Recognizing their duty as research funders and in order to support efforts towards open access publication of research results, an informal group of Research Funding Organizations, later joined by large philanthropies, called cOAlition S set up Plan S which in its current form states that “With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.” The SOAR project will aim to support Plan S implementation by 1. Helping grantees researchers identify Plan S compliant publishing venues offering a route to compliance with Plan S and Horizon Europe requirements on open access, via the development of an online Journal Checker Tool ; 2. Supporting European and international activities to foster policy alignment with Plan S by more funders, and to grow cOAlition S and 3. Fostering communication and increased engagement with research communities. The project will be led by the European Science Foundation, in close collaboration with the Open Access Champion appointed by cOAlition S. The desired impact of the project will be increased support for Plan S and Open Access, contributing to Horizon Europe priorities on Open Access.

The European Commission has made great strides in pushing for a more open scholarly publishing system in the past 15 years, and Open Access to publications is now mainstreamed into the European Commission research funding framework. The EC has been supporting a consortium of research funders called cOAlition S that have adopted an Open Access mandate for recipients of their funding called Plan S, which required cOAlition S grantees to publish all peer-reviewed articles resulting from their grant funds in open access (OA). In the five years since Plan S was published, cOAlition S has grown from 12 founding members to 28 and the Plan S Principles have been implemented in the participating funders’ policies. We are now in a position to evaluate the first five years of Plan S and cOAlition S, and reflect on lessons learned and the road ahead. The OA-Advance project will contribute to strengthening cOAlition S as an instrument to advance the European Commission’s and participating funders’ shared vision to deliver full and immediate OA. It will work to achieve this by assessing the impact of Plan S through an independent review, and by providing recommendations on how to build on the achievements of Plan S to support a new vision for the future of scholarly publishing.

The MERIL-2 project aims to create an authoritative, exhaustive online source of scientific and policy relevant data on European research infrastructures (RIs) of more than national relevance. It addresses the work programme priorities of promoting the development and coordination of policy and international cooperation in the domain of RIs. MERIL-2 builds on the successful development of the original MERIL and research mapping exercise initiated by the ESF membership and which services ESFRI. MERIL-2 aims to achieve step changes in terms of: 1) The comprehensiveness of RIs identified in the portal from 900 to 1200+ and the full publication of those identified from 500 to 800; 2) The utility of the portal in terms of functionalities, analytical capacity and intermediation; 3) Stakeholder value in terms of policy relevant data including financial and human resource dimensions and coverage of RI mapping processes and tools in comparator regions. These objectives will be met through a synergistic partnership of three organisations; European Science Foundation (ESF), the Greek National Documentation Centre (EKT-NHRF) and Agency for the Promotion of Research (APRE), that harnesses the complementary strengths of advanced portal design, European member state communication systems and deep knowledge of the RI landscape and data acquisition requirements under the leadership of an expert advisory committee. On a practical level, the approach will include redesign of the portal with enhanced functionalities, expert/ESFRI and NDI consultations on policy data needs and parameters, a complementary review of RI data policies and strategies and policies including implications of policy data provision and resourcing a publishing completion function for non-responsive RIs. These actions will lead to an enhanced MERIL-2 portal with comprehensive coverage of the European RI landscape and high quality systems and data of stakeholder interest with flexible, open and user oriented interfaces.