Open Research Europe (ORE), the open-access publishing platform, has entered a new phase as a collective European publishing service, now operated by CERN. The relaunch expands eligibility beyond researchers funded through European Union programmes, giving more than 2.5 million scientists access to the platform.
The ORE platform was launched by the European Commission in 2021 to provide a no-fee, open access publishing venue for scientists funded through EU programmes. In its first five years, more than 1500 articles were published there, co-authored by more than 7800 authors from over 4000 institutions worldwide.
Going forward, ORE will be a not-for-profit public infrastructure supported by 17 research organisations and funding agencies. Collective governance will underpin its aim to promote equity, diversity and transparency in scholarly communication while maintaining high editorial standards and research integrity.
ORE accepts a wide range of research outputs across scientific disciplines, enabling researchers to publish their results at different stages of the research process. The platform’s editorial workflows support rapid dissemination, while transparent peer review and public commentary foster open science practices. All published outputs are freely accessible to readers, supporting equitable access to knowledge and the reuse and further development of research.
CERN’s role is to provide the technical and operational power for ORE, drawing on its experience with developing and maintaining open science infrastructures and community-governed services such as Zenodo , Invenio and SCOAP³ . As ORE’s new host, CERN offers a neutral and stable environment for the platform.
“Science advances when knowledge is shared. At CERN, openness is part of our DNA and we have long believed that the infrastructure supporting research should be treated as a shared resource for the scientific community and for society at large. By hosting Open Research Europe in its next phase, CERN brings this experience to scholarly publishing, helping to build an open and transparent service for researchers in many disciplines across Europe,” said Mar Capeáns, CERN Director for Site Operations.
The new infrastructure being used for ORE is based on the open-source software Open Journals System (OJS). Features developed specifically for the new ORE platform will be made freely available to the 58 000 journals using the software worldwide, transferring value to the wider scholarly publishing community.
This new phase for ORE marks the beginnings of a deeper collaboration between CERN, the European Commission and national research funders and institutions, who commit to working together to build a sustainable, not-for-profit alternative for scholarly publishing. Researchers are now encouraged to publish openly on ORE and help shape the future of knowledge through a service built to better meet the needs of the community.
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