On Tuesday, 23 May 2023, the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted the Council conclusion "High-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing" presented by the Swedish Council presidency (open-access.network reported). In the conclusion, the Council calls on the EU Commission and the EU member states, among other things, to support immediate and unrestricted access to scientific research results in the publication system – especially if they were publicly funded.
DFG and EUA welcome Council conclusion with statements
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) responded with a statement welcoming the EU Council conclusions and the "landmark recommendations" they contain for the scientific publishing system. In addition, the DFG emphasised the importance of some of the demands concerning the further development of scientific publication infrastructures. Among other things, these should become "openly accessible, sustainably financed digital infrastructures for research in a high-quality manner". In addition, they should protect academic freedom and guarantee the quality assurance of publications. Furthermore, the publication bodies must enable the highest possible accessibility and re-usability of scientific results.
In a joint statement with other European science organisations, the European University Association (EUA) also welcomes the adopted conclusion of the EU Council. In particular, the association underlines the importance of the promotion of non-profit open access publication models called for in the text.