The EU-funded project OPERAS-Prime (2025–2028) is preparing the final phase of the European research infrastructure OPERAS (Open scholarly communication in the European research area for the social sciences and humanities) on its path to becoming an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium). OPERAS stands for open knowledge exchange and a culture of publication worldwide, and thus aligns with the MWS’s mission. The MWS has been a founding member of OPERAS since 2017 and has played a key role in shaping the areas of science communication and community building within the consortium. Together with the University of Coimbra in Portugal, the MWS also bears primary responsibility for these areas within OPERAS-Prime. The research infrastructure’s service catalogue also includes the blogging platform hypotheses.org, whose German-language branch, de.hypotheses.org, is editorially managed by the MWS (DHI Paris/GSt).
The EU-funded project AEGIS-OA (2025–2028) also forms part of the OPERAS framework and, as part of the European Diamond Capacity Hub, focuses on scholarly publishing within the context of Diamond Open Access. The aim here is to promote free and open scholarly publishing that meets high quality standards and employs transparent business models, without imposing costs on either authors or readers. The project focuses on networking national centres of excellence across Europe. Within the project, MWS represents the German Diamond Open Access Service Centre (SeDOA) as a non-funded partner.