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For Science Europe, 2021 was a very important year: the association celebrated its 10th year of existence. Founded in 2011, it has grown into a respected and influential voice in the European research policy debate. Moreover, we published a new Strategy Plan for 2021–2026, which maps our collective objectives and sets a specific yet flexible action framework over the next five years.

The Council Conclusions are an important step in recognising the relevance of Open Science and reforming research assessment, which are two essential elements of the cultural shift that are necessary to put research quality and openness are the cornerstones of positive research cultures.

Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR) present an Action Plan to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond OA scholarly communication ecosystem.

The Science Europe Strategy Plan comes at a crucial time for European Research an Innovation (R&I) and includes an updated vision, mission, values, and set of strategic priorities for the association. It supports its Member Organisation in their mission to create world-class scientific knowledge, delivering more benefit for our societies.

This Multi-annual Action Plan proposes a series of framework actions to guide the implementation of the Science Europe Strategy Plan 2021–2026 in line with the association's updated vision, mission, values, and strategic priorities.

On 27 January 2021, Science Europe presented the second, extended version of its Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management during a webinar with more than 260 participants.
As it was unfortunately not possible to address all questions participants asked during the launch event, this document presents the answers to the questions asked to both Science Europe and the webinar speakers.

This Practical Guide provides guidance to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of research data. Three complementary maturity matrices provide funders, performers, and data infrastructures with a way to create a common understanding of the approaches needed.

The year 2020 saw a global pandemic attest to the value of science. In the race for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, Science Europe’s Member Organisations were at the forefront of the global response and our association became more relevant and important than ever.

Released in partnership with CESAER and the European University Association (EUA) this joint statement outlines how all publishers must fully respect researchers’ rights by providing clarity and transparency on Open Access.

This briefing paper aims to support decision makers at research organisations and research funders to develop new monitoring exercises or assess and improve existing processes to measure the Open Access status of publications.

Science Europe and cOAlition S publish an in-depth report and recommendations arising from a study of community-driven Open Access journals across the world that are free for readers and authors, usually referred to as 'OA diamond journals'.

Developed by experts from Science Europe Member Organisations, this guide aims to align research data management (RDM) requirements across research organisations. Originally released in 2019, it was updated in January 2021 to include guidance to support the evaluation of data management plans (DMPs).

The 2020 edition of the Science Europe High Level Workshop on ERA was co-hosted with the Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education. It explored how research and innovation can contribute to crisis recovery and to societal resilience in the context of an evolving research culture.

The 20 and 21 November 2019 Science Europe Workshop on Digital Transformation in Scholarly Communication explored how new possibilities and technologies provided by the digital transformation can impact the future of the scholarly publication process.

Does your organisation want to develop requirements for data management plans (DMPs) or update existing ones?

Take a look at our latest publication to find out how to do so in three steps.

So far, much of the focus of the transition towards Open Access has been on scholarly and scientific articles. However, a significant number of disciplines, notably – but not only – within the Social Sciences, the Arts, and the Humanities produce and heavily use books. This briefing paper identifies the key issues at stake in implementing a policy of Open Access to academic books, and outlines recommendations for different stakeholder groups to facilitate and accelerate such a policy.

‘Big Deals’ are one of the dominant but highly-disputed business models in academic publishing. The model needs to be further analysed before it can be used as an instrument to implement and increase Open Access. This workshop was as organised to trigger further expert discussions on the current business models and consider the available alternatives.

How can citizens best be involved in the scientific process, and how ‘Open’ can we make science? How do we ensure that the highest standards in scientific research are maintained in such a system? This report provides an overview of the main discussions at the 2017 Science Europe High-level Workshop hosted in Berlin by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Research organisations and funders increasingly ask researchers to create Data Management Plans for their work and proposals. A lack of standardisation means that these can be time-consuming to create and difficult to compare and evaluate. Science Europe presents a framework for the creation of domain-specific protocols that can be used as standardised templates, reducing the administrative burden on both researchers, research organisations, and funders.

Science Europe welcomes the efforts made towards the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). In this open letter, the Governing Board of Science Europe reinforces its view that research data should be permanently, publicly, and freely available for re-use. The proposed EOSC aims to further this goal but a number of important questions still remain.

This open letter issued by the international research community calls on Members of the European Parliament to halt the adoption of harmful provisions found in the current draft of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which could threaten Open Access and Open Science.

Science Europe is committed to playing a role in accomplishing the transition to Open Access in an efficient and sustainable way and encourages scientific institutions to disclose payments of Open Access publication fees by participating in the ‘Open APC Initiative.’ This paper highlights how this will help create a more transparent cost structure in the Open Access publication market and stimulate competition.

Open Access greatly improves the pace, efficiency, and efficacy of research. This report highlights the efforts made by public research organisations in Europe to develop and implement Open Access policies and addresses the challenges faced by different actors in order to facilitate and accelerate the transition towards full Open Access for all scholarly publications by 2020.

Decisive action is needed to transition towards more effectively and efficiently towards an Open Access publishing system. This paper presents some of the recent trends and developments in the transition to Open Access, as well as various business models currently in use which aim to facilitate this transition. It also highlights expected benefits and underlines remaining challenges.