The Swedish presidency of the European Council published on 4 May the Draft Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing. The paper recommends strengthening open science through, among other things, an open and fair publication culture. The positions contained are to be put to a vote at the EU Council meeting on 23 May and are considered to have a consensus within the Council body, according to Research Professional News.
Publish research results immediately in open access
The draft calls on EU member states to actively participate in the implementation of open access (OA). Research results financed by public funds are to be published immediately in OA in future. The text emphasises the promotion of the development of non-profit publication infrastructures (diamond open access) in the European Union. This is intended to prevent authors' fees (APC) from having to be paid. Immediate open access should also prevent the practice of commercial publishers to make results freely accessible only after an embargo period. Furthermore, the Council presidency recommends, among other things, that the EU member states support the transformation of the Open Research Europe platform into a collective, non-profit, large-scale open access research publication service for the public good. Furthermore, EU countries should update their national open access policies and guidelines to make scientific publications available under open licences.