The challenge is for Europe to embrace Open Science as the modus operandi for all researchers. Open Science consists in the sharing of knowledge, data and tools as early as possible in the Research and Innovation (R&I) process, in open collaboration with all relevant knowledge actors, including academia, industry, public authorities, end users, citizens and society at large. Open Science has the potential to increase the quality, efficiency and impact of R&I, lead to greater responsiveness to societal challenges, and increase trust of society in the science system.
Open Science practices:
- open access to research outputs such as publications, data, software, models, algorithms, and workflows
- early and open sharing of research, for example through preregistration, registered reports, pre-prints, and crowd-sourcing of solutions to a specific problem
- use of open research infrastructures for knowledge and data sharing
- participation in open peer-review
- measures to ensure reproducibility of results
- open collaboration within science and with other knowledge actors, including involving citizens, civil society and end-users, such as in citizen science
Source: Horizon Europe - Investing to shape our future | European Commission (europa.eu)
Legal provisions in the grant agreements will strengthen OA rights and obligations for beneficiaries. Horizon Europe will require immediate open access to all scientific publications and responsible research data management so that data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR). Data will be made ‘as open as possible, but will be allowed to stay as closed as necessary’, safeguarding legitimate interests or constraints. However access to research outputs shall be provided for third parties to be able to verify or validate publications. The criteria for evaluating research proposals under Horizon Europe will take into account the quality and appropriateness of the Open Science practices in the submitted proposals. This will be assessed as part of the project’s methodology, under the excellence award criterion. This will provide a strong incentive for applicants and beneficiaries to practice Open Science.
How it will work together? Open Science is embedded throughout Horizon Europe: in the work programmes, in the proposal evaluation, in the grant agreements, in the project execution and follow-up, and in the programme evaluation.
Expected results and impacts:
- increased openness, quality and performance of the EU R&I system
- improved overall capacities within the European Research Area to conduct Open Science and implement it as modus operandi of modern science
- development and consolidation of the European Open science Cloud (EOSC)
- consolidation of the Open Research Europe (ORE) publishing platform
- establishment of an open repository for research objects from Horizon Europe projects
- improved reproducibility of research results and minimized duplication of effort
- better and more societal engagement in R&I
- increased trust of society in science