Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PALOMERA (PALOMERA - Policy Alignment of Open access Monographs in the European Research Area)
Période du rapport: 2023-01-01 au 2023-09-30
Academic books continue to play an important role in scholarly production and research communication, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. As an important output of scholarly production, academic books must be included in open science/open access policies and strategies developed by research funders and institutions, to ensure that open science becomes the modus operandi of modern science across all disciplines. However, contrary to article publishing in journals (especially in the areas of Science, Technology, and Medicine) academic books have not been a focus point for open access (OA) policymakers. Consequently books are only rarely mandated to be published OA by research funders and institutions.
The overall objective of the PALOMERA project is to investigate the reasons for this situation across geographies, languages, economies, and disciplines within the European Research Area (ERA). Through desk studies, surveys, in-depth interviews, and use cases, PALOMERA will collect, structure, analyse, and make available knowledge that can explain the challenges and bottlenecks that prevent OA to academic books. Based on this evidence PALOMERA will provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the purpose of speeding up the transition to open access for books to further promote open science. The recommendations will address all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers).
The PALOMERA consortium represents the main stakeholders for OA academic books, but will facilitate co-creation and validation events throughout the project to ensure that the views and voices of all relevant stakeholders are represented, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will support maximal consensus and take-up of the recommendations.
The overall objective of the PALOMERA project is to investigate the reasons for this situation across geographies, languages, economies, and disciplines within the European Research Area (ERA). Through desk studies, surveys, in-depth interviews, and use cases, PALOMERA will collect, structure, analyse, and make available knowledge that can explain the challenges and bottlenecks that prevent OA to academic books. Based on this evidence PALOMERA will provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the purpose of speeding up the transition to open access for books to further promote open science. The recommendations will address all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers).
The PALOMERA consortium represents the main stakeholders for OA academic books, but will facilitate co-creation and validation events throughout the project to ensure that the views and voices of all relevant stakeholders are represented, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will support maximal consensus and take-up of the recommendations.
During the first 9 months of the project, the landscape of OA book funder policies and institutional strategies has been thoroughly researched through a large-scale data collection exercise. This work constitutes foundational building blocks for the project. In concrete terms, PALOMERA partners have collected policy documents from 39 countries across the ERA, issued a survey that has obtained 454 responses, and performed 38 in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders. The data collection has been coordinated and structured under the leadership of beneficiary IBL-PAN as part of WP2 and constitutes the Knowledge Base.
The technical preparation of the Knowledge Base is an activity that has advanced significantly during the first project period. It will be stored in a DSpace repository and connected to the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit as planned. The DSpace provider has been selected and the instance has been customized to the project specificities. The collected documents will be made available in the Knowledge Base by December 2023 and in time for the validation workshop scheduled for January 2024.
During the next project period, the data in the Knowledge Base will be analysed as part of WP3. However, the WP has already started by planning a coding framework for the mapping of open access policies that have been collected as part of WP2. The framework has now been finalized and work is in progress in WP3 to code the policies of the hundreds of policies collected based on the variables we are interested in. Work with this task will continue and intensify as interview materials and survey datasets become finalized during the autumn. The task is progressing well and according to schedule.
An important activity that has been carried out in the first project period is the establishment of the Funder Forum (FF). It was established to engage directly with the research funders as a key stakeholder group and to ensure knowledge exchange and mutual learning between research funders. The first FF meeting held in May 2023 showed a significant interest among funders to convene around OA book policy discussions. Around 40 representatives from over 20 countries participated. The planning of the second FF meeting (planned for November 2023) has been ongoing. Leading up to that meeting a policy brief was submitted as a deliverable (D4.1) and published and distributed publicly at the end of the project period. The policy brief contained a clear message to the funders when communicating this recommendation:
“We recommend that research funding agencies would agree on a support mechanism for the future coordination of the recently established OA Books Funder Forum.”
(https://operas-eu.org/projects/palomera/palomera-1st-policy-brief).
Another important activity of the project is the preparation of the first validation exercise. This validation exercise is planned for January 2024. It will gather a group of 48 experts representing a diversity of stakeholders from the different regions of the ERA. The validation exercise aims (1) to assess the accuracy of the Knowledge Base that was gathered during the first phase of the project and (2) to understand how it could be used by different stakeholders beyond the end of the project.
The technical preparation of the Knowledge Base is an activity that has advanced significantly during the first project period. It will be stored in a DSpace repository and connected to the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit as planned. The DSpace provider has been selected and the instance has been customized to the project specificities. The collected documents will be made available in the Knowledge Base by December 2023 and in time for the validation workshop scheduled for January 2024.
During the next project period, the data in the Knowledge Base will be analysed as part of WP3. However, the WP has already started by planning a coding framework for the mapping of open access policies that have been collected as part of WP2. The framework has now been finalized and work is in progress in WP3 to code the policies of the hundreds of policies collected based on the variables we are interested in. Work with this task will continue and intensify as interview materials and survey datasets become finalized during the autumn. The task is progressing well and according to schedule.
An important activity that has been carried out in the first project period is the establishment of the Funder Forum (FF). It was established to engage directly with the research funders as a key stakeholder group and to ensure knowledge exchange and mutual learning between research funders. The first FF meeting held in May 2023 showed a significant interest among funders to convene around OA book policy discussions. Around 40 representatives from over 20 countries participated. The planning of the second FF meeting (planned for November 2023) has been ongoing. Leading up to that meeting a policy brief was submitted as a deliverable (D4.1) and published and distributed publicly at the end of the project period. The policy brief contained a clear message to the funders when communicating this recommendation:
“We recommend that research funding agencies would agree on a support mechanism for the future coordination of the recently established OA Books Funder Forum.”
(https://operas-eu.org/projects/palomera/palomera-1st-policy-brief).
Another important activity of the project is the preparation of the first validation exercise. This validation exercise is planned for January 2024. It will gather a group of 48 experts representing a diversity of stakeholders from the different regions of the ERA. The validation exercise aims (1) to assess the accuracy of the Knowledge Base that was gathered during the first phase of the project and (2) to understand how it could be used by different stakeholders beyond the end of the project.
Understanding the challenges preventing more OA book policies to be developed in the ERA will enable the project to issue efficient recommendations that can lead to increased alignment on important principles for OA book policy making. Together with the outcomes of the Funder Forum meetings, such evidence-based and actionable recommendations can lead to results beyond the state of the art. However, to achieve success and full impact of these project results demonstration and internationalisation will be needed.
A demonstration project could ensure that the actionable recommendations are turned into action through a number of use cases. Internationalisation is vital because research is global and policies therefore have to be aligned internationally. Efforts have already been made in this direction in the first project period by inviting research funders from non-ERA countries, for instance the United States, to the Funder Forum meetings. At the first FF meeting two relevant US funding agencies were represented.
A demonstration project could ensure that the actionable recommendations are turned into action through a number of use cases. Internationalisation is vital because research is global and policies therefore have to be aligned internationally. Efforts have already been made in this direction in the first project period by inviting research funders from non-ERA countries, for instance the United States, to the Funder Forum meetings. At the first FF meeting two relevant US funding agencies were represented.