After an introduction to open science policy in Horizon Europe, the main focus of the presentation is open access to publications requirements in Horizon Europe and Open Research Europe for the Estonian Research Council in June 2021

1. Open Science in Horizon
Europe: publications &
Open Research Europe
Victoria Tsoukala, PhD
European Commission, Directorate-General for Research & Innovation,
Unit ‘Open Science’ Estonian Research Council
June 10th, 2021

2. • Short introduction to open science
• Requirement for open acces to publications
• Open Research Europe, the EC open access publishing platform
Structure of presentation

3. “Open science” means an approach to the scientific process based on open
cooperative work, tools and diffusing knowledge
(Horizon Europe Regulation and Model Grant Agreement)
The concepts of Open Science, Open Innovation, Open to the World should ensure
excellence and impact of the Union´s investment in research and innovation, while
safeguarding the Union´s interests
(Recital 7 Horizon Europe Regulation)
Open Science in Horizon Europe

4. • Open science has the potential to increase
• Quality & efficiency of R&I, if all the produced results are shared, made reusable, and if
their reproducibility is improved
• Creativity, through collective intelligence and cross-disciplinary research that does not
require laborious data wrangling
• Trust in the science system, by engaging both researchers & citizens
Why do we need Open Science?

5. FP7
Open access
OA Pilot for publications
H2020
Open access
Mandatory OA to
publications
+
ORD/RDM (pilot in 2014;
mainstreamed in 2017)
Horizon Europe
Open science
Open access to
publications and data
ensured (exceptions for
data)
RDM: FAIR data-DMP-
long-term preservation
Open science practices
promoted and
encouraged
(incentives+obligations);
evaluated under
‘excellence’
From FP7 to Horizon Europe
2008
2014
2021

6. “Excellence” criterion
(methodology)
• Evaluation of the quality of open science
practices
• Up to 1 page to describe OS practices + up
to 1 page to describe research data/output
management
“Quality and efficiency of
implementation” criterion
(capacity of participants and consortium as a
whole + list of achievements)
• Explain expertise on OS
• List publications, software, data, etc, relevant to the
project with qualitative assessment and, where
available, persistent identifiers
Publications are expected to be open access; datasets are
expected to be FAIR and ‘as open as possible, as closed as
necessary‘. Significance of publications to be evaluated on the
basis of proposers’ qualitative assessment and not per Journal
Impact Factor
Evaluation of proposals and Open Science
Exceptions: ERC + some EIC programmes for now evaluate OS practices under impact

7. Proposal
submission
evaluation of
OS practices
Project phase
Implementation of
description of action
Monitoring
Reporting
(during and at
the end of
project)
Open Science throughout project lifetime

8. Horizon Europe legal basis & useful
resources
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/reference-documents;programCode=HORIZON

9. 1. Model Grant Agreement (MGA)
• Legal obligations
2. Proposal template
3. Annotated Model Grant Agreement (AGA)
• Enriches understanding of requirements of the FP
4. Horizon Programme Guide
• Useful resources to proposers for relevant planning
Resources: Open science in Horizon Europe
Drafts available on Funding &
Tenders portal: link
Coming soon at the same link…

10. • Webinar: How to prepare a successful proposal in Horizon Europe (24 March
2021)
• Open Science at 00:53:00
• Q&A (including on Open Science) from 1:09:00
• Webinar: A successful proposal for Horizon Europe: Scientific-technical
excellence is key, but don’t forget the other aspects (21 April 2021)
• Presentation: Open Science
Open Science in Horizon Europe explained

11. More information at this link

12. 1. Open access to publications
2. Research Data Management
3. Additional open science practices
i. Additional obligations in the WP
ii. Validation of conclusions of publications
iii. OS during public emergencies
The Model Grant Agreement

13. Open access to publications

14. 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.- (validation of
publications)
Open access to publications, MGA I/III

15. • ALL peer-reviewed scientific publications, including books and monographs
• Other publications recommended but not required
• Immediate deposit and open access at latest at publication=no embargo
• Open access through trusted repositories mandatory
• Final publishable version or author’s final post-peer-review-version before publisher layout
• Specific levels of licensing required:
• CC BY (attribution) for articles and book chapters in edited volumes
• CC BY NC (attribution non commercial), CC BY ND (non-derivative) or CC BY NC-ND (non commercial and non
derivative) for entire books and monographs
What it means

16. • Trusted repositories are either certified repositories (e.g. CoreTrustSeal, nestor Seal
DIN31644, ISO16363) and/or disciplinary/domain repositories that are commonly
used/endorsed by the research communities (e.g. ELIXIR deposition databases).
• General-purpose repositories and institutional repositories are, in general, also
acceptable.
• Trusted repositories share essential properties:
• Mechanisms to ensure integrity and authenticity of contents.
• Offer clear information about their policies/services.
• Provide broad, and ideally open access to content (consistent with legal and ethical
constraints).
• Assign PIDs, ask for detailed metadata in a standardized (e.g. Dublin Core) and machine-
readable way.
• Ensure mid- and long-term preservation of contents, expert curation, quality assurance.
• Meet national and/or international security criteria
Trusted repositories under Horizon Europe

17. What do authors need to do in practice?
Subscription/hybrid
venue
Open access venue
Steps:
1. Publish
2. Deposit
3. Open access

18. Beneficiaries (or authors) must retain sufficient intellectual property rights
to comply with the open access requirements.
Open access to publications, MGA II/III

19. Requiring sufficient intellectual property rights retention to comply with
the open access requirements sets an explicit obligation with regard to
copyright retention with the aim to:
• place responsibility with the author/author’s institutions, and
• to bring on institutional awareness, change and support for authors in
this process
NB: this still allows for the possibility that authors give away their rights but that their
publications are open access and licensed as required in Horizon Europe, by the publishers.
We advise against this.
What it means: rights retention in Horizon
Europe and open access to publications

20. • Best practice: Beneficiaries/authors retain the copyright on their work
and grant, insofar as possible, non-exclusive licenses to publishers.
• Best practice: Beneficiaries put in place institutional policies to ensure
copyright retention by authors and/or beneficiaries and compliance with
the open access requirements.
What it means: rights retention in Horizon
Europe and open access to publications

21. Metadata of deposited publications must be open under a Creative Common
Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) or equivalent, in line with the FAIR
principles (in particular machine-actionable) and provide information at
least about the following: publication (author(s), title, date of publication,
publication venue); Horizon Europe or Euratom funding; grant project name,
acronym and number; licensing terms; persistent identifiers for the
publication, the authors involved in the action and, if possible, for their
organisations and the grant. Where applicable, the metadata must include
persistent identifiers for any research output or any other tools and
instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the publication.
Open access to publications MGA III/III

22. • Metadata open under CC0=waives copyright and database rights; freely reusable information
and FAIR
• Supports free flow of information ABOUT publications
• A Persistent Identifier (PID) is a long-lasting and reliable reference to, amongst others, a
resource, a person, or an institution, providing the information required to reliably identify,
verify and locate it. The resource may be a publication, a dataset or a person, an organization
(such as a funder or university), a piece of software or hardware. Examples for commonly
used PIDs include DOI and handle, ORCID and ResearcherID, ROR ID, but also accession
numbers within specific disciplines, notably in the Life Sciences (such as an accession
number in a database such as the Protein Data Bank), among many others.
• Required: DOI or similar; ORCID or similar; author institution (for authors participating in
action) and grant information if possible (that is if available); where possible PIDs of
supporting tools, instruments, outputs etc.
What it means

23. Only publication fees in full open access venues for peer-reviewed scientific
publications are eligible for reimbursement.
Open access to publications MGA IV/IV

24. • Full open access venues (such as journals, books, publishing platforms) are venues in
which the entire scholarly content is accessible to all
• Publishing fees (including page charges or colour charges) for publications in other venues,
for example in subscription journals (including hybrid journals) or in books that contain
some scholarly content that is open and some that is closed are NOT eligible costs.
• Publishing fees for open access books may be eligible to the extent that they cover the first
digital open access edition of the book (which could include different formats such as html,
pdf, epub, etc.). Printing fees for monographs and other books are NOT eligible.
• Beneficiaries will have the possibility to publish at no cost to them in Open Research
Europe, the European Commission open access publishing platform.
What it means

25. • For all publications, provide information via the repository about any
research output/tools/instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the
scientific publication
• All projects have additional obligations regarding the validation of scientific
publications which must be complied with
• the beneficiaries must provide (digital or physical) access to data or other results
needed for validation of the conclusions of scientific publications, to the extent that their
legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded (and unless they already provided the
(open) access at publication)
• MGA says ‘some calls’, general annexes clarify that it concerns all calls – ERC exception
Validation of conclusions of publications and
reproducibility

26. • ‘To be ensured’- i.e. no exceptions
• Immediate OA- i.e. at publication
• Trusted repository OA- i.e. trusted repository OA mandatory; OA publishing recommended
• Rights retention – enough IPR to be retained by beneficiaries/authors to provide OA
required
• Licenses mandatory- CC BY for articles or NC/NC+ND for books and monographs formats
• Validation of conclusions of publications- provide access to underlying data and other
outputs if not OA and information on tools and other instruments used
• Publishing fees- only for fully OA publishing venues; all other publishing fees out
Peer-reviewed publications:
the ingredients of this OA recipe

27. Open Research Europe (ORE)
The open access publishing platform for Horizon 2020 and Horizon
Europe beneficiaries

28. • High-quality, reliable and efficient publishing venue for EU research
• High scientific standards, and swift and transparent processes
• Oversight by an independent Scientific Advisory Board covering STM, Social Sciences
and Humanities
• Implements open science practices and advances the European Research Area
• No cost to authors/beneficiaries
• No administrative burden either
• Venue where grantees can publish post-grant the results of their work, while
respecting their open access obligations
• Is not (and never will be) an obligation to use!
Main assets of ORE

29. • Original articles for review
• i.e. stemming from Horizon 2020-funded research and Horizon Europe
and not submitted or published elsewhere
• It is not a repository
• All scientific areas of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe covered; specific
policies and guidelines
• Immediate open access, with content licensed for re-use
• Open peer review (i.e. open reviewer identities, published reviews, post-
publication comments)
The publishing service (1/2)

30. • Diversity of metrics at article level
• Explicit, accessible and transparent on business processes and publication
policies (all published on the site for everyone to see)
• Fully aligned with the European Commission policy and principles (i.e. it
takes burden from researchers as it is fully compliant)
• Other funders do this as well, such as the Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Open
Research) and others
The publishing service (2/2)

31. At least one author must be involved in a running or finished Horizon
2020/Europe project from the European Commission and the article must be a
result of that project. The article must be original work.
Currently unable to publish:
• JRC when outside of Horizon 2020/Europe
• Euratom (different Framework Programme with a different Treaty)
• Cascading grants (e.g. Cost beneficiaries)
The Commission is currently addressing the issue with its legal department
Who can publish?

32. Open Research Europe publishing model
PUBLICATION UNDERGOING PEER REVIEW PASSED PEER REVIEW
!!Pre publication checks and production

33. Upon Submission
• Assess author eligibility
• Check article scope
• Check for plagiarism
Pre-publication Checks
• Comprehensive checks on
reporting, editorial & ethical
guidelines
• Check for data availability
• Support authors in making
data and software FAIR
Production
• Converted to text and data-
mining formats (PDF, HTML,
XML)
• Proofs and editing if necessary
• Quality checks on citations,
references, image resolutions
& multimedia
• Ensure persistent identifiers
are assigned and resolve
correctly
Prepublication checks and production

34. Open Identities
• Reviewers must provide
name and affiliation
• Must identify conflicting
interests
Open Reports
• Reviewer reports will be
published alongside the
article
• These are citable and have
viewing metrics
Open Review Status
• Reviewers assign a status
Open Peer Review

35. Authors can respond to reviewers and revise their articles based on the comments
Revisions are made through new versions of the article that are linked together (versions are
limitless)
Authors need to achieve a certain ‘threshold’ of reviewer status to be ‘pass peer review’ and
be indexed:
Passing Peer Review
2 ‘Approved’ Status
1 ‘Approved’ Status and 2 ‘Approved with reservations’

36. Editorial guidelines and policies specifically
for:
- Science, Technology & Medicine (STM)
- Social Sciences
- Humanities
Data guidelines and policies in line with
European Commission policies
ORE supports many different article types to
support disciplinary areas
Content is searchable by subject areas and by
Horizon 2020/Europe programme areas.
Supporting research across all disciplines

37. Visit the platform:
https://open-research-
europe.ec.europa.eu/
@OpenResearch_EU
Infographic:

38. Thank you
© European Union 2021
Reuse of this presentation authorised
under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Credit slide 26 (Asterix): © Les Editions Albert René S.A.R.L (Albert René).