Open Research Europe as a Collective Publishing Enterprise

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) commissioned Rob Johnson (Founder and Managing Director, Research Consulting) to provide advice on the organisational and financing model(s) that would operationalise Open Research Europe (ORE) as a collective publishing enterprise as of 2026.

ORE is the open access peer-reviewed publishing platform currently offered by the European Commission as an optional service to Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries at no cost to them. The European Commission is exploring the potential to gradually expand ORE from a publication platform for EC beneficiaries only, into a non-for-profit European publishing platform for all, with the involvement of funders from EU Member States and possibly beyond.

Drawing on case studies of non-profit services involved in the provision of infrastructure for scholarly communication, this study sets out a series of recommendations for how this work can be taken forward by the EC and its prospective funding partners. Open Research Europe (ORE) is an open access peer-reviewed platform currently offered by the European Commission, solely for the use of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries. However, the European Commission is looking into expanding this platform for all researchers, giving everyone the potential to publish their work in open access and with no publication costs on the researchers’ end.

This study supports the future development of ORE as the first truly pan-European non-profit publishing initiative. With collective support from the EC and national research funders, ORE can become an open, international publishing infrastructure with a genuine ability to scale. In the long term, it holds out the prospect of a truly equitable solution to the problem of access to scholarly publications for both authors and readers.