Category Archives: oa.horizon_europe

The CNR Roadmap for Open Science (Italy)

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“On April 28, the Italian National Research Council (CNR, ‘Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche’) approved their Roadmap for Open Science, which is available in Italian via Zenodo (CC BY). 

The CNR serves as a public institution responsible for conducting, promoting, disseminating and improving research activities. With a network of institutes strategically located across Italy, the CNR aims to ensure widespread access to its expertise nationwide while fostering collaboration and partnerships with local businesses and organisations.

Through the Roadmap for Open Science, the CNR sought to identify a clear pathway towards greater uptake and the practical implementation of open science practices. In this article, I summarise some key takeaways from the Roadmap for all interested readers who might not speak Italian!…”

CRAFT-OA/DIAMAS/Palomera Webinar, June 20, 2023 | CRAFT-OA

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On June 20, 2023, CRAFT-OA will take part in a webinar in collaboration with two other HORIZON Europe-funded projects: DIAMAS and PALOMERA.

June 20, 2023 | 1 p.m CEST

The three projects work towards an equitable future for scholarly communication, with academic communities at the centre. The webinar will present this vision and introduce each project’s area of focus. The discussion will demonstrate the projects’ common goal for open and equitable scholarly publishing.

While CRAFT-OA looks at the IT systems behind journal platforms to help them upscale, professionalise, and reach stronger interoperability, DIAMAS and PALOMERA have different aims. The former focuses on developing common standards, guidelines and practices for the Diamond publishing sector. The latter, PALOMERA, is developing actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for Open Access books.

In the session, DIAMAS will be placed in a broader context, displaying how we collaborate with other actors in the Open Access space and plan for long-term impact in the advancement of community-led publishing.

Participants will have the chance to engage with the three projects and their vision for community-driven open scholarly publishing.

Register for this webinar to be part of this conversation and help us shape the future of Open Access as a community!

REGISTER HERE!

For additional details and registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqf-morT4jGNa5L7IaZv5TOLGu4Z1Czi4

 

News – CESSDA Recognised for its contributions to Open Science best practices

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“CESSDA [Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives] has been recognised in the new Horizon Europe Programme Guide and the Open Research Europe publishing platform for its contribution to Open Science practices. These recognitions highlight the importance of trusted repositories in Open Science practices, particularly in preserving and making research data accessible….”

 

DIAMAS Project: OA Diamond and Institutional publishing landscape survey of Institutional Publishing Services Providers (IPSPs)

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DIAMAS is a new EU-funded project which aims to support Open Access Diamond and institutional publishing by setting new standards, increasing visibility, and promoting the sustainability of a diverse publishing landscape. The project is issuing this survey as a starting point to understand the landscape of institutional publishing in Europe.

With this survey, we hope to map how this sector of scholarly communication is currently organised in order to understand existing challenges and begin to develop resources, tools,  policies and strategies which support the relevant stakeholders. 
By “OA Diamond and institutional publishing”, we understand publishing by an institution, unit, or person that is part of an institution. An ‘institution’ is defined in the DIAMAS context as an academic organisation or unit whose main mission and scope is to perform, fund, or promote the practice of research and scholarship. Special attention will be paid to publishing initiatives that do not charge fees for publication to either authors or readers (OA Diamond)

The information we collect will be used to develop a range of outputs and tools which will offer practical help to institutional publishers. Through the landscape mapping conducted in this survey, DIAMAS will create a registry of “institutional publishing service providers”, building a community ready to share knowledge and collaborate. A series of best practices, policy recommendations, and guidelines will be created to help strengthen the community  and set evidence-based quality standards. 

The work of the project will culminate in an online portal which can be used by the community to retrieve information and guidance. In order to effectively do this, your input is essential.

Respondents have until 30 April to complete the survey. 

Who should complete the survey?

In short, Institutional Publishing Services Providers (IPSPs) from the European Research Area, including third countries associated and to be associated with Horizon Europe.

By IPSP, we understand an entity that provides or coordinates a set of services for institutional academic publishing to the academic community. These services may be provided by the institutional publisher itself (in which case the institution publisher is also the IPSP) or by other entities inside or outside the institution.

Within each IPSP, persons with a good overview of publishing activities, including the provision and organisation of related services, should complete the survey. Answers can be saved and returned to at a  later stage if respondents must consult others to collect accurate information. We ask for one completed survey per organisation.

scilake-a-scientific-lake-for-the-research-ecosystem

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“SciLake is a Horizon Europe project that aims to introduce and establish the concept of the scientific lake, a research ecosystem where scientific knowledge is contextualised, connected, interoperable, and accessible overcoming challenges related to the heterogeneity and large interconnectivity of the underlying data….”

PALOMERA – Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area

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“The PALOMERA project (Supporting the development of aligned policies for open access books and monographs) is funded for two years under the Horizon Europe: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101094270).

Academic books continue to play an important role in scholarly production and research communication, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. As an important output of scholarly production, academic books must be included in open science/open access policies and strategies developed by research funders and institutions, to ensure that open science becomes the modus operandi of modern science across all disciplines. However, contrary to article publishing in journals (especially in the areas of Science, Technology, and Medicine) academic books have not been a focus point for open access (OA) policymakers. Consequently, books are only rarely mandated to be published OA by research funders and institutions. 

PALOMERA will investigate the reasons for this situation across geographies, languages, economies, and disciplines within the European Research Area (ERA). Through desk studies, surveys, in-depth interviews, and use cases, PALOMERA will collect, structure, analyse, and make available knowledge that can explain the challenges and bottlenecks that prevent OA to academic books. Based on this evidence, PALOMERA will provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the overall objective of speeding up the transition to open access for books to further promote open science. 

The recommendations will address all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers). The PALOMERA consortium broadly represents all relevant stakeholders for OA academic books, but will facilitate co-creation and validation events throughout the project to ensure that the views and voices of all relevant stakeholders are represented, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will assure maximal consensus and take-up of the recommendations….”

Open Science to Increase Reproducibility in Science – Research Data Management

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“OSIRIS will investigate, trial and implement interventions to improve reproducibility in science

While over the past decade many interventions to improve reproducibility have been introduced, targeted at funders, publishers or individual researchers, only few of them have been empirically tested. OSIRIS will do just that, testing existing and newly developed interventions, including Open Science practices, through controlled trials. The underlying drivers, barriers and incentives of reproducibility will also be studied in a systematic way. Aim is to deliver and disseminate guidance about evidence-based interventions that can improve the reproducibility of scientific findings….”

Economics and equity in the development of Open Research Europe | Septentrio Conference Series

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Abstract:  Open Research Europe (ORE) is the open access peer-reviewed publishing platform offered by the European Commission as an optional service to Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries at no cost to them. The platform enables researchers to publish open access without paying out of their research budgets and while complying with their open access obligations. This paper identifies potential financing and governance model(s) that would operationalize ORE as a collective publishing enterprise, supported by research funders and possibly research organizations, as of 2026. The aim of this study is to develop a sustainable, scalable funding model that is not based on article publication charges (APCs). To this end, the main business and financing models for not-for-profit publishing services were reviewed, based on a series of case studies and interviews with seven leading not-for-profit service providers. The paper outlines possible business model(s) for the financing of the operations of the Open Research Europe platform in the future and sets out actionable recommendations for implementing such a business model, appropriate to the scope and scale of the endeavour. It assesses how to incorporate equity into the design of Open Research Europe; and how to make Open Research Europe sustainable in the long run.

 

DIAMAS receives grant to develop Diamond Open Access publishing in Europe | Plan S

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Aix-Marseille Université, cOAlition S, and Science Europe are pleased to announce that they are participating in a Horizon Europe project called ‘Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication’ (DIAMAS). The 3-year project, launched on the 1st of September 2022, receives funding in the context of the Horizon Europe call on Capacity-building for institutional open access publishing across Europe.

The DIAMAS project, which was awarded a grant of €3m, brings together 23 European organisations that will map out the landscape of Diamond Open Access publishing in the European Research Area and develop common standards, guidelines and practices for the Diamond publishing sector. The project partners will also formulate recommendations for research institutions to coordinate sustainable support for Diamond publishing activities across Europe.

Moreover, the DIAMAS project will interact closely with the global community of the ‘Action Plan for Diamond Open Access’ signatories. While the project will spearhead some of the activities laid out in the Action Plan, it welcomes complementary actions and contributions. As a first step, DIAMAS project partners and members of the Diamond Open Access Plan Community had the chance to meet and discuss collaboration opportunities during the Diamond Open Access Conference (Zadar, Croatia, 19 – 20 September 2022).

 

Capacity-building for institutional open access publishing across Europe

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“Projects are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

Improved understanding of the current landscape of institutional scientific publishing activities across Europe.
Coordination amongst institutional publishing services and initiatives across Europe at the non-technological level and improve their overall service efficiency, in particular in a multilingual environment.
Actionable recommendations for strategies regarding institutional publishing in research performing organisations across the European Research Area.

These targeted outcomes in turn contribute to medium and long-term impacts:

Increased equity, diversity and inclusivity of open science practices in the European Research Area.
Increased capacity in the EU R&I system to conduct open science and set it as a modus operandi of modern science.

Scope:

Recent years have witnessed a sharp increase in open access publishing activities. Commercial scientific publishers and other service providers have turned their attention to open access publishing, responding to increased demand for open access by funders and research performing organisations. Research institutions have also developed their own open access publishing activities and services. These are either new and based on open access publishing, or are existing publishing activities transitioning into the new digital and open access environment. Libraries are often involved, while new types of mission-driven open access university presses are also emerging in Europe and beyond. Such initiatives do not require article fees for publishing, and are often supported by their institutions. They enable open access publishing of journals and other types of outcomes in various languages and are important in supporting multilingualism in Europe. At the same time, they often have not gained the prestige bestowed on established publishing venues, usually produced in collaboration with well-known commercial scientific publishers. Moreover, institutional publishing in the social sciences and the humanities is often in languages other than English, which is both an asset and a limitation….”

Developing Institutional open Access publishing Models to Advance Scholarly communication (DIAMAS) | Funding & tender opportunities Single Electronic Data Interchange Area (SEDIA)

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In the transition towards Open Access (OA), institutional publishing is challenged by fragmentation and varying service quality, visibility, and sustainability. To address this issue, DIAMAS gathers 23 organisations from 12 European countries, well-versed in OA academic publishing and scholarly communication.

The project will:

1. Map the current landscape of Institutional Publishing Service Providers (IPSPs) in 25 countries of the ERA with special attention for IPSPs that do not charge fees for publishing or reading. This will yield a taxonomy of IPSPs and an IPSP landscape report, a basis for the rest of the project.

2. Coordinate and improve the efficiency and quality of IPSPs by developing a European Quality Standard for Institutional Publishing (EQSIP). This quality seal will professionalise, strengthen and reduce the fragmentation of institutional publishing in Europe. EQSIP will serve as a benchmark for a gap analysis of the data in (1). Buy-in and capacity-building is ensured by co-creation with the relevant IPSP communities of practice, creating a Common Access Point for IPSPs, an IPSP registry with 80% of IPSPs in the ERA, publishing guidelines, training materials, self-assessment tools, financial models, and shared cost frameworks. DIAMAS embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion by addressing gender equity in OA publishing and multilingualism in 15 European languages. Special attention is paid to building and enabling the financial sustainability of IPSPs.

3. Formulate community-led, actionable recommendations and strategies for institutional leaders, funders/sponsors/donors, and policymakers in the European Research Area (ERA). Workshops and targeted networking actions will reach and engage institutional decision-makers. In 36 months, DIAMAS will deliver an aligned, high-quality, and sustainable institutional OA scholarly publication ecosystem for the ERA, setting a new standard for OA publishing, shared and co-designed with all stakeholders.

 

European Commission signs first grant agreements under Horizon Europe | European Research Executive Agency

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The European Commission recently signed grant agreements with 49 projects that successfully applied to Horizon Europe: Reforming and Enhancing the European R&I System and Research Infrastructures.  

Find out more about these two funding opportunities and the upcoming projects below.   

Reforming and Enhancing the European R&I System 

Reforming the European R&I System is part of the Horizon Europe’s Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area call (Destination 3). 

Call for funding opened on 08 June 2021 and closed on 23 September 2021. 

Out of the 44 applications received, 20 projects covering 15 topics were funded, for a total of about 50.5 million euros of European Commission contribution. 

Projects start between June 2022 and September 2022.

Find below an overview of the selected projects per call topic(s)/type(s) of action:

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EU science ministers agree on research assessment reform | Science|Business

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“EU science ministers today signed off an agreement backing research assessment reform in Europe, alongside conclusions on open science, international cooperation and Horizon Europe missions.

In a meeting in Luxembourg, the 27 ministers acknowledged it’s time for the EU to revamp how it evaluates research, putting more weight into the quality of research outcomes rather than qualitative indicators such as journal impact factors and number of citations….”