Hello, my name is Dominic Ferrisi from GrayNet International. Together with my colleagues Stefania Biaggioni and Carlo Carlesi from the InfraScience Lab at CNR in Pisa, we are working on a project entitled Realizing the Potential of Gray Literature by Recognizing its Publishers.

In short, it is the PUBGRAY project and we use a case study of climate change. In the following schema, an overview of the project plan is given.

The three cells forming the left-hand column state the goals of the project. The cells in the middle column form and provide the method of approach and its implementation. And the cells forming the right-hand column discuss some of the project findings and some concluding statements.

Now, let's have a look at the three project goals. The first goal was the compilation of a registry of publishers in gray literature.

This entailed the design of the template, its distribution, the compilation and editing of the content, and the subsequent publication of the registry. The PUBGRAY template consists of 10 fields with accompanying scope notes.

It was posted in mid-February of this year via GrayNet's distribution list and social media, namely LinkedIn and Facebook. The 10 fields include the name of the publishing body, the sector of information, the document types, publication formats, its main coverage, the content contributors,

open access compliance, also the home page of the publisher, identifiers related to and associated with the publishing body,

and the point of contact, that is, the individual who provided and completed the template. In the final week of March of this year, the records submitted until then were compiled, edited and published on GrayNet's website and in the GrayGuide, GrayNet's web access portal and repository,

which was designed and is managed by my two colleagues in this project. The PUBGRAY registry carries an ISBN as well as a DOI.

The first edition contains 25 records of publishers in gray literature. The second goal of the project was to acquire the publishers' views on gray literature by using the PUBGRAY registry. The goal here was also to determine if the publishers' views were different from a combined range of stakeholders in the field of gray literature

that include authors, researchers, editors, sponsors, hosts, end users, etc.

The approach to this goal was to determine a survey population and reuse a questionnaire. Here, a questionnaire GrayNet designed in 2020 that was used in a study on circular economy was reintroduced in this study dealing with climate change.

The decision to reuse the questionnaire was sparked by a working paper by Wang et al. in 2022 entitled Circular Economy as a Climate Strategy. The reuse of the questionnaire is seen as warranted in that the survey

questions while referring to gray literature do not mention the term circular economy, and neither would they then include the term climate change. The 10 survey questions both in 2020 and again in 2023 are identical, however, the survey populations differ.

In determining the survey population in the case of climate change, the PUBGRAY registry was used. However, the selection is based on three criteria.

The publisher must be open access compliant, it has to have an assigned ROR ID, Research Organization Registry ID, and the respondent who completed the template would have to have provided also their contact details.

Of the 25 publishers in the PUBGRAY registry, 10 met these criteria and they are the population of our study on climate change. The population of the 2020 study on circular economy was open to all stakeholders in gray literature.

The next step was a comparison of the results between the two survey populations in order to determine if there were any significant differences. This then would allow us to recognize the publisher's views dealing with gray literature juxtaposed to that of a varying range of stakeholders.

In this slide, we see a comparison of the results of five of the 10 questions in the survey exhibiting the highest differential.

While four of the five responses compared show a significant increased percentage of strong agreement on the part of the publishers, one of the five responses compared shows a significant decreased percentage of agreement on the part of the publishers.

A brief look at the five questions and the responses from the two surveys averages a near 19% disparity. Turning now to the third goal in our project, we use the PUBGRAY registry in the case of climate change.

Now, further regarding the use of the PUBGRAY registry in our case of the climate change, we see that two of the record fields in the PUBGRAY registry enabled us to address this goal. I refer here to the field main coverage in the template in

which the disciplines, topics and subjects of the publishers were requested and documented, and to the field document types in the template in which both textual and non-textual document types were requested.

Now, if we look at the coverage of topics compiled from the PUBGRAY registry, we see that the term climate change is not found among the topics. However, if we look at the host of topics before us, it is not questionable to assume that many of them are related to climate change.

By way of illustration, I have highlighted some of them that for me stand out. When we look at the grey literature document types compiled from the PUBGRAY registry, we can account for at least 15. And if we rank them according to the number of times they are recorded by our survey population,

we find that two of the top five are non-textual, that being datasets and audio-visual materials, while the other three in the top five are the more traditional grey literature document types, reports, theses and proceedings.

In the next step in our study, we carried out searches in the websites of the ten publishers in our survey population, using the terms climate, climate change and circular economy.

The search results as shown in this table indicate that all ten of the publishers' websites contain records on climate and climate change. While seven of the ten publishers' websites include records on circular economy in some degree,

only five include records on climate change and circular economy combined. Coverage of the topics of those five deal with energy, food policy, public policy, health and a broader multidisciplinary coverage of topics.

Now, let's have a look at some of the findings on climate change. Relying on the data compiled from the PUBGRAY registry and the results of the searches in the websites of the publishers in our study,

we find that grey literature can be seen as both a driver and a vehicle in research on climate change. In this slide, we see that as a driver, grey literature includes a multidisciplinary coverage of topics associated with climate change and is integral to this field of research.

As a vehicle, by way of grey literature's multiple and diverse document types, the results of research associated with climate change become published and openly accessible.

Also, findings from our earlier study on circular economy demonstrate that in this field of study, grey literature is likewise seen as a driver and vehicle in research. We also found through the PUBGRAY project that publishers show more of

a degree of consensus on grey literature than a combined range of stakeholders. This slide explains how grey literature is seen as both a driver and vehicle for research in circular economy.

As a driver, grey literature is part of the information industry among other industries in the circular economy, such as textile, agriculture, utilities, etc. As a vehicle, via grey literature's multiple and diverse document types, information

produced in all industries in the circular economy is transferable and openly accessible. This brings us now to some concluding statements, brief statements. Just as grey literature is seen to be a driver and vehicle for research in

climate change and circular economy, so also is it for other fields in science and technology. Publishers in grey literature should recognize their role in this capacity and identify themselves as such.

And the PUBGRAY registry should be seen as a first step in formalizing a consortium of grey literature publishers. On behalf of my co-authors, Stefania Biaggioni and Carlo Carlesi, thank you for viewing our presentation.

If you have any questions, the email address is shown here on the slide. And if you consider your organization to be a publisher in grey literature, please enter it in the PUBGRAY registry. The link is shown below.