Structural Risk to Open Access: Loss of Accessibility for DOI-Assigned Works in Commercial Repositories

[Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff]

I would like to raise a broader structural issue that affects the European open‑science ecosystem and the long‑term reliability of open scholarly communication.

There are increasing reports of commercial repositories restricting access to previously open scientific works, including materials with assigned DOIs. In some cases, authors have lost access to dozens or even hundreds of their own publications. The DOI remains active, but the landing page becomes empty, inaccessible, or paywalled.

This creates a systemic vulnerability that affects not only individual authors but the entire open‑science infrastructure:

• FAIR principles are violated (especially Accessibility and Reusability).
• DOI persistence is compromised when repositories restrict or remove content.
• Citations become unverifiable, undermining reproducibility.
• Independent and non‑commercial researchers are disproportionately affected.
• The integrity of the European Open Science Cloud is weakened when DOI‑assigned works can disappear behind paywalls.

Given OpenAIRE’s central role in coordinating open‑science policy and ensuring repository interoperability across Europe, I would like to suggest initiating a discussion on:

1. Guidelines for repository accountability regarding long‑term accessibility of DOI‑assigned materials.
2. Mechanisms to protect authors when a repository restricts access to previously open works.
3. Possible pathways for re‑publication or DOI migration in exceptional cases where FAIR principles are violated.
4. Recommendations for best practices to prevent the disappearance of open scientific content from the research ecosystem.

This issue is no longer isolated; it is becoming a structural problem that threatens the reliability of open access and the trustworthiness of persistent identifiers.

Thank you for considering this topic for policy discussion within the OpenAIRE community.