Science 2.0: the view from LERU (League of European Research Universities)

This paper summarises the position of LERU (League of European Research Universities) in their submission to the Science 2.0 consultation organised by DG Research and Innovation. The paper shows that the LERU Roadmap Towards Open Access was right in recommending the Green route for Open Access since projections by Houghton and Swan show that (unless the whole world moves to embrace Open Access) the Gold route will cost universities more than the Green. The LERU Roadmap for Research Data spells out LERU’s views on research data management (RDM) and the possibility of Open data. LERU has issued a series of policy and strategy recommendations for LERU universities and their researchers to take forward the RDM debate. LERU universities feel that Open Access to publications and RDM are key to Science 2.0. Universities are less clear about what should happen in other areas: alternatives to traditional models of peer review, research metrics and altmetrics, U-Multirank, DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and Citizen Science. The paper also describes a new role for the Institution as Publisher. The presentation concludes that the research community needs further consideration of many of these issues before definitive actions can be identified. Change is a process, not an event.