Authors:

Abstract

Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER) is an EC-supported collaboration between publishers, repositories and research communities, aimed at improving understanding of the effects of the large-scale deposit of stage two (accepted manuscripts) in open access repositories (Green Open Access).Through the creation of an observatory with content from approximately 300 peer-reviewed journals, PEER aims to monitor the effects of systematic archiving over time.Research commissioned from qualified independent teams addressing author and reader behaviour, article usage at repository and publisher sites and the economics of publisher-assisted deposit and author self archiving, will result in a number of outcomes including: evidence-based guidance for the evolution of open access policy and a model of the effects of archiving on the traditional publishing systems. It is also envisaged that the project will foster trust and mutual understanding between publishers and the research community for the overall benefit of European research.