Horizon Europe (HE) is the main EU funding programme for research and innovation until 2027.

As in the previous programme, HE obliges all beneficiaries to provide open access to scientific information (publications and data) and to adhere to the principles of open science.

The Model Grant Agreement declares general information on communication and dissemination of results in Article 17. The requirements related to open science are specifically described in the Annex to Agreement No. 5.

Evaluation of proposals and Open Science

In Horizon Europe, Open Science is also included in the evaluation of proposals, specifically in the following criteria: 

Excellence (methodology)

• Describe how appropriate open science practices are implemented as an integral part of the proposed methodology (e.g., preregistration, data management plan, open access to publications, data and other research outputs, etc.) 

• Research data management and management of other research outputs (except for publications): Applicants must describe how the generated/collected data and/or other research outputs will be managed in line with the FAIR principles 

Quality and efficiency of the implementation (capacity of participants and consortium as a whole + list of achievements)

• Explain expertise on Open Science 

• List of publications, software, data, etc., with qualitative assessment 

• Significance of publications to be evaluated based on the qualitative assessment rather than per Journal Impact Factor 

Open access in HE

The beneficiaries must ensure open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results. In particular, they must ensure that: 

• at the latest at the time of publication, a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version, or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication, is deposited in a trusted repository for scientific publications.

• immediate open access is provided to the deposited publication via the repository, under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights; for monographs and other long-text formats, the licence may exclude commercial uses and derivative works (e.g., CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND) and 

• information is given via the repository about any research output, or any other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the scientific publication.  

Beneficiaries (or authors) must retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with the open access requirements.  

Metadata of deposited data must be open under a Creative Common Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) [1] or equivalent (to the extent legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded), in line with the FAIR principles (in particular machine-actionable) and provide information at least about the following:

• Datasets (description, date of deposit, author(s), venue and embargo) 

• Horizon Europe or Euratom funding 

• Grant project name, acronym and number 

• Licensing terms 

• Persistent identifiers for the dataset, the authors involved in the action and, if possible, for their organisations and the grant 

Where applicable, the metadata must include persistent identifiers for related publications and other research outputs or any other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the publication.  

NOTE: Only publication fees in full open access venues for peer-reviewed scientific publications are eligible for reimbursement.

Research data management in HE

The beneficiaries must manage the research data generated in the action (‘data’) responsibly, in line with the FAIR principles and by taking all of the following actions: 

• Establish a data management plan and update it regularly

• As soon as possible and within the deadlines set out in the DMP, deposit the data in a trusted repository; if required in the call conditions, this repository must be federated in the EOSC in compliance with EOSC requirements

• As soon as possible and within the deadlines set out in the DMP, ensure open access — via the repository — to the deposited data, under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public License (CC BY) or Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) [2] or a licence with equivalent rights, following the principle ‘as open as possible as closed as necessary’, unless providing open access would in particular:

  • be against the beneficiary’s legitimate interests, including regarding commercial exploitation, or

  • be contrary to any other constraints, in particular the EU competitive interests or the beneficiary’s obligations under this Agreement; if open access is not provided (to some or all data), this must be justified in the DMP

• Provide information via the repository about any research output or any other tools and instruments needed to re-use or validate the data

Costs for RDM (for example, data storage, processing and preservation) are eligible for the duration of the grant.

Metadata of deposited data must be open under a Creative Common Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) [3] or equivalent (to the extent legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded), in line with the FAIR principles (in particular machine-actionable) and provide information at least about the following: 

• Datasets (description, date of deposit, author(s), venue and embargo)

• Horizon Europe or Euratom funding

• Grant project name, acronym and number

• Licensing terms

• Persistent identifiers for the dataset, the authors involved in the action and, if possible, for their organisations and the grant

Where applicable, the metadata must include persistent identifiers for related publications and other research outputs. 

Resources

EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Horizon Europe: Programme Guide [online dokument]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/programme-guide_horizon_en.pdf  

EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Horizon Europe Programme: Standard Application Form [online dokument]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/temp-form/af/af_he-ria-ia_en.pdf  

EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Euratom Research and Training Programme (EURATOM): General Model Grant Agreement EIC Accelerator Contract [online dokument]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/agr-contr/general-mga_horizon-euratom_en.pdf 

Notes

[1, 2, 3] 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.