CERN to host Europe's flagship open access publishing platform

In an important step for open science, CERN has been selected to host a new phase of Open Research Europe (ORE), an initiative supported by the European Commission and a new funding consortium of European national funding agencies and research organisations. Aligned with the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (2022)[1], the initiative is a community-led alternative to traditional academic publishing. When the new ORE platform is launched later this year, authorship eligibility will be expanded to include researchers affiliated with institutions in the countries that participate in the consortium. Publishing will remain completely free for both European Commission-funded researchers and authors from participating countries. The aim is to promote equity, diversity and transparency in scholarly communication while maintaining high standards of quality and integrity.

The ORE funding consortium currently comprises members from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland[2]. The European Commission participates as a permanent observer in the governance body and provides dedicated financial support. CERN will provide the technical and operational infrastructure for the platform, built on the open source software Open Journal Systems (OJS), while governance and editorial oversight will remain the responsibility of the ORE consortium.

ORE follows the innovative publish–review–curate model, which promotes rigour and transparency in the publishing of research. Articles are first checked for integrity and compliance, then published and peer-reviewed openly. Peer-review reports are made public, and articles that successfully pass review are curated into subject-specific collections. This approach combines quality assurance with openness, while also enabling post-publication review.

Launched by the European Commission in 2021 to provide beneficiaries of EU research programmes with a no-fee open access publishing platform[3], ORE was designed to make publicly funded research more transparent, accessible and sustainable through an innovative publishing model. In the five years since its launch, the platform has seen steady growth and uptake across the research community, with more than 1,200 articles published and over 6,300 authors from more than 3,000 institutions worldwide taking part.

CERN’s role in operating ORE builds on its long-standing experience in developing and maintaining open science infrastructures and community-governed services for the global research community. By hosting ORE, CERN will provide a neutral, reliable and sustainable environment, drawing on expertise gained through flagship open science initiatives such as Zenodo, Invenio and SCOAP3.