Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research is divided across a wide array of disciplines and languages. While this specialization makes it possible to investigate the extensive variety of SSH topics, it also leads to a fragmentation that prevents SSH research from reaching its full potential. Use and reuse of SSH research is low, interdisciplinary collaboration possibilities are often missed, and as a result, the societal impact is limited. TRIPLE, the European discovery solution, addresses these issues: it enables researchers to discover and reuse SSH data, but also other researchers and projects across disciplinary and language boundaries. It provides all necessary means to build interdisciplinary projects and to develop large-scale scientific missions. It will thus increase the economic and societal impacts of SSH resources. Thanks to a consortium of 19 partners, TRIPLE develops a full multilingual and multicultural solution for the appropriation of SSH resources. The TRIPLE platform provides a 360° discovery experience thanks to linked exploration provided by the Isidore search engine developed by CNRS and a coherent solution providing innovative tools to support research (visualisation, annotation, trust building system, crowdfunding, social network and recommender system). TRIPLE imagines new ways to conduct, connect and discover research; it will promote cultural diversity inside Europe; it will support scientific, industrial and societal applications of SSH science; it will connect researchers and projects with other stakeholders: citizens, policy makers, companies, enabling them to take part in research projects or to answer to some of their issues. TRIPLE will be a dedicated service of OPERAS RI and become a strong service in the EOSC marketplace. To conclude, TRIPLE will help SSH research in Europe to gain visibility, to be more efficient and effective, to improve its reuse within SSH and beyond and to dramatically increase its societal impact.

Academic books continue to play an important role in scholarly production and research communication, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. As an important output of scholarly production, academic books must be included in open science/open access policies and strategies developed by research funders and institutions, to ensure that open science becomes the modus operandi of modern science across all disciplines. However, contrary to article publishing in journals (especially in the areas of Science, Technology, and Medicine) academic books have not been a focus point for open access (OA) policymakers. Consequently books are only rarely mandated to be published OA by research funders and institutions. PALOMERA will investigate the reasons for this situation across geographies, languages, economies, and disciplines within the European Research Area (ERA). Through desk studies, surveys, in-depth interviews, and use cases, PALOMERA will collect, structure, analyse, and make available knowledge that can explain the challenges and bottlenecks that prevent OA to academic books. Based on this evidence PALOMERA will provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the overall objective of speeding up the transition to open access for books to further promote open science. The recommendations will address all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers). The PALOMERA consortium broadly represents all relevant stakeholders for OA academic books, but will facilitate co-creation and validation events throughout the project to ensure that the views and voices of all relevant stakeholders are represented, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.This will assure maximal consensus and take-up of the recommendations.

OPERAS-P (Preparation) project will support the development of OPERAS, the European Research infrastructure for open access publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). The project will further the development of the infrastructure in view of achieving the necessary scientific, technical and community maturity. To achieve this goal, OPERAS-P will address the necessary requirements according the Work Programme with three objectives: supporting the ESFRI application, start the implementation of innovative services, and support the expansion of the consortium. First objective will include the conceptual framework for a Governance plan, including a vision statement and two Landscape Studies: one per country, one for end-users. This work will include a business model addressing the long-term sustainability of the infrastructure. In parallel, this work will be supported by the implementation of the AISBL statutes in the infrastructure. The implementation of innovative services will address the development of a transnational access to publication services, based on the adoption of common standards, the interoperability between publishing services and bridging towards the EOSC marketplace. This work will rely on the problematics identified in the White Paper OPERAS-P will support the development of the consortium with an outreach strategy based on the Landscape Study. This body of work will stand in the continuity of the work already realized in former project OPERAS-D, in particular the Design Study.

OPERAS-D (Design) project will support the 5 main partners (“core group”) of the OPERAS network in the development of a European e-infrastructure for open access publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). The project will address long-term requirements for the development of the e-infrastructure and community building, as well as seek to expand other interested parties within and beyond Europe, and in diverse fields of the SSH. To achieve this goal, the key objectives of the OPERAS-D project are to: -prepare a design study that defines governance models, structures and scientific and technical concepts for future services that the infrastructure will provide, and establishes a roadmap to achieve these goals according to the requirements for long term sustainability . -engage the current and future partners in the OPERAS network to strengthen the community and develop the network of partners participating in OPERAS across Europe, specifically in central European countries. The project will establish a roadmap for OPERAS consortium that includes e-infrastructure service providers (publishing platforms, libraries) and research and education communities (universities and university presses). It will define long term requirement by producing a user driven design for future services and the technical requirements to implement them and also a final governance model and business plan for OPERAS development. The community building will help all participants in OPERAS to have a clear picture of their technical environment and a better understanding of the different technical options within the community. It will gather all stakeholders in workshops to validate data collected during the project and to share the results and the vision for the development of the infrastructure. Operas-D will identify key stakeholders inside and outside Europe and engage them for potential collaboration with OPERAS.

The OPERAS-PLUS project will support the further development of OPERAS in its preparatory phase of new ESFRI Research Infrastructure projects. OPERAS is the Research Infrastructure dedicated to enhance open scholarly communication for the Social Sciences and the Humanities in the European Research Area (ERA). Designed as a distributed infrastructure, it was incorporated as an AISBL in 2019. OPERAS entered the ESFRI roadmap in 2021 and is now on its path to become operational as an ERIC in 2028. The OPERAS-PLUS project will serve the OPERAS community with its wide variety of small-sized stakeholders, which are committed to make open scholarly communication the default practice in Social Sciences and Humanities in the ERA. In that sense, OPERAS-PLUS will provide an operational and efficient framework to meet the needs and objectives of the OPERAS community with solutions of utmost quality, thus fulfilling the European Commission‘s expectations of scientific excellence. The project’s main objectives are 1) to develop and strengthen OPERAS governance structure, especially financial, legal, and human resource management aspects of the infrastructure central hub in a sustainable way, compliant with Research Infrastructure management best practises; 2) to support the establishment and development of OPERAS national nodes, set up and manage the workflow of bidirectional exchange with the central hub; 3) to develop OPERAS portfolio of services by providing both required technology and a monitoring system for services development via an Innovation Lab dedicated to this task; and 4) to maximise OPERAS’ impact in the ERA and at an international level by extending it beyond its current scope and onboarding new members and countries in the infrastructure.