European Commission to launch its own Open Access publishing platform

6th August 2020 at 3:18 pm

In early 2021, the European Commission (EC) will officially launch “Open Research Europe”, an open-access peer-reviewed publishing platform for projects funded under Horizon 2020 (H2020) and Horizon Europe. Accepted research outputs do not only consist of standard research articles, but also data notes, new insights, confirmatory and negative results. With this platform, the EC wishes to ensure that all H2020 and Horizon Europe have the opportunity to publish fully in line with open access policies for all types of outcomes. The submitted articles cannot be published elsewhere, but will benefit from fast processing times and will be peer-reviewed once published.

Currently, beneficiaries within a H2020 project are required to ensure open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications (Art. 29.2. Model Grant Agreement) which means free online access for any user. The author has two main approaches to ensure open access known as ‘green’ or gold open access. With green access, the author may publish the article or the final peer-reviewed manuscript in an online repository, also known as self-archiving. Some publishers request that open access is given after an embargo period. The EC allows an embargo period of up to 6 months (12 months for social sciences and humanities) after the publication. However, for the majority of publications, the embargo periods are longer than accepted by the EC’s open access policy. In these cases, the author has the opportunity to ensure open access through ‘gold’ publishing where the author pays for the article to be immediately published open access and publication costs are shifted away from the readers. In H2020 projects, the publication costs are eligible for funding and should be included as part of the project’s budget.

The publishing service offered by the Open Research platform will be free for all beneficiaries, as article processing fees will be entirely and centrally paid by the EC. Authors will have the possibility to interact with reviewers, within the frame of an open and transparent peer review process. Researchers and citizens will have access to all published research outputs, but also to the data underlying the results, since authors will be requested to comply with a mandatory FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data policy.

Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries will remain free to choose where they will publish their research, as long as it is compliant with the open access policy for EU-funded projects. Open Research Europe will offer an additional alternative to disseminate EU-funded research outputs.

Open Research Europe will accept H2020-funded research outputs as of autumn 2020. It will contribute to the EC’s ambition to position itself as a leading funding institution in open science. The Open Research publishing platform F1000 Research has been selected to build and operate the platform for an initial 4-year period, following a call for tenders published in July 2019.

You can find further information and the latest updates on the Open Research Europe website: https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/.

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Over the years, accelopment has supported scientists and companies in various disciplines with dissemination and exploitation for many collaborative projects, dozens of training networks and other basic and translational research funding schemes, including industry-focused funding programmes.

Our multi-disciplinary and highly qualified team has many years of experience notably in projects in Energy, Health, Food, ICT, NMBP and other areas. Besides extensive expertise in administrative project management, our team is completed by specialists in science communication, dissemination management, exploitation as well as in-house graphic design. Some of our current H2020 projects include the Research and Innovation Actions VANGUARD, EXIMIOUS, CLASSY and macQsimal as well as several Innovative Training Networks such as PEARRL, Train2Target, LightDyNAmics, NanoCarb. If you have any questions how we can support you please contact one of our experienced communication experts:

Julia Götz
Project Manager Communications