TAKE 5 With PALOMERA partners – University of Coimbra

The “Take 5 with PALOMERA partners” is a blog series featuring the members of the PALOMERA project; you can get to know them with 5 questions and a quick read! 

The PALOMERA project is dedicated to understanding why so few open access funder policies include books, and to provide actionable recommendations to change this situation. PALOMERA is funded for two years under the Horizon Europe: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System. In September, we talked with Nelson H. S. Ferreira, a Postdoc researcher at CECH – University of Coimbra.

5 questions

1. Please tell us a bit about your organisation and your role in it. 

The Centre of Classical Studies of the University of Coimbra (CECH)  is an RPO dedicated to Classical Studies, their reception across European history, heritage studies and Open Science. I would say I have a ‘double life’ in CECH since I’m a researcher dedicated to the History of Science, particularly Ancient Medicine and Agriculture, and teach on the scope of Classical Studies while I’m collaborating on projects of Open Science, where the University of Coimbra is a partner. Thanks to this second dimension of my activities, I am involved in PALOMERA, together with my colleagues Davide Iannace, Lorena Caliman, Maria Olímpia and Delfim Leão, who coordinates the UC team.

2. Why do you think the PALOMERA project is relevant for universities such as yours? 

If one takes the scientific procedures in Universities and associated organisations, Open Access is definitely a ‘hot topic’ because public universities are mainly supported by public funding. This circumstance implies delivering outputs that are accessible to the society that is funding the research. And scientists are required to make complex decisions regarding the publication of their work. They must consider which journal will best serve their professional obligations, including increasing their visibility within their field, reaching a broader audience, enhancing their career prospects, and improving the quality of their publication through peer review. 

Such decision-making gets even more complex when it comes to books. Monographs require a more significant investment of time and effort to reach a wider audience while maintaining the scientific dimension. Still, they are not being proportionally recognised by evaluators compared to papers.

Nevertheless, in the academic world (especially in SSH), books are the perfect bridge between research and teaching. They are tools for understanding fields in a broader sense and, at the same time, mature and detailed, which are the requirements of the content of any academic classroom. They are crucial for education, knowledge transfer, scientific communication and scientific development/advancement. However, despite their importance, books need to get more attention or incentives from policymakers, publishers, and RFOs, and this is where PALOMERA enters.

3. What is your role within the project?

I’ve participated as a member of the Coimbra Team (named above), which was enrolled in tasks of PALOMERA WP2, WP3, WP4 and WP5. Although I’ve followed up on some WP2, WP3 and WP4 tasks with some short interventions, my primary role was as coordinator of data collection for the subgroup comprising Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. This task involved the entire Coimbra team, combined interviews with stakeholders and research for documentation regarding monographs and Open Access. For that task, our Team also had the contribution of local researchers/stakeholders for each country, who generously provided us with their ‘know-how’ and efforts for data prospection and interviews. 

4. What do you feel particularly proud of that you contributed to while participating in PALOMERA? 

It is particularly complicated to talk individually because although each Coimbra Team member had a particular role and level of dedication, the perception is a general view resulting from shared experiences. Without any exaggeration, it was a collective effort, meaning the contributions were also collective. In that sense, our greatest value before the project started was the knowledge of the academic context of publishing monographs and Open Access. But once the project began, I would risk being quite abstract with the answer and say that it was the swift adaptation to PALOMERA’s needs and goodwill for learning from the procedures and contributing to a much better context and knowledge base for Open Access publishing.

5. In your opinion, what is the biggest impact PALOMERA will have within the scholarly communication sphere? 

Although the preliminary results and already published deliverables are promising, it is pretty complicated to predict outcomes in such a complex ecosystem of diverse groups of stakeholders and interests. However,

the project has all that it takes to be a game-changer for researchers’ decision-making in the long term through the Knowledge Base and recommendations produced during the project. 

Researchers are the primary material enrolled in monograph production, meaning that through their informed decisions, they can instigate essential developments in the procedures of other stakeholders involved in publishing, particularly concerning transparency, diversity, quality, and standardisation. Besides, PALOMERA clearly signals actions to be taken by policymakers to favour a better publishing context for Books regarding Open Access, peer review, funding, diversity, multilingualism, and quality.

---

To learn more about the PALOMERA project, visit the project’s page. 

This series is produced by the Work Package 5 team from the PALOMERA project. Stay tuned for the next posts! 

---

---