Anything Goes?: On the EU initiative for a greater diversity of scientific publishing platforms

Over the last 50 years reseachers has been facing opposing incentives: On one hand University Management has urged them to focus on publishing their work in international scientific journals readable only to peers, since only such publications would lead to promotions and tenures. On the other hand politicians, journalists and the public has a legitimate claim for researchers to justify themselves and their work in the public arena. Now the EU commission has drafted an agreement to be signed by the European universities in the autumn 2022. One of the intentions of the agreement is to establish incentives for researchers to publish on other platforms and in other formats. Another goal is to move away from irresponsible use of metrics and university rankings when assessing researcher and research quality.