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Open science is an approach based on open cooperative work and systematic sharing of knowledge and tools as early and widely as possible in the process.

On June 14 OpenAIRE hosted a webinar on Horizon Europe Open Science requirements and OpenAIRE tools and services to support projects (e.g. ARGOS Data Management Plan tool, Explore portal and Zenodo repository) with Jonathan England (University of Luxembourg), Giulia Malaguarnera (OpenAIRE) and Pedro Príncipe (University of Minho). Slides and recording of the webinar are available here. We would like to thank 177 participants who attended the webinar and asked 26 questions!

Horizon Europe requirements for publications at a glance

 

  • A final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication or a published version in a trusted repository; 
  • Immediate Open Access; 
  • Authors retain their rights (i.e. no Copyright Transfer Agreement) – publication in CC-BY 4.0; 
  • Information about research outputs or tools/instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the publication are provided; 
  • Add the acronym/code of the project within 
  • Check out our Guide on How to comply with the Horizon Europe mandate for publications for more details. 

Horizon Europe requirements for research data

  • A Data Management Plan (DMP) is required by M6 of the project in line with the FAIR principles; updated mid-project and at the end of the project; 
  • Register your data on a repository as soon as it is created, to make your data findable online by giving the name of the dataset, authors, date of creation, DOI, etc. (i.e. metadata). At this stage you are not required to make the data open (you could attach a README file instead), but it is recommended;   
  • Deposit data in a trusted repository and make them open as soon as possible (deadlines set in a DMP) with an open licence, preferably CC-BY or CC0 licence, following the “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” principles - data closed if necessary, but metadata must be FAIR and under CC0 licence; 
  • Provide detailed information about research outputs or tools/instruments needed to re-use or validate the data (e.g. data, software, algorithms, protocols, models, workflows, electronic notebooks).

Check out our Research Data Management Guide for Horizon Europe for more tips.

Open Science in Horizon Europe grants proposals

  • Be as specific as possible but you do not need to explain what Open Access, FAIR data, Open Science, etc. mean. Focus on what you will do concretely. 
  • PART A – Application form: List 5 publications, widely-used datasets, software, goods, services or any other achievements relevant to the call; your cited publications will only be evaluated qualitatively (i.e. a Journal Impact Factor is irrelevant);
  • PART B – Project proposal – technical description: 
    • Under ‘Excellence’ – ‘1.2 Methodology’ describe your Open Science approach, Research Data Management and management of other research outputs
    • Under ‘Impact’ – ‘2.2 Measures to maximise impact’ - dissemination, exploitation and communication - you could include engagement of citizens, civil society and end-users – citizen science and participation in crowdsourcing activities; 
    • And don’t forget to write about your Open Science approaches under ‘Quality and efficiency of the implementation’ – ‘3.1 Work plan and resources’ and ‘3.2 Capacity of participants and consortium as a whole’

Check out our Open Science in Horizon Europe proposals Guide for more details.

Overall tips

  • Design an Open Science strategy for your project.
  • Include specific provisions in the Consortium Agreement about where publications and data will be deposited and who is responsible for doing this. Who will make sure that all outputs have been deposited in the appropriate repositories?
  • Implement your Open Science strategy, report at reviews and provide updates.
  • Keep track of issues, discuss the solutions.