The roots of this project go back to the development of the Online Library Classica Digitalia, which created a pioneering instrument to disseminate academic publications produced in close liaison with CECH. This library, made entirely available in Open Access, in articulation with the editorial policy of the Coimbra University Press, laid the foundations for a growing investment in Open Science that is transversal to all the scientific and dissemination activities of the CECH.
The entry of the University of Coimbra in the OPERAS consortium, which from 2021 onwards joined the competitive group of the "European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)", placed the Classics & Open Science project in a strongly international research environment, aimed at promoting scholarly communication in the research areas covered by the CECH, as well as in the broader field of the Social Sciences and Humanities, with special focus on the valorization of scientific multilingualism.