Model Policy on Open Science for Research Performing Organisations (RPOs)

The present model policy aims to assist Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) in developing policies for Open Science/ Open Access.

The proposed policy aims at aligning institutional policies with the 2012 Recommendation of the European Commission on access to and preservation of scientific information and its 2018 update, the Regulation (EU) 2021/695 of the European Parliament and the Council establishing Horizon Europe- the framework programme for Research and Innovation, laying down its rules for participation and dissemination, the Council Decision (EU) 2021/764 establishing the specific programme implementing Horizon Europe the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, and takes into consideration important developments at EU-level related to Open Science/ Open Access such as the ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024, the “Plan S” and “cOAlition S”, the developments of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and in particular the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, the action lines of the European Open Science Policy Platform, the 2022 EU Regulation on European data governance, the 2023 EU Regulation on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data, the European Strategy for Data and the 2019 EU Directive on open data and the re-use of public sector information, the Report “Towards a 2030 Vision on the Future of Universities in Europe”, the 2022 Agreement for Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA), and the European Commission’s Action Plan for implementing ARRA, the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures, the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI), the Paris Call on Research Assessment prepared by the French Open Science Committee in 2022, and the Strategic Vision & OpenAIRE’s Role in empowering the CoARA Community published in December 2024. 

In addition, the document also takes into consideration other related reports and initiatives from university associations like EUA’s “Perspectives on the new European Research Area from the university sector” and “Universities without walls: A vision for 2030”, the Helsinki initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication, the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, the Guild of European research intensive universities “Looking to the Future: the Guild’s Vision for Europe’s Universities” and other associations like the Science Europe practical guide to the “International Alignment of Research Data Management”. The considerations included in this document regarding personal data protection and research ethics are aligned with the European Code for Research Integrity, the Guideline for promoting research integrity in research performing organizations, and the “EU Grants — How to complete your ethics self-assessment”. Regarding the use of AI systems, the EU AI Act was taken into consideration as well as the guidance “Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI” and “Living Guidelines on the responsible use of AI in research”. The model policy has been prepared as part of a toolkit for policy makers on Open Science and Open Access in the context of the EU-funded OpenAIRE Advance project that supported Open Access/ Open Data mandates in Europe. The proposed policy draws heavily on the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

All the aforementioned considerations are built upon the foundational work laid out by earlier initiatives, including the MedOANet guidelines for Open Access, PASTEUR4OA Toolkit and Policy Guidelines, the RECODE project policy recommendations for Open Access policies to research data, the LEARN project Model Research Data Management Policy, and the SPARC Europe report on Open Data and Open Science policies in Europe.