The theme of the seminar will be the recent developments in research evaluation, most notably “The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment” (ARRA) from 2022, but other important initiatives include the Diamond Open Access-model and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).

The aim of the seminar is to recognize different initiatives made to improve research assessment and, within this framework, to facilitate discussion between scientists and scholars from all over Europe. During the seminar we will hear from experts in the field of research policy within the Humanities and Social Sciences.

It is our mission to continually improve ERIH PLUS and to keep up with recent developments within the evaluation of research, and we believe that the seminar will be a rewarding forum for the exchange of ideas related to research assessment.

Seminar for erih+ National Experts and Advisory Group.

Kristin Gåsemyr, Head of Department of Data and Statistics at Directory of Higher Education and Skills, will wish you all welcome to the second day of this year's seminar.

Welcome

Our Higher Executive Officer, Markus Bang, will give a short overview of the work being done in ERIH PLUS at the moment.

erih+ Status

Gabi Lombardo, Director of European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities (EASSH), will discuss the work being done by EASSH in CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment).

Gabi Lombardo, "EASSH in CoARA: On Global Evaluation of SSH Research"

A short coffee break before we resume the second half of the day.

Break

Johan Rooryck, Executive Director of cOAlition S and visiting professor at Leiden University, will discuss how the continuous development of the Diamond Open Access-model identifies new needs and responsibilities that must be fully articulated and aligned internationally, and how this model must be supported by a shared and financially sustainable infrastructure that makes use of common quality standards, guidelines and policies.

 Johan Rooryck, "Diamond Open Access: Common Quality Standards, Guidelines and Policies"

Gunnar Sivertsen, Researcher and Special Advisor at NIFU (The Nordic Institute for Studies of Innovation, Research and Education) will speak about the field of Humanities and Social Sciences in light of the recent European Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment.

Gunnar Sivertsen, "Developing ERIH PLUS In Support of The European Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment"

Janne Pölönen (Secretary General for Publication Forum at Federation of Finnish Learned Societies) will discuss the importance of multilingualism within the field of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Janne Pölönen, "The Global Landscape of Journals for Multilingual Scholarly Communication"

EXPIRED: erih+ Seminar 

OPERAS, an infrastructure for scholarly communication in SSH, has been growing for almost a decade and is planning to become a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) in the upcoming years. SCIROS, launched in 2024, brings a fresh and ambitious perspective, building a vibrant and diverse network of researchers and research-performing organisations devoted to deepening the understanding of Open Science, fostering new approaches to its theory, and strengthening the OS practices and infrastructure ecosystem through collaboration.

By bringing together the OPERAS ecosystem and the SCIROS research network, the conference creates a unique platform for the entire Open Science community to engage in reflection, dialogue, and knowledge exchange across theory, empirical study, and infrastructure development. In this way, the conference theme, “One network, many possibilities. Strengthening the OPERAS community,” comes to life, showing how a connected yet diverse network can expand opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and sustainable growth in Open Science.

Information about conference priorities and themes is to be found on the 

This conference is jointly organised by the OPERAS Research Infrastructure and the SCIROS project, both of which have been actively exploring issues within the Open Science landscape.

We particularly welcome proposals that address the following priorities for an inclusive, researcher-driven infrastructure:

 Boundary objects are entities that enable “cooperation without consensus”, while building a collective consensus often requires overcoming differences. What are the understandings of Open Science that different actors operate with? What are the tensions between these understandings? Which of the tensions requires overcoming? 

 Supporting the publication and dissemination of specific SSH genres, such as monographs and critical editions. Acknowledging the specificity of SSH data, and sharing tools and workflows to adapt FAIR principles to the SSH.

 Implementing evaluation and quality assurance practices tailored to the SSH that encourage rather than stifle innovation in scholarly communication and that move beyond opaque metrics toward transparent peer review, in line with the CoARA initiative.

: Strategies to protect national infrastructures and promote local languages as valid media for scientific communication.

 Ensuring the infrastructure is governed by scholars and for scholars, a crucial factor for creating services that are truly productive and accessible.

 Integrating the needs of the entire scholarly ecosystem, including publishers, libraries, media, and non-profit organisations.

Showcase specific projects or technical solutions building RI for scholarly communication. (up to 500-word abstracts)

Report ongoing research, empirical results, or theoretical explorations of the conference themes. (up to 500-word abstracts, 10-minute presentation)

Address a single issue from the conference themes from the perspective of different communities (e.g. different national solutions to the same problem, or different stakeholders discussing one issue) to highlight diverse needs and contexts. 3-5 presentations per panel (approx. 60 minutes for the panel & Q&A). A panel description up to 500 words, highlighting the type (e.g. different national solutions), names of the panellists and scope of their contribution.

15 January 2026 – The online submission system will open and will be accessible via the conference website.

8 February 2026 (23:59 CET) – Submission deadline.

By the first week of March 2026 – Notification of acceptance and opening of registration.

Call for papers

One Network, Many Possibilities: Strengthening the OPERAS Community. 

Erih+ is a partner in this event hosted at the NCBR Brussels Office.


Diamond ERA: Fostering Openness in the European Research Area

" aims to highlight and promote Diamond OA as a sustainable, equitable and mission-driven model of scholarly publishing. It will provide a platform for engagement between policymakers, researchers, publishers, research funders, and infrastructure providers to collaboratively identify pathways toward stronger support and integration of Diamond OA practices in the European science policy landscape.


The Strategic Case for Diamond Open Access in SSH

Diamond OA offers a distinctive approach to scholarly publishing in which neither authors nor readers bear costs. Instead, financial support is directed to the institutions and infrastructures that provide publishing services. This model is especially significant in the SSH disciplines, where the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity matters a lot.


While the Diamond OA model already has strong roots in SSH publishing traditions across Europe, its development remains fragmented, underfunded, and insufficiently embedded in research assessment frameworks. At the same time, Europe is witnessing a growing political and institutional interest in non-commercial OA models, which emphasizes the timeliness and strategic importance of this conference.

The event will explore how the Diamond OA model can be scaled up and structurally supported across Europe, with a particular focus on enhancing equity, multilingualism, and innovation in scholarly communication. It will also showcase successful practices and infrastructures that are driving change from within the academic community.

The "Diamond ERA: Fostering Openness in the European Research Area" conference is a one-day policy-focused event that will bring together key stakeholders to advance the conversation on Diamond Open Access in the Social Sciences and Humanities across the European Research Area.

Opening Session: The Policy Horizon for Diamond OA in Europe

This opening session sets the strategic tone by mapping the policy and funding landscape shaping Open Access (OA) in Europe. Representatives from member states, European Commission, funders, and universities discuss how Diamond OA aligns with ERA objectives, research sovereignty, and multilingualism, identifying levers for sustainable implementation.

 – Deputy Director, Department of Research & Innovation, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland.
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 – Open Science and Research Infrastructures, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
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 – Senior Policy Officer, Science Europe.

| Showcase Session: Institutional and community-driven Diamond OA initiatives

This showcase spotlights pioneering Diamond OA initiatives and infrastructures led by universities, scholarly societies, and independent publishers. Through short presentations, participants will explore diverse approaches to academic-led publishing, governance models, and innovative tools that advance
equitable and multilingual dissemination in the SSH. Q&As will follow the series of lightning talks.

 – Open Science Officer at the Digital Humanities Centre PAS.


 – Editor at PRESSto, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM).
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 – Senior Editor and Outreach Coordinator at the Open Book Publishers (OBP).
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 – Executive Director, Open Library of Humanities (OLB) at Birkbeck University of London.
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 – OPERAS Innovation Manager, OPERAS Innovation Lab, Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre (PCSS), Polish Academy of Sciences.

| Keynote presentation: The European Diamond Capacity Hub

The keynote introduces the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) as a central coordination and support mechanism for Diamond OA across Europe. The speaker (s) will present the goals, governance model, and partnership structure, demonstrating how the Hub fosters collaboration, capacity-building,
and funding alignment to scale up community-led publishing practices.

 – Leiden University, Co-coordinator of the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) at OPERAS

| Panel Discussion: How to support Diamond OA in ERA – discussion with the community

This interactive panel gathers representatives from the scholarly community, research infrastructures, funders, and the EC to discuss policy and technical enablers for Diamond OA. The debate will focus on integrating initiatives on both European and national levels to build sustainable support mechanisms for
OA. Results of the recent Inspiring ERA Exchange workshop on overcoming barriers in OA publishing will be presented.

 – Head of the Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences.


 Leiden University, Co-coordinator of the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) at OPERAS
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 – Head of international cooperation at CNRS Open Research Data Directorate, Partnership coordinator at OPERAS and EOSC-A Director
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 – Head of Unit, Research Infrastructures, Libraries, IT at the Max Weber Foundation
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 – Inspiring ERA project & National Centre for Research and Development – Poland (NCBR Brussels).

| Panel Discussion: Indexing Diamond OA Content

Focusing on visibility and recognition, this panel explores the role of indexing services and metadata infrastructures in strengthening Diamond OA. Community experts will debate strategies to ensure discoverability, interoperability, and fair evaluation of Diamond publications across SSH disciplines.

 – Coordinator of OPERAS-PL, Head of the Section of Open Humanities at the Digital Humanities Centre (CHC IBL PAN).


 – School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, Deputy director of OpenEdition, Co-coordinator of OPERAS and Co-director of DOAB.
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 – European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH+) & Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir).
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 – Managing Director at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
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 – Head of the National Information Processing Institute (OPI PIB).

The Progamme

EXPIRED: Diamond ERA: Fostering Openness in the European Research Area

This conference is organised by the OPERAS-PLUS project to support the development of the OPERAS Research Infrastructure, supporting open scholarly communication for Social Sciences and Humanities in the European Research Area and to open up collaboration and facilitate exchange.

The OPERAS Conference aims to be a discussion hub in which different stakeholders such as researchers, decision-makers, publishers, librarians, and institutional service providers can share and compare their take on the current scholarly communication system and their vision for a sustainable future. 

The OPERAS conference will address issues relevant to the Social Sciences and Humanities field in the Open Science paradigm involving equitable publishing, multilingualism, bibliodiversity, and other related topics.

Programme and information about the event.

https://operas-eu.org/news-and-events/calendar-2/programme/ 

EXPIRED: Opening collaboration for community-driven scholarly communication

The Seminar will be a two-day happening for our National Experts and Advisory group.

We are pleased to announce the 2024 erih+ seminar which will be held in our offices in Brussels.

Events