Competitiveness Council adopts conclusions for scholarly publishing

Calling for the development of open access and the support of non-profit publishing models.

The Council Conclusions supported the trend towards transparent and open scientific publishing. The Competitiveness Council highlighted the importance of open science and its potential to improve the quality and impact of research. It recalls previous conclusions that similarly pointed to the integrity of research, the concept of open science and international cooperation in research and innovation.

The document emphasizes the need to accelerate the transition to open science and support the availability, diversity, and reproducibility of research results. It emphasizes that open access to scientific publications should be the norm for research that is funded by public funds. Furthermore, the document calls for the support of non-profit open access publishing models that do not charge fees to authors or readers. Mainly to avoid a situation where the choice of publication channels of researchers is limited by financial capacities rather than quality criteria.

The Competitiveness Council encourages Member States and the European Commission to support the development of open access, examine measures to remove barriers to access and reuse of publicly funded research results, and update national open access policies. It also highlights the need for a change in research culture, tracking progress towards open science and investing in infrastructure and skills. One of the challenges of the member states is also the support of the Open Research Europe pilot program, which is to serve as a publication service for the field of open access research.

Find the entirety of the Conclusions on the website of the Council of the EU.