Our strategy

SPARC Europe’s Strategy 2025-2028

The vision

Our vision is that European education and research are open by default for the Higher Education community, research, education, industry, and for society as a whole.

The mission

Our mission is to advance open knowledge by influencing policies that maximise the access and re-use of Europe’s research and educational resources. Through convening and collaborating with a variety of stakeholders, we increase the evidence base, share good practices, advocate for policies and initiatives that support inclusive participation in scholarly communication, safeguard open science and open education, and adopt and promote sustainable, longer-term models.

Core values

We are dedicated to fostering a fair knowledge ecosystem that upholds diversity, equity, and inclusion while securing the future of the opens.

The target groups

Four primary target groups:

1. Europe’s research and education policy makers at the European Commission, European Council, national research funders and governments
2. Europe’s Higher Education and research communities, including research administrators and senior university management, associations of universities and their researchers and teachers, and learned societies
3. The European academic library community
4. Open Science and Open Education infrastructure providers

Goals

• Strengthen Open Access, Open Science / Research and Open Education policy in Europe and align where possible
• Help sustain the Opens, i.e. Open Access, Open Science / Research and Open Education, and help make this ecosystem more sustainable
• Help demonstrate the value of open and measure the impact of Open Science / Research through monitoring
• Defend the value of open in the face of risking the enclosure of open posed by political and technological developments
• Better ensure that open knowledge practices are rewarded and incentivised
• Connect the Open movements of Open Access, Open Science / Research and Open Education

High-level activities

SPARC Europe focuses its activities on influencing policy and policy development in Europe. Advocacy and information-gathering activities serve to accomplish more Openness to European research and education. We:

• Track Open Access, Open Science / Research and Open Education policy progress in Europe
• Equip the debate, provide guidance and share good practice and European experience to promote more openness
• Support the international, national and local monitoring of Open Science / Research by building understanding, sharing principles, good practices and through strong advocacy activities
• Stimulate the implementation of FAIR across the Opens and encourage change in copyright and open licensing practices to increase the re-use and impact of research and education
• Work to embed Open Education in Higher Education in Europe and increase Open Education Resources in Europe
• Identify and promote paths to reward and incentivise Open practices
• Work to identify risks and opportunities and use strong advocacy measures to help emphasise the value of open
• Help sustain the Open Science / Research ecosystem, including more Open infrastructure with more sustainable models through fund-raising

Making Open the default