Council of theEuropean Union
Brussels, 4 May 2023
(OR. en)8827/23

RECH 153
EDUC 144
PI 52
DIGIT 82
NOTE
From:
To:

General Secretariat of the Council
Permanent Representatives Committee/Council

No. prev. doc.:8024/23

Subject:

Preparation of the Council (Competitiveness (Internal Market, Industry,
Research and Space)) on 22-23 May 2023
Draft Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy
and equitable scholarly publishing- Approval1.

In its Conclusions of 1 December 2020 on the New European Research Area (ERA)1, theCouncil highlights that open science, including mainstreaming open access to publications
and research data, has a crucial role in boosting impact, quality, efficiency, transparency andintegrity of research and innovation, and brings science and society closer together whilst
taking into account legitimate legal, security and privacy aspects.

2.

In its Recommendation of 26 November 2021 on a Pact for Research and Innovation (R&I) in
Europe2, in the section on priority areas for joint action in the Union, the Council recommends
to the Member States to support and reward a true open science culture across the Union,
including mainstreaming open access to scholarly publications and research data (i.e.
following the ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’ principle) and the diffusion anduptake of open science principles and practices.

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OJ L 431, 2.12.2021, p. 1-9.

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On 8 February 2023, building on the work done in the field by several previous presidencies,
and with the aim to accelerate the transition to open science, the Swedish Presidency tabled aset of draft Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitablescholarly publishing.

4.

The text was discussed by the Research Working Party at its meetings on 16 February, 9 and27 March, and 27 April 2023. The fourth version was accepted without any furtheradjustments, whereby an agreement has been reached at technical level.

5.

The Permanent Representatives Committee is invited to confirm the agreement reached at
technical level on the text as set out in the Annex to this note, in view of submitting the draft
Conclusions for approval by the Competitiveness Council (Research) at its meeting of23 May 2023.

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ANNEXDRAFT COUNCIL CONCLUSIONS ON HIGH-QUALITY, TRANSPARENT, OPEN,TRUSTWORTHY AND EQUITABLE SCHOLARLY PUBLISHINGTHE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,RECALLING–its Conclusions of 1 December 2015 on research integrity3, which recognised the importanceof open science as a mechanism for reinforcing research integrity, and vice versa;–

its Conclusions of 27 May 2016 on the transition towards an open science system4, which
acknowledged that open science has the potential to increase the quality and impact of scienceto the benefit of society;–its Recommendation of 5 April 2022 on building bridges for effective European highereducation cooperation5, which underlined the importance of support for the piloting andtesting of open-source solutions to overcome common challenges, thus contributing to theinteroperability, digital readiness, data sovereignty and responsibility of higher educationsystems;345

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–

its Conclusions of 10 June 2022 on principles and values for international cooperation in
research and innovation6, which encouraged open science in order to seek reciprocal
consolidation and dissemination of research results through frameworks and strategies
focusing on open and immediate access to scientific publications, and supported the rights ofresearchers to publish, share, disseminate and communicate openly the results and data of
their research, including through training and teaching, as well as to associate inrepresentative professional or academic organisations without being disadvantaged by thesystem in which they work or by any censorship or discrimination;–

its Conclusions of 10 June 2022 on research assessment and implementation of open science7,
which underlined the need for unimpeded access to and reuse of publicly funded research
results, publications and data for research purposes, and highlighted the benefits of open
science and of immediate open access to research publications, and of multilingualism for thewider communication of research results,

Towards an open, equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing system
1.

RECALLS that scholarly publishing, through journals, is currently the primary academicmeans of disseminating research results and new scientific knowledge; REITERATES theimportance of accelerating the transition to open science to improve research quality,efficiency and impact by promoting transparency, accessibility, diversity, reusability,reproducibility and trustworthiness of research results, that open access to scholarly
publications, including their reuse, is one of the core elements of an open science system, andthat action is needed to ensure that scholarly publishing supports these aims;

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NOTES that the digital transition, albeit with its challenges, continues to create opportunities
for new methods of efficient and effective scholarly publishing, such as online publishingtools, repositories and platforms for a wide range of research outputs in all fields, both atnational and European level, but that much of the current system is based on business andoperational models that have not yet fully realised the digitalisation potential, notably inrelation to the expanding range of increasingly important research outcomes such as datasets,
software and research protocols; and UNDERLINES the importance of investing in einfrastructure, digital and innovative tools and capacities;

3.

EMPHASISES that scholarly publishing should support essential principles of academic
freedom, research integrity and scientific excellence, as well as maximum accessibility andreusability of research results, while also supporting research communities and theirtransdisciplinary collaboration, and UNDERLINES that the scientific practices for ensuring
reproducibility, transparency, sharing, rigour and collaboration are important means ofachieving a publishing system responsive to the challenges of democratic, modern anddigitalised societies; HIGHLIGHTS that immediate and unrestricted open access should be
the norm in publishing research involving public funds, with transparent pricing
commensurate with the publication services and where costs are not covered by individual
authors or readers;

Supporting diversity and ensuring equity in scholarly publishing
4.

ACKNOWLEDGES that publishing practices vary across disciplines, and EMPHASISES thatsome publication formats, such as monographs, books and long-text formats, especially in thesocial sciences and humanities, should continue to be supported, while promoting open accesspublishing and allowing for a diverse range of formats to co-exist, and for publishing in arange of languages;

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NOTES that the current system of scholarly publishing is operated by various for-profit andnot-for-profit organisations and RECOGNISES with concern that the increasing costs ofpaywalls for access to scientific publications and for scholarly publishing cause inequalities
and are becoming unsustainable for public research funders and institutions accountable forthe spending of public funds, decreasing funding available for research;

6.

HIGHLIGHTS the importance of not-for-profit, scholarly open access publishing models that
do not charge fees to authors or readers and where authors can publish their work without
funding/institutional eligibility criteria; NOTES the variety of models that do not depend on
article processing charges or similar per-unit charges and STRESSES the importance ofsupporting the development of such models led by public research organisations;

7.

STRESSES that it is essential to avoid situations where researchers are limited in their choiceof publication channels due to financial capacities rather than quality criteria, and whereaccess to research publications is restricted by paywalls; WELCOMES coordination within
the EU and with global partners to support equity in scholarly publishing, taking account ofthe UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science8;

Enhancing trust and ensuring high quality, transparency and integrity in scholarly publishing
8.

UNDERLINES that academic freedom encompasses the right to freely define researchquestions, choose and develop theories, gather empirical material, employ academic researchmethods, question accepted wisdom and bring forward new ideas, and entails the right toshare, disseminate and publish the results thereof, including through training and teaching,and STRESSES that any restriction of these practices is a threat to academic freedom and toresearch integrity;

8UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science - UNESCO Digital Library

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STRESSES that rigorous peer review should continue to be essential to scholarly publishing,with researchers taking responsibility for peer review and providing expert advice on editorialboards, ensuring scientific standards, validity and quality of the research; EMPHASISES thatpeer review should continue to build and maintain research integrity and trust in science,
including by retraction of invalid publications; RECOGNISES that the peer review system iscurrently facing various challenges, e.g. increased number of submissions and reviewer
fatigue; UNDERLINES the need to promote transparency through open peer review practices,and to give recognition to and reward researchers for peer review;

10.

STRESSES that reproducibility is a key characteristic of research quality which is closely
related to research transparency and integrity, and that a lack of reproducibility may have anegative impact on scientific progress and on trust in science;

Way forward
Framework conditions
11.

ENCOURAGES Member States and the Commission to step up support to the developmentof aligned institutional and funding policies and strategies regarding not-for-profit open
access multi-format scholarly publishing models in Europe with no costs for authors orreaders, and to set and implement roadmaps or action plans for a significant expansion of such
publishing models;

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WELCOMES the introduction of secondary publication rights by a number of Member States
into their national copyright legislation, enabling open access to scholarly publications
involving public funds; ENCOURAGES the Commission, in the context of ERA action 2 inthe ERA Policy Agenda 2022–2024, to examine and propose measures at EU level aiming at
removing barriers to access to and reuse of publicly funded research results, as well as
publications and data for research purposes, while guaranteeing the author’s consent;
INVITES Member States to update their national open access policies and guidelines to makescholarly publications immediately openly accessible under open licences and to apply theprinciples of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) and “as open as possible,
as closed as necessary” to research data, taking into account the OECD Recommendation
concerning Access to Research Data from Public Funding9;

13.

EMPHASISES the need for a change in research culture that recognises diverse research
activities with the overarching goal to maximise high quality and impact of the research;
WELCOMES in this respect activities of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment(CoARA); and ENCOURAGES close dialogue between stakeholders, Member States, theCommission and Associated Countries in reforming research assessment, in coordination withglobal partners;

14.

NOTES that the lack of data and trustworthy information on the state of scholarly publishing,including costs and bibliometric data, hinders the advancement of open access policy
development, implementation and evaluation and weakens the position of Member States andresearch organisations in negotiating with commercial publishers; ACKNOWLEDGES
ongoing developments to monitor progress towards open science within the framework ofEuropean Open Science Cloud (EOSC), based on national monitoring and common
qualitative and quantitative indicators; ENCOURAGES Member States and the Commission
to accelerate these developments and reduce the fragmentation of monitoring initiatives byincluding open science monitoring in the ERA monitoring mechanism, and to endeavor toensure that the monitoring data adhere to the FAIR principles;

9Recommendation of the OECD Council concerning Access to Research Data from PublicFunding - OECD8827/23
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Capacities: infrastructures and skills
15.

CONTINUES to encourage Member States to support the piloting of Open Research Europe(ORE) into a collective, not-for-profit large-scale open access research publishing service forthe public good, and to promote and support other subject-specific and national not-for-profit,
open access publishing platforms and models that provide high-quality publishing services toresearchers and, whenever possible and suitable, are connected at European level forincreased capacity, efficiency, usability and cost-effectiveness;

16.

ENCOURAGES Member States and the Commission to invest in and foster interoperable,
not-for-profit infrastructures for publishing based on open source software and open
standards, in order to avoid the lock-in of services as well as proprietary systems, and toconnect these infrastructures to the EOSC;

17.

ENCOURAGES Member States and the Commission to develop mutual learning exercises onpeer review, covering principles and practices, how to promote transparency and how torecognise and reward peer review activities in the assessment of researchers;

18.

ENCOURAGES Member States and the Commission to take action to promote institutional
capacity building and to increase researchers’ knowledge of intellectual property rights andtheir value, including the consequences of copyright transfers from authors to publishers andthe importance of researchers’ strategic intellectual property management in facilitating
immediate and unrestricted open access to scientific publications;

19.

INVITES Member States and the Commission to align their open access and open science
policies and recommendations with the Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe10 and theEuropean Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of the European Federation of Academiesof Sciences and Humanities11, and STRESSES that in doing so it is essential to develop
training and materials that support researchers in their endeavours to apply open science
principles, while ensuring that high standards of research integrity are complied with;

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ALLEA-European-Code-of-Conduct-for-Research-Integrity-2017.pdf

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INVITES Member States, in collaboration with the Commission, to address in a systemicmanner the issue of predatory publishing and to promote and support training on responsible,
open and ethical publishing practices for students and researchers at all career stages, thereby
providing them with the skills and competencies they need, as well as to ensure adequate
training and awareness on predatory, questionable, deceptive and low-quality publishingpractices and their negative impact on reliability of research.

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