Slovenia: Government adopted the Action Plan for Open Science
On 31 May 2023, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia adopted the Action Plan for Open Science which is the basic implementation document to support complying with provisions on Open Science. These are determined in the Resolution on the Slovenian Scientific Research and Innovation Strategy 2030 and elaborated in more detail in the Scientific Research and Innovation Activities Act and the recently adopted governmental Decree on the Implementation of Scientific Research Work in Accordance with the Principles of Open Science. All these acts stipulate Open Science as an integral aspect of scientific research work.
The Action Plan for Open Science is designed to facilitate six key measures from Strategy Objective 6.2. »Open science to improve the research quality, efficiency and responsiveness«, which are:
1. Effectively manage and finance the development of the internationally aligned national Open Science ecosystem;
2. Introduce modern approaches to the evaluation of scientific research in accordance with Open Science principles to increase the quality and impact of research;
3. Ensure that the results of scientific research are consistent with the FAIR principles and that full and immediate Open Access is provided (subject to justified exceptions);
4. Establish a national Open Science community to implement and monitor Open Science in Slovenia, as well as its integration into ERA and beyond;
5. Promote the development of citizen science and public involvement in scientific research;
6. Promote the development of national scientific publishing that will operate according to the principles of Open Science.
For each of the listed six key measures several activities are planned in the Action Plan for Open Science, together with indicators to monitor the implementation, the acting and participating organizations, the period of activities, the funding allocated and its source.
Special attention is paid to the adaptation of Public Research Organizations according to the principles of Open Science in the transition period until mid-2026. For this purpose, the national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRF) funding is being used to fund a project for the relevant adaptation of organizations. In addition, two new repositories for research data will be set up using RRF funds as well.
Amongst other activities of the Action Plan for Open Science are the development of national Open Science infrastructure and establishment of the National Open Science Infrastructure Council, development of Open Science support, co-ordinated training of researchers for Open Science skills and competencies, support for assessment of scientific research activities according to the principles of Open Science, incentives to support the implementation of FAIR principles and Open Access to research results, working of national Open Science community, support for Citizen Science and national Open Access scientific publishing.
The total budget of the Action Plan for Open Science is 16,793,600 EUR for the period 2023-2030. Despite the considerable initial investment in open science implementation, we expect the long-term operation of the Slovenian scientific research system in accordance with the principles of Open Science to be financially more effective than the current practices.
Post prepared by Ivan Skubic, Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, and Mojca Kotar, University of Ljubljana
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