ORE was created as a publishing Platform for Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Euratom, and other co-funded actions. The Platform offers rapid publication and a rigorous open peer review process for all published research. Researchers who fall under these categories can publish any research outputs they wish to share across all subject areas (read more in the following question below). The article must be the result of either a running or completed Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe project from the European Commission, and at least one contributing author must be involved in the project.  

ORE supports the publication of several article types, including Research Articles, Reviews, Case Studies, Data Notes, Method Articles, Essays, Systematic Reviews, and Software Tool Articles.  

By accepting a range of article types, ORE allows parts of research that would not normally be published by traditional publication methods to be made accessible. ORE also publishes across a wide range of disciplines, including the Natural Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities.  

Open Research Europe takes care of all requirements on behalf of researchers whose work is accepted for publication on the Platform. ORE ensures this is fully compliant with the regulations.

ORE’s peer review model is centered around transparency and innovation, allowing peer review to become a constructive and collaborative conversation within the research community.  

The process is formal, invited, and most importantly, open – so reports are published alongside the article, with reviewer names and affiliations. 

Peer review takes place after the article has been published openly on the Platform, so the research can be read and cited while being assessed by expert reviewers. 

Reviewers assess the quality and validity of the research, not the novelty or perceived interest. ORE also welcomes null and negative studies, and they will not be reviewed any differently.  

Visit the ORE resource hub to learn more about the peer review process. 

ORE’s peer review process is a collaboration between the author and the in-house Editorial team. 

Authors must suggest at least five potential reviewers who meet the suggested criteria, and they must continue to provide names until at least two peer review reports have been published. ORE’s Reviewer Provider Tool helps authors by generating a list of potential reviewers if needed, and the Editorial team are also available to assist throughout the process.  

As such, peer review is by invitation only and is open (the names and affiliations of reviewers are published alongside their reports). 

No. Authors do not need to worry about sourcing funding for APCs. Costs are met directly by the European Commission as long as they are eligible to publish on ORE. Please see our other question in this list regarding eligibility. 

In order to ensure ORE is meeting the needs of all the researchers it aims to serve, across all the disciplines, there are a wide variety of article types available to choose from. Some of these article types are only available for certain disciplines and therefore, authors must select the discipline before submitting to make sure they can choose from the appropriate article types.

When submitting, researchers must first choose one of six discipline areas (Natural Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities). After publishing, the research can be tagged in multiple Community Gateways to display the multidisciplinary nature of the work. 

The European Commission has confirmed funding to continue providing ORE in the future for their beneficiaries. At the same time, conversations are taking place to explore the potential of expanding the Platform to serve other national funders. In the long term, the EC has plans for ORE to be a reliable, technologically autonomous publishing Platform for all researchers and with no author-facing fees (diamond model).  

The ORE publishing model and peer review process often result in several article versions, with their own individual digital object identifiers (DOIs) to allow readers to track the evolution of the article throughout the review process. Indexing databases can choose whether they would like to index all versions of the article, or simply take the latest version. Databases that hold multiple article versions may accidentally be marked as duplicates and be mistakenly removed, and multiple versions can also affect search systems. ORE is available to help research libraries integrate the ORE publishing model with their archiving system to ensure ORE articles are searchable, findable, and accessible within your system.  

All articles are included in Google Scholar upon publication. Once the article passes peer review, it will also be discoverable on Scopus and Inspec. Further indexation is very important for Open Research Europe and applications to additional databases are underway. All indexations will be listed on the website as soon as it is achieved. 

 

• The European Commission recently published an Agreement on the reform of research assessment. This is an exciting announcement for Open Research Europe, as the Agreement would contribute to mainstream practices that support robustness, openness, and transparency of research and the research process. Open Research Europe already implements many of these practices, such as: 
• No Journal Impact Factor, instead promoting the responsible use of individual article indicators. 
• Early sharing of results with open post-publication peer-review as well as an open data policy where research data supporting articles is deposited in trusted repositories, facilitating reproducibility of research. 
• 14 article types are accepted across all subject areas, including publication of confirmatory, null, and negative results. 
• Education, training, and support for researchers for peer-review and open research practices. 
• There are opportunities for increased credit for additional activities undertaken by researchers, such as Advisory Board roles and peer reviewing (each peer-review can be cited independently from the article). Open Research Europe supports the responsible use of research-related metrics and its application to research assessment – following, among others, the Leiden Manifesto and the DORA Declaration. Each article published on Open Research Europe includes an article-level metrics page demonstrating the individual article’s reach, interest and ‘quality’. It also includes traditional indicators (such as article citation data) alongside more qualitative indicators such as views, downloads, social media and wider engagement. 

 Read the full Agreement: Reforming research assessment: The Agreement is now final | European Commission (europa.eu)