrid‘ and transitioning to open with large deals, the so-called
‘transformative arrangements’
Current situation: scientific publishing and
open access – STM Global Brief 2021- 1/2

5. • Largest portion of market revenues in the USA, ca 40% also for the SSH
• China most prolific producer and with stronger growth rate
• Digital dominates the global market as a format, accounts for ca. 89% of the scientific and
technical segment in 2020, representing a 10% increase in 2019.
• Proportion of funding for libraries steadily shrinking, while online class transition results
into less sales for print
• Source: STM Global Brief 2021-Economics and Market size
Current situation: scientific publishing and
open access –STM Global Brief 2021- 2/2

6. • What we mean: Mission-based non-for profit open access publishing activities, non-
APC-based, by universities and other research institutions or bodies of public interest
• An ocean of publishing initiatives, large and small across Europe and the world. They publish
in all fields and all languages, SSH love this model; supported by various funding models
• These publishing initiatives support multilingualism and the SSH
• These publishing outlets, usually journals, form a sizeable portion of all available
journals and 2/3 of the open access articles. There is more of it than you know!
• 10/14K journals in DOAJ i.e. 73% does not require APCs
• But: they publish 356,000 vs 453,000 articles per year compared to the APC journals in DOAJ
• Largely in the SSH
• The publishing system and publishing practices can be further diversified and improved
Current situation: institutional/diamond
publishing enabled by technology

7. Source: Bosman, Jeroen, Frantsvåg, Jan Erik, Kramer, Bianca, Langlais, Pierre-Carl, & Proudman, Vanessa. (2021). OA
Diamond Journals Study. Part 1: Findings. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558704

8. • https//:journal.fi
• http://epublishing.ekt.gr
• https://operas-eu.org
• https://hrcak.srce.hr
• https://riviste.unimi.it/
• …………………….
Examples of services

9. What is the Commission
doing to address the
challenges?

10. Main challenges and priorities for Open Science
Improve the practice of R&I
• Openly accessible scholarly publications
• Early sharing of all research outputs
• All data FAIR, RDM
• Reproducible results
• Societal engagement and responsibility
Develop proper enablers
• Rewards and incentives to adopt Open
Science practices, with appropriate metrics
• Appropriate skills and education, including
for research integrity
• Open Research Infrastructures including
the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
• Legal & regulatory environment for data
and copyright
Involving all the actors Engaging internationally
Changing research culture

11. Open Science in Horizon Europe
FP7
Pilot on open
access to
publications
H2020
Open access to
publications
mandatory
& Pilot on open
research data/DMP
H2020
Open access to
publications
mandatory
& Open research
data/DMP by
default
(exceptions)
Under Horizon Europe (2021)
• Open Science embedded across
Horizon Europe
• Strengthening of the open access
obligations and focus on responsible
research data management in line with
the FAIR principles
Evolution of Open Science policies across
Framework Programmes

12. • Rationale and scope: move from open access to
open science with a broadened scope of policy;
open science comprises open science practices
• Evaluation: open science under excellence (not
impact); practices beyond mandatory incentivized
through evaluation; publications evaluated on basis
of qualitative assessment provided (not Journal
Impact Factor)
• Intellectual Property Rights: requirement to
maintain enough rights to meet open access
requirements to publications
• Publications: Immediate open access (=no
embargo); only publication fees in full open access
venues are reimbursable (=no hybrids)
• Research data: research data management
(including data management plans) mandatory for all
projects generating and/or reusing data; open
access ‘as open as possible as closed as necessary’
• Qualified open access to research outputs:
specific licenses and technical standards for digital
objects to enable FAIR; trusted repositories
• Reproducibility of research: information for
validation of publications and for validation and reuse
of data required; access for validation of publications
must be provided (while legitimate interests
safeguarded)
• Open science and public emergencies:
immediate open access to all research outputs (non-
exclusive licenses under fair and reasonable
conditions to the relevant legal
entities if open access not possible)
Main novelties in Horizon Europe

13. Deepening the ERA
The Commission will: (Action 9)
• Launch, via the Horizon Europe Programme, a
platform of peer-reviewed open access
publishing;
• analyse authors’ rights to enable sharing of
publicly funded peer-reviewed articles without
restriction;
• ensure a European Open Science Cloud that
is offering findable, accessible, interoperable
and reusable research data and services (Web
of FAIR); and
• incentivise open science practices by improving
the research assessment system.
Citizen Engagement
The Commission will: (Action 13)
• Organise with Member States and stakeholders
Europe-wide citizen science campaigns to
raise awareness and networking, crowdsourcing
platforms and pan-European hackathons, in
particular in the context of Horizon Europe
Missions. The Commission will develop with
Member States best practices to open up
science and innovation to citizens and youth.
Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation
(September 2020)
ERA Communication: A New ERA for R&I

14. • Objective of the Commission: facilitate and speed up reforms to
research assessment
• Towards a research assessment system that:
 Promotes qualitative judgement with peer-review, supported by a more
responsible use of quantitative indicators;
 Considers the value and impact of a diversity of research outputs;
 Incentivizes open collaboration and early knowledge and data sharing;
 Rewards the diversity of tasks of researchers, and supports team science.
• Not a new objective but a new initiative
• Coherence between research and academic assessments necessary
You get what you reward

15. • An alliance of funders, research performing organisations (including
universities) and national evaluation agencies, willing to take the lead in
reforming the current research assessment system
• Agreement on principles and actions between funders and performers;
• Building on DORA and other declarations;
• Committing signatories to act according to a roadmap for delivery;
• Joint ownership of the initiative by the participating organisations;
• Monitoring of progress.
• Consultation with stakeholders to lead in MoU early next year, with
timetable for reforms
Getting the European initiative right

16. Why Open Research Europe?
• Support our open access policy and beneficiary capacity to adhere
to it and also enables publishing post-grant
• Leading by example in operationalising open science principles within scientific publishing
and enabling the European Research Area
• Contribute to transparency and cost-effectiveness and explore sustainable open access
publishing business models
What is Open Research Europe?
• A peer-reviewed publishing platform. Not a repository. Post-publication peer-review model.
First you publish, then review takes place. Publication and review reports open access under
CC BY licenses. No cost for authors.
Open Research Europe

17. Open Research Europe publishing model
PUBLICATION UNDERGOING PEER REVIEW PASSED PEER REVIEW
!!Pre publication checks and production

18. Copyright and open science
Copyright is a bundle of rights that protect authors on their creations + allow
copyright holders to determine who, when and how will access and reuse works
Protects and sets the conditions for “dissemination”
An adequate copyright legislative framework and copyright management
are key for open science
• The transposition of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive was due on 7
June 2021 (articles 3 & 4 on Text and Data Mining)
• Under the ERA Communication (Action n.9) the Commission will ”analyse authors’ rights
to enable sharing of publicly funded peer-reviewed articles without restriction”
• The review of the Database Directive will be part of the upcoming «Data Act »
Copyright

19. • OPERAS the European Research Infrastructure dedicated to open scholarly communication in the
social sciences and humanities (ESFRI).
• OPERAS-D Design for Open access Publications in European Research Areas for Social Sciences and Humanities
(INFRASUPP 2016)
• OPERAS-P Preparing open access in the European research area through scholarly communication (INFRADEV 2-2019-2020)
• OpenAIRE Advancing Open Scholarship (EINFRA 2017)
• HIRMEOS- High Integration of Research Monographs in the European Open Science (EINFRA 2016)
• TRIPLE- Transforming Research through Innovative Practices for Linked interdisciplinary Exploration
(INFRAEOSC-2019-1)
• Calls for institutional publishing, infrastructures and open access to monographs in 2021-2022 work
programme WIDERA and EOSC
Financial support for scholarly communication
in H2020 (2016-2022)

20. Vision for scholarly communication
Future of scholarly publishing and scholarly communication; Report of the Expert Group
to the European Commission (2018)

21. Thank you
© European Union 2020
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