This Autumn, Open Research Europe opens up to a wider research community

May 28, 2026

Written by CERN, OPERAS and the European Commission

For many researchers, autumn is one of the most demanding times of the year—new academic terms begin, teaching resumes, and schedules quickly fill with fresh responsibilities. But autumn 2026 will bring more than the usual intensity—it will introduce a significant new opportunity for publishing research.

Since its launch in 2021 by the European Commission, Open Research Europe (ORE) has provided a high-quality open access research publishing platform for research outputs originating from grants of EU programmes. While the platform has played an important role in enabling rapid and transparent dissemination of EU-funded research, along the principles of open science, author eligibility has so far been limited to researchers funded through these programmes.

From autumn 2026, that changes substantially: ORE is entering a new phase that significantly broadens the set of authors that will be able to publish on the platform.

ORE as a collective effort

Starting in autumn 2026, ORE transitions to a collectively funded model hosted by the world-leading scientific research facility CERN. Alongside continued support from the European Commission, ORE will be led by a consortium of national research funders and institutions from eleven European countries:

  • Austria (FWF)
  • France (ANR, CNRS)
  • Germany (German Research Foundation (DFG), via the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space)
  • Italy (MUR)
  • the Netherlands (NWO)
  • Norway (RCN)
  • Portugal (FCT)
  • Slovenia (ARIS)
  • Spain (FECYT, CSIC)
  • Sweden (FORMAS, FORTE, Vetenskapsrådet)
  • Switzerland (SNSF)

This transition marks a shift from a programme-specific platform to a shared European publishing infrastructure with a much broader reach than its original remit.

What does this mean for researchers?

The most significant change in this new phase of the platform has to do with who can publish on it. The new model significantly expands eligibility from a group of EU-funded researchers to a much larger community.

While researchers funded through EU framework programmes (from Horizon 2020 onwards) will remain eligible to publish in ORE, from autumn 2026 eligibility will also extend to researchers affiliated with institutions based in the above listed countries.

This expansion in eligibility goes even further. As long as one co-author is ORE-eligible, their entire international author team can publish on ORE without author-facing fees and in full compliance with funder open access mandates.

This is a significant development for collaborative research. International research projects often span multiple funding systems, making publishing eligibility complex. Under the new model, teams no longer need to navigate fragmented requirements: they can publish together, on one platform, without barriers or fees.

Supporting open academic discussion

The expanded ORE will continue to provide a publishing model designed to support open science practices. Individual researchers decide when a research output is disseminated on ORE. After rigorous pre-publication checks the research output is widely distributed via ORE and indexed. High-quality review processes take place after publication, to allow for an open academic discussion. If an article passes the peer-review process it is sent for further indexation. Authors and readers incur no fees for publishing or reading the outputs. Finally, publication on ORE enables eligible authors from participating countries to comply with their funders’ Open Access mandate. 

A broader community of authors

The new ORE therefore represents more than an expansion of a publishing platform. It reflects a broader shift in how research is supported, shared, and safeguarded.

On the one hand, by collectively funding and governing ORE, public research organisations are recognising publishing as an integral part of the research cycle, and taking shared responsibility for ensuring that outputs remain openly accessible.

On the other hand, the new ORE marks a broadening of who can participate in open access publishing. By opening eligibility to all researchers in participating countries and to their international collaborators, ORE is welcoming a much larger and more inclusive community of authors from all scientific and scholarly disciplines.

We are looking forward to publishing your research on ORE.

Still not sure if you are eligible to publish in ORE in autumn 2026? Contact us at info@ore.eu