Open Access to Publications and Open Research Data – state of play

Research data of high quality are an essential resource and research data management (RDM) is one of the most important elements of the «good scientific practice» according to internationally recognised standards for scientific integrity. Good data management enhances the robustness of research findings, facilitates research collaborations, makes research results more reproducible, and strengthens society’s trust in science. The ideal practice is to make research data publicly available, so that they are findable, accessible and reusable for everyone while always respecting legal and ethical framework conditions («as open as possible, as closed as necessary»).

A variety of important research funders therefore commit to actively support FAIR Research Data Management by design. In the Horizon Europe Programme, the evaluation criteria for collaborative projects take the planned Research Data Management into consideration. These collaborative projects are also mostly open for Swiss participations (with direct funding by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation) under the current status of Switzerland as a non-associated third country.

European Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation – an overview

Open Science policy across the European Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation has considerably evolved since 2007:

• 7th Framework-Programme (2007-2013): a pilot for open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications was launched. To make publications openly available, free of charge, was an option and not mandatory.
• Horizon 2020 (8th Framework Programme; 2014-2020): under Horizon 2020, open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications has become mandatory. An embargo period of up to six months, and in the case of the social sciences and humanities up to 12 months, for making the publication openly accessible had still been allowed. In addition, under Horizon 2020, the European Commission launched a voluntary pilot (i.e. submission of a Data Management Plan – DMP) and for the publication of research data (Open Research Data – ORD).
• Horizon Europe (9th Framework-Programme; 2021-2027): under Horizon Europe, immediate open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications as well as the submission of a Data Management Plan are mandatory.

Horizon Europe – the rules

Open Access to publications

Under Horizon Europe, the following requirements for scientific publications apply to all projects:

• a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version, or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication, needs to be deposited in a trusted repository, at the latest at the time of publication. This means that a copy always needs to be deposited in a repository, irrespective of the chosen Open Access (OA) road (golden, green or diamond way) (see Box 1);
• immediate open access to the deposited publication under a CC BY licence (see About CC Licenses – Creative Commons) or under a licence with equivalent rights needs to be provided. For monographs and other long-text formats, the licence may exclude commercial use and changes;
• information about any tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the scientific publication has to be provided via the repository;
• metadata of the publication need to be deposited under a CC0 licence or an equivalent licence.

In practice, this means that the journal for publication can be freely chosen, under the following conditions:

• immediate open access is required; embargos installed by the publishers are no longer accepted;
• only costs for full open access venues are eligible for funding;
• publication in hybrid journals is only possible in case the publisher and the journal, respectively, are covered by a «transformative agreement» concluded by the university or if the fee for the open access publication without embargo is paid by the PI.

Research Data Management and Open Research Data

All projects under Horizon Europe that generate and/or collect and/or re-use research data have to manage them in line with the FAIR principles. The following requirements for Research Data Management apply:

• a description of open-science practices as part of the grant proposal that will be evaluated with it;
• a Data Management Plan (DMP) needs to be submitted and regularly updated;
• data needs to be deposited in a trusted repository within the deadlines set out in the DMP;
• open access to the deposited data under the CC BY, CC0 or under a licence with equivalent rights needs to be ensured;
• information has to be provided via the repository about any research output or tools and instruments needed to re-use or validate the research data;
• metadata of deposited research data must be open under a CC0 licence or an equivalent licence and in line with the FAIR Principles. The principle «as open as possible and as closed as necessary» also applies to metadata.

Research should be «as open as possible and as closed as necessary». Valid reasons for not making research data openly accessible are for example an ongoing preparation of a patent application, or ethical and legal constraints regarding personal data which cannot be anonymised to a sufficient degree. Under Horizon Europe, proposals for collaborative projects are being evaluated on preliminary research data management considerations.