Members of Science Europe - comprising 50 major public research organisations in Europe - adopted four new common principles on Open Access Publisher Services at its General Assembly meeting in Vienna on April 15. Science Europe is an association of major European research funding and research performing organisations in 27 countries, established in 2011, to promote the collective interest of its members and to foster collaboration between them.
The Principles, which were prepared by Science Europe's Working Group on Open Access to Scientific Publications, complement the existing Science Europe 'Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications' published in April 2013.
As scholarly publishing makes its transition to an Open Access system, and as service providers change their business models, the outcome of the transition will depend on the added value and quality of the services provided. The new principles adopted by Science Europe aim at setting minimum standards for Open Access publishing services provided by scholarly publishers. These general - and at the same time very practical - principles will help ensure scholarly and technical quality and cost- effectiveness of Open Access-related services in all fields, from sciences to social sciences and the humanities.
