The Revised Recommendation on Access to and Preservation of Scientific Information

1. TOWARDS FULL OPEN ACCESS?
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE REVISED RECOMMENDATION ON ACCESS TO AND
PRESERVATION OF SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
Former Senior Policy Officer for Open Access and
Research Data (2012-2018)
Independent EU research policy expert

2. OA IN EUROPE: MULTI-LEVEL ACTION
 Action at European Level (EC)
 Framework Programmes: FP7-H2020
 Continued commitment for Horizon Europe
 Action at MS Level
 2016 Compet Council Conclusions: open access by 2020
 National Actions & Roadmaps (ERA and beyond)

3. EC RECOMMENDATION ON ACCESS TO AND PRESERVATION OF
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
 First issued 2012 together with a Communication (state of
OA at the time) and the ERA Communication: OA as part
of ERA – priority 5 circulation of knowledge)
 Addressed to Member States
 Provides basis for national self reporting – National Points
of Reference (NPR report, latest issues 2018)

4. KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM NPR REPORT
 Member States believe we are making some progress with
open access

5. KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM NPR REPORT (FOR OA)
 Member States largely believe that the 2012 Recommendation has been valuable and impactful
at European and national level.
 The majority of the countries have adopted, are implementing or currently discussing policies for
open access to publications at the national level
 The perception shared by multiple countries is that while national funders and some institutions
have good general knowledge about the EU open access policies, there is much less awareness
in the majority of institutions, and at the researchers’ level
 Rewards for practicing Open Science (i.e. the culture of sharing) built into the career assessment
and related education and skills initiatives and strategies is being implemented mostly at the
institutional level.
 Only half of the countries monitor the development and/or growth of open access publications
at national level
 For the great majority of countries the transparency of negotiations for 'big deals' on journal
subscriptions and the issue of VAT for digital journals is of importance

6. A KEY REMAINING CHALLENGE
 The Recommendation is just
that: soft law which cannot be
sanctioned
 But there is appetite among a
significant number of MS for
harder policies
 The Recommendation should
be turned into a Directive or a
Regulation

7. TOWARDS HARDER MEASURES?
 Some countries opposing the harder policies argue that Open Science
policies are already quite “hard” and have been working well so far.
 Some countries believe that it is too early to answer the question of
whether hard or soft policy is a better choice. It needs careful
consideration, and potentially a transition period.
 All countries agree that better communication and sharing of best
practices is needed.
 Low awareness among, or misconceptions of, stakeholders regarding
different aspects of open access was reported as a major problem by
multiple countries.

8. RECOMMENDATION 2018„UPDATE“
 the Commission decided for a technical update (revision) of the 2012 Recommendation, to
reflect recent developments in research practices towards Open Science as well as recent EU
policy developments: Digital Single Market, EOSC, PSI Directtive (revision).
 The revised Recommendation C(2018)2375 was published on April 15, 2018. Key innovations
include:
 MS should not only monitor but set and implement clear OA policies in national action plans,
providing for (i) concrete objectives and indicators to measure progress, (ii) implementation
plans, including the allocation of responsibilities and appropriate licensing, (iii) associated
financial planning.
 The revised Recommendation also reflects developments in areas such as: research data
management (including the concept of FAIR data), the increased capacity of data analytics,
text and data mining (TDM), ongoing developments at the EU level regarding the European
Open Science Cloud (EOSC), skills and competences for open science, incentives and reward
systems for researchers.

9. FOLLOW UP
 Links
 „NPR Report“, latest issue 2018
https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-
/publication/676f8a3b-62f6-11e8-ab9c-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION (EU) 2018/790 of 25 April 2018 on
access to and preservation of scientific information (update of 2012
Recommendation) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32018H0790&from=EN
 Contact
 daniel@spichtinger.net
 www.spichtinger.net