OPERAS added to roadmap of European research infrastructures

With enthusiasm, we share the announcement made by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Committee on June 30th that OPERAS, coordinated by OpenEdition in partnership with the TGIR Huma-Num, will be added to the ESFRI Roadmap 2021. A milestone in the development of the OPERAS infrastructure, this decision confirms that OPERAS is officially recognized by the 27 member states of the European Union as a key research infrastructure with excellent scientific value and with sufficient maturity. As part of the ESFRI Roadmap 2021, OPERAS will be one of 11 infrastructures slated to make significant contributions to addressing European scientific challenges. 

ESFRI is a strategic instrument to develop the scientific integration of Europe and to strengthen its international outreach; being selected for the ESFRI Roadmap is a high-level recognition for a European research infrastructure.

 OPERAS, supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the European Research Area, has the mission to coordinate and federate resources in Europe to efficiently address the scholarly communication needs of European researchers in the field of SSH. OPERAS is already established as an emerging infrastructure in SSH, and is proud to be rated high, especially on scientific excellence and pan-european relevance. 

To be recognized as mature enough will allow OPERAS to further coordinate SSH in the field of scholarly communication and open the opportunity to further develop its business model and community-led governance scheme. This is a significant step not only for OPERAS but most importantly for open scholarly communication in Europe.

Suzanne Dumouchel (Huma-Num), co-coordinator of OPERAS with Pierre Mounier (OpenEdition), describes the role of this step for the future of the OPERAS RI: “Being part of the ESFRI roadmap 2021 makes the OPERAS community very proud. But first, it gives responsibility to us. We now have the necessary environment to realise our mission, which is to support Open Scholarly Communication practices in the field of SSH. And we will live up to this commitment. For us, it is the beginning of a new adventure!”.

As part of the ESFRI Roadmap 2021, OPERAS is looking forward to reaching out to more countries to broaden its diversity and  expand its efforts in increasing bibliodiversity in the social sciences and humanities.

Lionel Maurel, deputy scientific director for open science and data at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS) at CNRS, believes that “Being added to the European research infrastructure roadmap is a major milestone for OPERAS project that has brought together collaborators from across Europe.” He added, “French institutions OpenEdition and Huma-Num will play a significant role by contributing technical expertise essential to the project and helping with coordination efforts. If we are to expand open science, we must be able to rely on shared, well organized infrastructure. SSH communities must be able count on initiatives such as OPERAS. CNRS, currently a member of the OPERAS executive assembly, will continue to support this project.”

For more information please contact Pierre Mounier (pierre.mounier[at]operas-eu.org) or Suzanne Dumouchel (suzanne.dumouchel[at]operas-eu.org).

---

---