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What open science requirements await scientists in Horizon Europe?

Horizon Europe is the main programme funding research and innovation in the European Union until 2027. Its predecessor, Horizon 2020 programme, introduced the obligation for beneficiaries to provide open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications related to project results in 2014. In 2017 the Open Research Data Pilot was launched, which obliges beneficiaries to make research data available or to state why data cannot be made available. Among other things, Horizon 2020 contributed to the gradual integration of the principles of open science into current research practice.

The current Horizon Europe programme comes with new requirements related to open science. What do you need to keep in mind?

Open access to publications

• The open access mandate of the HE programme also applies to books, book chapters and other extensive texts.

• An open access publication fee is only deductible for the duration of the grant if it is a fully open journal. Fees for publishing in hybrid journals cannot be financed by the grant.

• Open access to the full text of the publication must be ensured immediately, at the latest on the day of publication.

Research data management

• It is no longer possible to opt out of the obligations related to the management of research data.

• Beneficiaries must create a data management plan and update it regularly.

• It is necessary to ensure open access to data in accordance with the principle "As open as possible, as closed as necessary" - i.e., it is possible not to publish data in justified cases, e.g., if it would be contrary to personal data protection, etc.

• The data must be deposited in a data repository and then published (if possible)

• The data (which are to be published) must be published under the license CC-BY (state author) or CC0 (waiver) [1], or equivalent.

• Expenses on data management (storage, processing, preparation for archiving, etc.) are eligible costs for the duration of the grant.

General information on EU programmes can be found on the website of the European Centre of Charles University. The open science requirements in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe are described in more detail on the website of the Open Science Support Centre. 

[1] The CC0 license is a so-called waiver, i.e., a waiver of copyright. However, according to the Czech Copyright Act, it is not possible to waive copyright. Therefore, the CC0 license in the Czech Republic is interpreted as CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution International), i.e., the least restrictive license allowed by Czech copyright law.