EU open access platform must ‘build trust’ among researchers

The expansion of the European Union’s open-access publishing platform through a new partnership with 10 national research organisations could be crucial in boosting the platform’s prestige and visibility, experts have said.

Previously, only EU programme grantees were eligible to publish in Open Research Europe (ORE), which launched in 2021. Last month, however, the European Commission announced that 10 research organisations across eight countries had agreed to collaboratively fund the platform for at least five years, expanding eligibility to “all researchers from participating countries and institutions”.

To date, the participating organisations are the German Research Foundation, the Spanish National Research Council, the French National Research Agency, the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency, the Austrian Science Fund, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the Research Council of Norway and three Swedish research councils.

Johan Rooryck, executive director of the cOAlition S initiative, told Times Higher Education that ORE’s expansion could help to “generate new trust” in the platform, which researchers may have been hesitant to publish on due to its relative infancy.

Typically, Rooryck said, “people submit to a journal because they trust the editor, they trust the editorial team and what they have done before”.

For ORE, “that trust still needs to be built and I think that is sometimes an impediment to uptake”, he said. “Since the national funders are closer in many ways to their national researchers,” he continued, their involvement could prompt “a major change in trust signals”.

The new agreement, Rooryck said, was an “important step because it shows that funding organisations want to be engaged in scholarly publishing”.  

Research consultant Rob Johnson, who has written reports on the publishing platform for the European Commission, described the agreement between ORE and the European research agencies as “really pleasing”.

“The fundamental challenge for Open Research Europe is that it’s not a journal and it doesn’t have an impact factor,” he said, noting that many academics still rely on publishing in highly ranked journals in order to progress professionally. “It’s an unfamiliar concept to most researchers. It doesn’t have that stamp of legitimacy.

“What’s going to shift that is influential actors promoting this. That means funding agencies not only putting money in, but actively communicating that to their researchers. It means leading researchers being prepared to put their work on it.”

“Gradually increasing the number of eligible authors seems a sensible way forward [for ORE],” Johnson said. “I think it’s important that they take it a step at a time, and don’t try to be too ambitious too quickly.”

Unlocking the potential of open access and open research

Unlike traditional journals, articles are published on ORE before peer review, after passing a series of pre-publication checks. The peer review process is open, with reviews – and the reviewers’ names – published alongside the article and its subsequent revisions.

EU research policy analyst Daniel Spichtinger said aspects like the open review process, which he described as “a little bit controversial”, were a key part of ORE’s appeal. “That’s exactly why we need a platform like Open Research Europe,” he said. “So we can try out these new things that most of the traditional journals don’t do.”

Open peer review, Spichtinger said, “acknowledges the role of the reviewer, which in the traditional system is usually invisible”. Moreover, he added, “It might also increase the quality of reviews, because everyone can see them.”

Rooryck offered a differing perspective, advising that ORE should publish reviews while giving its authors the option to remain anonymous. Especially in small research fields, he said, reviewers may be hesitant to openly critique the work of academics “they depend on for career advancement”.

Acknowledging the “legitimate reservations” concerning named reviews, Johnson commented: “Open Research Europe does not need to be the venue of choice for every researcher. It can be part of the landscape.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but it can definitely play a role, and I think there’s enough support in the research community for it to succeed.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com