In December 2024, 11 prominent research funding and performing organizations in Europe signed a Statement of Intent to collaboratively fund Open Research Europe (ORE) and confirm its not-for-profit mission for the public good.
What does this significant milestone in the development of ORE mean for you and your research? Such a collective commitment will reinforce ORE as a robust and impactful open access publishing venue. More generally, opening up ORE to a more diverse community of researchers, authors, readers and users of research results will also contribute to enhancing equity, diversity, and transparency in scholarly publishing. Let’s peek behind the curtain.
A necessary next step for Open Research Europe
ORE may have started on a small scale, but it has been a vital resource for EU programme grantees, offering a cost-free, peer-reviewed publishing venue. As ORE developed, the restriction of potential authors to only EU programme grantees became an obstacle to overcome.
The recent commitment from no fewer than 11 organizations in eight European countries will allow all researchers from participating countries and institutions to publish their work without incurring any costs, thus expanding the publishing eligibility in ORE beyond the grantees of the EU funding programme.
As of 15 January 2025, the following organizations have committed to support ORE:
- The Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
- The French National Research Agency (ANR)
- The German Research Foundation (DFG)
- The Research Council of Norway (RCN)
- The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)
- The Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS)
- The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
- The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS)
- The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE)
- The Swedish Research Council (VR)
This evolution will not only expand the Platform’s scale and scope but benefit the entire research community. Supporting a not-for-profit ORE promotes open science principles such as transparency, collaboration, and reproducibility. This approach enhances researchers’ knowledge base and networks, drives innovation, and benefits society at large.
More for the public good
The European Commission’s collaboration with national research funding and performing organizations over the past two years has laid the groundwork for this evolution. The signatories of the Statement of Intent have committed to funding ORE’s operations as a collective, not-for-profit, open access publishing service with the European Commission for an initial period of five years, starting in 2026. This aligns with the vision outlined in the European Commission’s scoping report on collective ORE from September 2024. The report puts forward ten guiding principles and the policy context for ORE’s development, including the progressive alignment with the diamond open access principles from the ‘Action Plan for Diamond Open Access’.
The Statement of Intent is the first public commitment to a collectively funded and governed ORE. The collaboration will involve governance participation by the funding organizations (current and potential new organizations) and the European Commission, ensuring ORE remains accountable to the research community and the public. It supports ongoing efforts to create a pan-European partnership that will sustain ORE, advance open access publishing, and foster high-quality research. This commitment aligns with the global movement towards equitable and open scholarly publishing.
Next steps in evolving Open Research Europe
The participating organizations plan to sign a collaboration and financing agreement before the end of 2025. This agreement will detail the legal and governance structure, financial contributions, and operational framework for ORE, enabling its operation as a collectively funded platform from 2026 to 2031. The collective service is expected to launch in mid-2026, with the European Commission continuing to provide significant funding. Currently, 11 additional organizations are welcome to join.
The future of Open Research Europe looks bright, with a stronger, more collaborative platform on the horizon. This evolution, driven by the collective efforts of the European Commission and major research funding organizations, will ensure that ORE continues to serve the research community effectively, expands eligibility for publishing in the platform, and fosters a more equitable and open scholarly publishing environment.
Read the Statement of Intent on Open Research Europe.
