Category Archives: oa.eua

New strategy pushes universities to embrace open science

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“The European University Association (EUA) has set out a radical vision to support its 850 member institutions in 48 European countries to move to an open science system that aspires to open access not only to scholarly outputs, but the whole research process.

The strategy unveiled in the EUA Open Science Agenda 2025 document has set the goal of placing Europe’s universities in “a scholarly ecosystem”, characterised by academic ownership of scholarly communication and publishing – with open science becoming an integral part of research assessment practices – within three years.

The move is part of a growing trend by the research community to challenge the global dominance of increasingly expensive academic publications, which, despite recent progress in open access to scholarly outputs, still sees an estimated 85% of new research articles published in journals being behind paywalls.

Dr Vinciane Gaillard, EUA deputy director of research and innovation, told University World News that the EUA open science agenda strategy has been a year in the making and will be followed up by an action plan, with specific targets and a timeline to monitor progress, to be published in June….”

The EUA Open Science Agenda 2025

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“Priority area #1 – Universal and perpetual Open Access to scholarly outputs, in a just scholarly publishing ecosystem….

Priority area #2 – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable research data….

Priority area #3 – Institutional approaches to research assessment….”

EUA wants academia to ‘reclaim ownership’ of publishing – Research Professional News

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““Universal” open access named as one of three European University Association priorities for open science

Academia must “reclaim” its ownership of scholarly publishing from for-profit publishers in the transition to open access and open data, European university representatives have urged….”

Open Science in university approaches to academic assessment: Follow-up to the 2020-21 EUA Open Science survey

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“Our research shows that Open Science is currently given limited consideration in university approaches to academic assessment. However, this report also shows that the importance of Open Science as a strategic priority is increasing, suggesting that its limited role in academic assessment is an issue of practical implementation. Finally, the report points to growing university awareness of the issue and willingness to make changes….

Figure 1 shows that 34% of the 2020-21 survey respondents do not include Open Science practices in their career progression or funding allocation decision processes….

Respondents to the 2020-21 survey who use at least one element of Open Science in their academic assessments mostly confine their attention to Open Access to research publications. Some 77% look at article deposition in a repository, while 49% consider article publication in Open Science journals. Only 33-39% of universities examine Open Access books, science communication activities, depositing data in a repository and open education. In stark contrast, less than 25% of the respondents consider any other kind of research outputs or stages in the research process….

It is important to note that respondents to the 2020-21 survey predominantly understand Open Access to publication “incentives” in financial terms. Various types of financial support for Article Processing Charges (APCs) and other Open Access publishing fees are mentioned by just under a third of the 81 responses to this question…. 

Open Science and Open Access activities are only considered important or very important by 38% of institutions, and 36% considered them as having low importance….”

Open Science in university approaches to academic assessment

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“This report analyses the place of Open Science in the academic assessment approaches of universities across Europe.

It answers important questions like, when institutions evaluate research, do they consider the openness of the research process and its outputs? If so, how and to what extent are open research practices acknowledged? And if not, what are the reasons and are there plans to include open research practices in the future?

This is a follow-up report to the 2020-21 EUA Open Science Survey results. It offers the perspective of European universities on the state of play and potential paths forward for responsible academic assessment. It is part of a series of three follow-up reports to the main EUA 2020-2021 Open Science Survey report….”

EUA welcomes new UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science

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“EUA welcomes the approval of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and recognises its importance in providing a shared set of standards and actions for the further implementation of Open Science policies and practices at international, national and institutional levels. In 2020, EUA provided its support by joining the UNESCO Global Open Science Partnership, which aimed at bringing together different stakeholders in the field of Open Science to contribute to the development and the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

The Recommendation offers a comprehensive framework to support the mainstreaming of Open Science and its related areas, including Open Access, Open Data and Open Education. It does so by identifying common definitions, shared values and concrete actions to pursue, and recognising, at the same time, disciplinary and regional differences, and different perspectives in national discussions around Open Science.

EUA is pleased to see that core values and guiding principles proposed by the Recommendation reflect its plea for diversity and inclusivity  and are to be included in a global approach towards Open Science….”

EUA welcomes new UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science

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EUA welcomes the approval of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and recognises its importance in providing a shared set of standards and actions for the further implementation of Open Science policies and practices at international, national and institutional levels. In 2020, EUA provided its support by joining the UNESCO Global Open Science Partnership, which aimed at bringing together different stakeholders in the field of Open Science to contribute to the development and the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

From principles to practices: Open Science at Europe’s universities 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey results – BioNanoNet

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The European University Association (EUA) has recently published a report presenting the findings of the 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey and providing evidence-based recommendations for institutions, researchers, research funders and policy makers on the transition towards Open Science.

All publishers must provide researchers with clarity and transparency on Open Access – CESAER

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“On 25 May 2021, more than 880 universities and research-performing and research-funding organisations united within CESAER, EUA and Science Europe call on all publishers to stop requiring researchers to sign over their rights and to end the use of restrictions and embargoes. The joint statement, signed by the presidents of the three organisations, is a strong show of support for Open Science and Open Access.

The statement expresses deep concern regarding the unclear practices of some publishers, in particular the examples recently reported by cOAlition S, that complicate and confuse matters for researchers. The organisations urge publishers to reconsider their position and modernise their approaches in a way that fully respects researchers’ rights, including sharing their peer-reviewed research findings without restrictions or embargoes.

Notably, the statement declares that researchers who wish to deposit their author-accepted manuscript in a repository with an open license (e.g. CC BY), and without any embargo, must be able to do so.

Currently, publishers commonly require authors to sign exclusive publishing agreements that restrict what authors can do with their research findings. The statement urges this outdated system to be replaced and supports a diversity of models for the open dissemination of research for the greater benefit of society….”

From principles to practices: Open Science at Europe’s universities: 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey results

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“KEY RESULTS: • Open Science principles: over half (59%) of the surveyed institutions rated Open Science’s strategic importance as very high or high. Open Access to research publications was considered to be highly important for 90% of institutions, but only 60% considered its implementation level to be high. However, the gap between importance and implementation is much wider in data-related areas (RDM, FAIR and data sharing): high importance at between 55-70% of the institutions surveyed, with high levels of implementation at 15-25%. • Open Science policies: 54% of institutions have an Open Science policy and 37% are developing one. Only 9% of surveyed institutions lack an Open Science policy or are not planning to draft one. • Monitoring Open Access to research publications: 80% of institutions monitored the number of publications in their repository and 70% monitored articles published by their researchers in Open Access journals. In addition, almost 60% reported monitoring the cost of publications by their researchers in Open Access journals. • Infrastructure for Open Access to research publications: 90% of the institutions surveyed have their own repository, participate in a shared repository or both. For journal hosting or publishing platforms this figure reaches 66%, and levels out at 57% for monograph hosting/publishing. In addition, 66% of those surveyed reported that their institution has participated in or supported non-commercial Open Access publishing. Data-related skills: over 50% of the surveyed institutions reported that research data skills were only partially available. Moreover, all of the institutions that indicated the absence or partial availability of data skills, considered that more of these skills are needed at institutional level. • Emerging areas of Open Science: Approximately 50% of the respondents know of citizen science and open education activities at their institutions. • Open Science in academic assessment: In 34% of institutions, none of the Open Science elements examined by the survey were included in academic assessments. Amongst the institutions that included Open Science activities in their academic assessments, 77% took into consideration article deposition in a repository. …”

ERA Portal Austria – EUA presents report on Open Science survey at European universities

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The European University Association (EUA) has recently published a report presenting the findings of the 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey and providing evidence-based recommendations for institutions, researchers, research funders and policy makers on the transition towards Open Science.

From principles to practices: Open Science at Europe’s universities: 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey results

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“KEY RESULTS: • Open Science principles: over half (59%) of the surveyed institutions rated Open Science’s strategic importance as very high or high. Open Access to research publications was considered to be highly important for 90% of institutions, but only 60% considered its implementation level to be high. However, the gap between importance and implementation is much wider in data-related areas (RDM, FAIR and data sharing): high importance at between 55-70% of the institutions surveyed, with high levels of implementation at 15-25%. • Open Science policies: 54% of institutions have an Open Science policy and 37% are developing one. Only 9% of surveyed institutions lack an Open Science policy or are not planning to draft one. • Monitoring Open Access to research publications: 80% of institutions monitored the number of publications in their repository and 70% monitored articles published by their researchers in Open Access journals. In addition, almost 60% reported monitoring the cost of publications by their researchers in Open Access journals. • Infrastructure for Open Access to research publications: 90% of the institutions surveyed have their own repository, participate in a shared repository or both. For journal hosting or publishing platforms this figure reaches 66%, and levels out at 57% for monograph hosting/publishing. In addition, 66% of those surveyed reported that their institution has participated in or supported non-commercial Open Access publishing. • Data-related skills: over 50% of the surveyed institutions reported that research data skills were only partially available. Moreover, all of the institutions that indicated the absence or partial availability of data skills, considered that more of these skills are needed at institutional level. • Emerging areas of Open Science: Approximately 50% of the respondents know of citizen science and open education activities at their institutions. • Open Science in academic assessment: In 34% of institutions, none of the Open Science elements examined by the survey were included in academic assessments. Amongst the institutions that included Open Science activities in their academic assessments, 77% took into consideration article deposition in a repository….”

From principles to practices: Open Science at Europe’s universities 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey results

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2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey results

by Rita Morais, Bregt Saenen, Federica Garbuglia, Stephane Berghmans and Vinciane Gaillard

This report presents the findings of the 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey and provides evidence-based recommendations for institutions, researchers, research funders and policy makers on the transition towards Open Science. With more than 270 responses from 36 European countries, the survey report focuses on the level of development of Open Science in European universities. It also addresses the role of Open Science in institutions’ strategic priorities and its implementation in institutional practices.

Joint Position Statement on “Data Repository Selection – Criteria That Matter” | Zenodo

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Abstract:  Over the past three years, “Data Repository Selection-Criteria That Matter” – “a set of criteria for the identification and selection of those data repositories that accept research data submissions” – were developed by a group of publishers facilitated by the FAIRsharing initiative. Throughout this time, a large number of organizations and individuals have formulated responses and expressed concern about the criteria and the process through which the criteria were developed. Collectively, our organizations consider that the “Data Repository: Selection Criteria that Matter” recommendations – as currently conceived – will act as an impediment to achieving these aims. As such, we are issuing this Joint Position Statement to highlight the community’s concerns and request that the authors of these criteria respond with specific actions.