The PALOMERA Project (Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area) is a two-year project funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe program. The project’s goals are to understand why so few Open Access funder policies include books, and to provide actionable recommendations to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the overall objective of speeding up the transition to OA for books. Open Access Books are defined within the remit of the project as scholarly, peer-reviewed books including monographs, book chapters, edited collections, critical editions, and other long-form scholarly works.
As the project draws to a close at the end of 2024, on 28th October, project partners, associates and affiliates of PALOMERA gathered in ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to hear the outcomes and findings, with a deeper dive into the project recommendations, addressed to all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers). In this context, DARIAH contributed in collaboration with Coimbra University (partner of the project) to elaborate the recommendations for the researchers, which strengthens our Open Access involvement.
The first day was opened by Oto Luthar of ZRC SAZU, who noted the far reaching implications of the project’s survey of Open Access book policies in the European Research Area (ERA), which is a cause to celebrate its successes: the project currently has the most comprehensive and up to date materials available to describe the OA book policy landscape in the ERA.
The project has resulted in a series of recommendations emerging out of its’ validation methodology, which drew on scientific coordination and PESTLE analysis framework to facilitate it. We also heard from a panel of international stakeholders who took to the stage to discuss the critical aspects of these recommendations, and brainstorm any potential challenges or problems in implementing them.
Victoria Tsoukala, the Open Science Policy Officer at European Commission, also tuned in to share her thoughts on the project recommendations. We also heard about the PALOMERA Knowledge Base and the OABooks Toolkit. Niels Stern of OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) closed the day by urging project partners and affiliates to remember that despite the project coming to an end, PALOMERA is a stepping stone: the shared level of knowledge that we are standing on, along with the strong consortium of 16 partners, bodes well for the future of open access in Europe.
Read the PALOMERA Recommendations for Open Access Books here.
You can read our X/Twitter thread on the conference here.
