GraspOS aims to build and operate a data infrastructure to support the policy reforms and pave the way towards a responsible research assessment system that embeds OS practices and accelerates its adoption in Europe. GraspOS will focus on extending the EOSC ecosystem with tools and services that will facilitate monitoring the use and uptake of various types of research services and outputs (publications, datasets, software) and will catalyse the implementation of policy-level rewards to foster OS practices. These tools and services will build upon multiple sources of metric data (e.g., OpenCitations, Scholexplorer) including capabilities offered by the EOSC Core, that will be federated in the context of the project, and will take into consideration both contemporary guidelines for Responsible Research Assessment (RRA), like those provided by initiatives like DORA and the Leiden Manifesto, and the suggestions from a diversity of relevant stakeholders. GraspOS will also incorporate piloting activities to co-design, showcase, validate, and evaluate GraspOS’s key results considering domain-specific aspects and different levels of OS-aware RRA, such as the researcher (individual/group), institution, and national level.

The objective of ALMASI is to provide the research community with an aligned, nonprofit, high-quality, and sustainable scholarly communication ecosystem across three world regions: Africa, Europe, and Latin America. This will enable scholarly communities to take full responsibility for innovative, valid, reliable and accessible publishing services and solutions that do not charge fees to readers or authors, commonly known as Diamond Open Access. This aligned nonprofit publishing ecosystem will take into account specific needs across the diversity of disciplines, global regions, and languages. The project will achieve this goal by concentrating on measures that will harmonise and strengthen existing nonprofit publishing services and solutions. ALMASI will establish a framework for knowledge transfer, coordination, and alignment of non-technological publishing skills, services, and solutions. The project will focus on (1) mapping nonprofit publishing services and solutions across the 3 regions; (2) aligned quality support instruments for publishing services; (3) shared training materials and curricula for publishing services, journal editors, and publishing staff; and (4) long-term financial sustainability and OS policies for scholarly publishing. The project will be carried out in the context of the nascent Global Diamond Federation, which is supported by UNESCO.

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. PALOMERA will 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 overall objective 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 broadly represents all relevant 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 assure maximal consensus and take-up of the recommendations.

The OPERAS-PLUS project will support the further development of OPERAS in its preparatory phase of new ESFRI Research Infrastructure projects. OPERAS is the Research Infrastructure dedicated to enhance open scholarly communication for the Social Sciences and the Humanities in the European Research Area (ERA). Designed as a distributed infrastructure, it was incorporated as an AISBL in 2019. OPERAS entered the ESFRI roadmap in 2021 and is now on its path to become operational as an ERIC in 2028. The OPERAS-PLUS project will serve the OPERAS community with its wide variety of small-sized stakeholders, which are committed to make open scholarly communication the default practice in Social Sciences and Humanities in the ERA. In that sense, OPERAS-PLUS will provide an operational and efficient framework to meet the needs and objectives of the OPERAS community with solutions of utmost quality, thus fulfilling the European Commission‘s expectations of scientific excellence. The project’s main objectives are 1) to develop and strengthen OPERAS governance structure, especially financial, legal, and human resource management aspects of the infrastructure central hub in a sustainable way, compliant with Research Infrastructure management best practises; 2) to support the establishment and development of OPERAS national nodes, set up and manage the workflow of bidirectional exchange with the central hub; 3) to develop OPERAS portfolio of services by providing both required technology and a monitoring system for services development via an Innovation Lab dedicated to this task; and 4) to maximise OPERAS’ impact in the ERA and at an international level by extending it beyond its current scope and onboarding new members and countries in the infrastructure.

The LUMEN project is a groundbreaking initiative aimed at revolutionizing cross-domain collaboration and discovery processes in the fields of Mathematics (Maths), Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), Earth System (ES), and Molecular Dynamics (MD), and beyond. Leveraging the successful GoTriple platform, renowned for its service to the SSH community, LUMEN seeks to extend its functionality to foster interoperability across scientific domains. Through interdisciplinary solutions spanning all four domains, LUMEN will redefine the process of discovery with radical innovations, simplifying initial research phases and facilitating access to advanced AI-powered tools for researchers. By expanding existing discovery platforms in the SSH and Maths domains and developing new platforms for other domains, LUMEN aims to fundamentally transform EOSC services, promoting innovative and customizable solutions for data discovery, attracting new users, and fostering Open Science principles. The project will also drive multidisciplinary cooperation through collaborative platforms and onboard new scientific communities into EOSC, providing them with the necessary tools. Ultimately, LUMEN seeks to revolutionize how research outputs are created, shared, and utilized across scientific domains, enhancing scientific discoveries, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and promoting innovation and trust in European scientific research.