Tag: Press release

Brussels, 17 February 2020

A joint statement calling on EU institutions to ensure the right of researchers to share their research findings without embargoes or restrictions has today been issued by three organisations representing early-career and senior researchers in Europe and beyond. The statement by the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc), the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), and the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) calls upon the European Commission to propose legislation ensuring that researchers always retain the right to share their publicly funded, peer-reviewed research findings.

Our three organisations represent a broad spectrum of researchers: Eurodoc represents 100,000+ doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers from 29 national associations across Europe; MCAA has 14,000+ members who are current or previous beneficiaries of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions; YAE consists of 200+ outstanding and recognised researchers in Europe.

YAE Vice-Chair Toma Susi: “Embargoes are an unjustified disservice to society, researchers and science itself, and it is becoming increasingly clear they are a thing of the past. European governments and others who fund research are entitled to demand immediate open access to research supported by taxpayer money. Legislation like this would ensure that researchers do not end up as collateral damage or bargaining chips in this long-overdue transition.”

Eurodoc President Eva Hnátková: “Immediate access to the most up-to-date information is crucial to tackling urgent societal challenges. A clear example of this is the laudable commitment by funders and publishers to ensure that all peer-reviewed research publications relevant to the coronavirus outbreak are made immediately open access to help save lives. But why should we stop there? Aren’t saving lives from other diseases also urgent and important? And isn’t this equally true for the climate crisis and for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? There is no valid reason to lock away research outputs that are so vital to help us tackle all of these urgent and important challenges.”

MCAA Chair Matthew DiFranco: “In addition to the many open access journals that exist, there are also numerous subscription-based journals that already today allow researchers to share their findings in open access repositories without embargoes or restrictions. We call upon the publishers that still force barriers on the flow of knowledge to modernize and accept the need for immediate access. While a European directive is important as it would solve this challenge for all researchers in Europe, ensuring that all publishers modernize their policies would solve this problem for all researchers globally.”

We thank all of our members who contributed to this statement. 

Please reference the joint statement using: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3669124

The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc), the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), and the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) jointly welcome the revised implementation guidance for Plan S published by cOAlition S on 31 May 2019. Revisions to the guidance are based on 600+ feedback submissions to the open consultation that represented both individual and organisational stakeholders including researchers.

Our three organisations recognised the need to revise the scholarly publishing system and chose to work constructively with cOALition S to ensure full and immediate Open Access without adversely affecting researchers. We jointly supported the principles of Plan S with critical comments for further development and subsequently submitted feedback to the implementation guidance for Plan S with comprehensive recommendations. We are pleased to see greater clarity in the revised guidance details and believe that the three routes to compliance in Plan S will provide researchers with ample options to publish their research.

The revised guidance has extended the implementation deadline by one year to 01 January 2021 and addressed our main concerns including (1) exemptions for CC BY-ND licences (in the Humanities and Social Sciences) (2) softening of the mandatory technical requirements for publications and publishing venues and repositories (3) explicit support for venues with no author-facing fees and societies and open infrastructures (4) commitment to develop clear guidelines for waivers/discounts for authors and for collaboration with non-cOAlition S researchers (5) commitment to implement a new research incentive and reward system.

Toma Susi (YAE Vice-Chair and contact for Plan S):

Our organisations spent considerable time to understand and discuss the reasons for Plan S and implementation details such as copyright and licensing and the many technical requirements. This was vital for developing informed and constructive policy recommendations, which has clearly been effective given the amendments of the guidance and the public recognition of our feedback by cOAlition S.

Véronique De Herde (Eurodoc Secretariat Coordinator and contact for Plan S):

cOAlition S has listened to the concerns of researchers and positively revised the guidance. More transparency in publishing costs/prices plus a new reward system not focused on journal impact factor will release researchers from the increasingly unaffordable prestige-driven model and enable more cost-effective and fair ways of publishing and evaluating research.

Mattias Björnmalm (MCAA Vice-Chair of WG Policy and contact for Plan S):

We hope to see more awareness-raising and communication as well as ongoing interaction with the research community leading up to the implementation of Plan S by cOAlition S. These issues have been debated for more than a decade and real change is long overdue. It is now crucial that researchers take an active and leading role in the future of Open Access.

We hereby reaffirm our support for Plan S and look forward to working closely with cOAlition S to ensure a successful implementation of Open Access for researchers.

Issues addressed: [http://eurodoc.net/eurodoc-plans-annotation-2019.pdf] (PDF 400 kb)

5th June 2019. For further information please contact Toma Susi | @mostlyphysics | chair@yacadeuro.org

Pleased to see the Young Academy of Europe reaffirm their support for #Plan_S https://t.co/08rLZT86lY

— Robert Kiley (@robertkiley) June 5, 2019

A joint response to the implementation guidance for Plan S has today been issued by three organisations representing early-career and senior researchers in Europe. The response by the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc), the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), and the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) offers concrete recommendations on the proposed guidance for implementing Open Access via Plan S.

Our three organisations represent a broad spectrum of researchers in Europe: Eurodoc represents 100000+ doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers from 29 national associations across Europe; MCAA has 10000+ members who are alumni fellows of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA); YAE consists of 200+ outstanding and recognised researchers in Europe. We all strongly support the main goals of Open Science and Plan S.

The joint response builds upon previous recommendations by our organisations on the principles of Plan S and aims to ensure its realistic implementation from the perspective of European researchers. Eurodoc President Gareth O’Neill:

“Plan S has shaken the academic community awake and created a lively discussion on Open Access publishing. cOAlition S has addressed some key concerns from researchers in the technical guidance but still leaves other issues open and sets too strict standards for the desired broad adoption of Plan S.”

The proposals on copyright and licencing are still somewhat contentious. YAE Vice-Chair Toma Susi who coordinated the response for YAE:

“Copyright licences are complicated and often misunderstood. Plan S requires an open CC BY licence which applies only to publications and is necessary for unrestricted text-and-data mining and other desired reuses. This is why it is the right choice for publicly funded research. However, humanities and social science scholars have expressed valid concerns over misrepresentation and translations with CC BY. Our recommendation is thus to allow the option of an ND licence.”

The key to the successful implementation of Plan S lies in the research evaluation system. Mattias Björnmalm who coordinated the response for MCAA:

“A crucial factor for Plan S to succeed is that funders and institutions modernise their research and researcher assessment (e.g. for grants, hiring, and promotion) and evaluate research on its own merits instead of relying on faulty metrics. Good practices already exist from many funders and institutions. We ask institutions and especially the members of cOAlition S to not only sign but to start implementing the DORA principles in their research and researcher evaluation.”

We thank all of our members who contributed to this statement and also Bob Jones, Bianca Kramer, Raman Ganguly, Ignasi Labastida i Juan, Peter Murray-Rust, Jon Tennant, and Peter Suber for critical feedback. Any errors are attributable to Eurodoc, MCAA, and YAE.

28th January 2019. For further information please contact Gareth O’Neill | @gtoneill | +31651003175 | gareth.oneill@eurodoc.net