Overcoming Barriers in Open Access Publishing – Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable ERA: Insights from the INSPIRING ERA Exchange
Open Access is a cornerstone of the European Research Area (ERA)—but turning ambition into reality remains complex. How can Europe move beyond fragmented policies and costly publishing models to create a system that is inclusive, sustainable, and truly accessible to all researchers?
These questions framed the INSPIRING ERA Exchange held in Warsaw on 28 October 2025, which brought together policymakers, funders, librarians, publishers, infrastructure providers, and researchers from across Europe. The goal was clear: to confront structural barriers in Open Access (OA) publishing and co-develop practical solutions that work across disciplines, countries, and institutional contexts.
Speakers and Perspectives: A system under pressure—and in transition
The event opened with Michał Goszczyński (Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education) and Tomasz Poprawka (PolSCA Brussels), who emphasised the political urgency of Open Access. Both highlighted the need to safeguard publicly funded research while ensuring it is widely reusable. Crucially, they called for “concrete suggestions” from practitioners to better align national policies with real-world implementation challenges.
Panagiota Kondyli (European Commission) provided a policy-level overview, situating Open Access within the evolving ERA Policy Agenda. She highlighted systemic issues: the transfer of rights to publishers, high publication costs, and fragmented copyright frameworks. Proposed solutions—such as a harmonised EU-wide secondary publication right—aim to remove legal barriers and support what she described as the “fifth freedom”: the free movement of knowledge in Europe.
From the infrastructure perspective, Maciej Maryl (OPERAS-PL) showcased how community-driven models—particularly Diamond Open Access—can support inclusiveness, especially in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). He stressed that strong national nodes and interconnected infrastructures are essential to make European-level initiatives meaningful for smaller institutions and multilingual communities.
Niels Stern (OAPEN/DOAB) turned to Open Access books, presenting both scale and fragility. While platforms now host tens of thousands of OA monographs, challenges remain: funding instability, cultural resistance, and increasing risks such as malicious AI scraping that could undermine trust in scholarly publishing.
A national implementation perspective came from Gerinta Raguckaitė (Research Council of Lithuania), who demonstrated how policy can translate into practice. Lithuania’s approach—combining legal frameworks, infrastructure investment, and an “open science ambassadors” programme—showed how smaller systems can move quickly and effectively when stakeholders are aligned.
Finally, Agnieszka Cybulska-Phelan (OpenAIRE / CoARA) addressed a critical contradiction: while Europe invests in open infrastructures, research assessment still relies on closed, proprietary systems. She argued that without reforming evaluation practices, Open Access will remain structurally disadvantaged.
Together, these perspectives painted a clear picture: Open Access is not just a technical issue—it is a systemic transformation involving law, funding, infrastructure, and incentives.
Challenges on the Ground: Structural barriers to Open Access
Discussions across plenary sessions and breakout groups revealed a set of deeply rooted challenges:
- Defining “impact” in Open Access ecosystems
Impact in OA is interpreted differently across stakeholders: policymakers focus on accessibility and reuse, researchers on citations and prestige, and institutions on compliance metrics.
This fragmented understanding complicates policy design and makes it difficult to demonstrate the broader societal and scientific value of Open Access. - Attribution of outcomes in complex publishing systems
Open Access outcomes are shaped by multiple interacting factors—funding schemes, publisher policies, infrastructure, and researcher behaviour.
As a result, it is difficult to isolate the effect of specific interventions, making it harder to justify investments or evaluate policy effectiveness. - Evaluation gaps and misaligned incentives
Despite strong OA mandates, research assessment systems still prioritise high-impact journals—many of which remain closed or hybrid.
This creates a structural contradiction: researchers are required to publish openly but rewarded for publishing in venues that often restrict access. - Researcher reluctance and reputational risks
Many researchers perceive Open Access—especially non-commercial or Diamond models—as less prestigious.
Early-career researchers are particularly vulnerable, as career progression often depends on publishing in established, high-impact journals. - Resource and skills constraints
Open Access implementation requires expertise in licensing, metadata, repositories, and funding mechanisms—skills not widely available across institutions.
Administrative burdens, especially around APC payments and compliance, further strain research teams. - Trust, quality, and societal outcomes
Concerns about quality assurance, predatory publishing, and emerging risks such as AI misuse complicate trust in Open Access systems.
Ensuring integrity while maintaining openness remains a delicate balance. - Fragmentation across Europe
Policies, infrastructures, and funding models vary widely between countries and institutions.
Metadata standards are inconsistent, repositories are poorly interconnected, and national strategies are often underdeveloped—leading to duplication and inefficiency.
Pathways Forward: Building a coherent Open Access ecosystem
Despite these challenges, the Warsaw Exchange highlighted concrete steps toward a more effective and equitable Open Access system:
- Establish coordinated funding for Diamond Open Access
Move beyond short-term, project-based funding towards stable, multi-annual investment in non-commercial publishing infrastructures, particularly for SSH and smaller institutions. - Develop shared metadata standards and registries
Harmonise metadata frameworks across repositories and publishers, and create national or European registries to improve discoverability and monitoring. - Align Open Access with research assessment reform
Embed CoARA principles into evaluation systems, recognising diverse outputs and open practices while reducing reliance on impact-factor-driven metrics. - Clarify legal and regulatory frameworks
Introduce harmonised copyright rules, including secondary publication rights and clearer research exceptions, to support lawful and practical Open Access publishing. - Strengthen infrastructure interoperability
Connect national systems with European initiatives such as EOSC, OPERAS, and OAPEN to ensure seamless access, preservation, and reuse of research outputs. - Invest in people and skills
Expand training programmes, ambassador networks, and support services to help researchers, librarians, and publishers navigate Open Access requirements. - Address market imbalances and publisher dominance
Support university-led publishing and community-driven models to counterbalance commercial publishers and promote fairer access conditions. - Foster European collaboration and peer learning
Build networks for sharing best practices, aligning policies, and experimenting with new models across countries and disciplines.
Why It Matters: Open Access as a foundation for the ERA
The Warsaw Exchange made one message unmistakably clear: Open Access is not optional—it is foundational to the future of European research.
But achieving it requires more than policy declarations. It demands coordinated action across funding, infrastructure, legal frameworks, and research culture. Without this alignment, Open Access risks remaining fragmented, inequitable, and unsustainable.
As participants emphasised, the challenge is no longer whether Open Access should happen—but how to make it work for everyone: from early-career researchers to small publishers, from national systems to European infrastructures.
The path forward lies in turning Open Access from a requirement into a rewarded, supported, and fully integrated part of the research ecosystem—one that strengthens not only science, but also its connection to society.
