Open Science compliance: publications and data

Open Science in Lasers4EU

Researchers involved in Lasers4EU must comply with two mandatory Open Access practices as required under Horizon Europe:

1) Open Access to publications

Immediate Open Access:
All publications resulting from research conducted within the Lasers4EU framework must be made openly accessible without delay. The European Commission (EC) no longer permits any embargo period. At the latest at the time of publication, a machine-readable electronic copy of the publication or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication must be deposited in a trusted repository for scientific publications.

Retention of Rights with CC BY Licence or a licence with equivalent rights:
Researchers are required by the EC to retain sufficient intellectual property rights by applying a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to their publications. This ensures broad reusability while preserving authorship credit.

Mandatory Funding Acknowledgement:
All publications and presentations resulting from access projects or activities within Lasers4EU must include the following disclaimer to acknowledge EU funding:

  1. “Funded by the European Union under HE-GA 101131771 Lasers4EU [access ID or WP number]. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for them.” 

2) Open Access to research data

Research data, which is the information (facts or numbers) collected to be examined and considered and to serve as a basis for a publication, must be open, in line with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable)  principles.

Find out more on the EC requirements on research data applying to Lasers4EU:

Click Here

Background

For several years now, the European Commission has been placing a strong focus on Open Science (see the EU’s Open Science Policy). Open Science is an approach aimed at disseminating knowledge as early as possible after it is generated. Various technologies and methods can be used to support this, promoting open collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and data within the scientific community. By enhancing transparency and reproducibility—and enabling the reuse of existing data—Open Science is expected to improve research quality and drive greater innovation.

Open Science in Horizon Europe projects

Open Science is a legal requirement under Horizon Europe, and it operates on the principle of being “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. Its purpose is to foster greater transparency and trust for the benefit of scientific research and for the benefit of EU citizens.

However access to data may be kept closed if providing open access is against the beneficiaries’ legitimate interests, including commercial exploitation; or if it is contrary to data protection rules, privacy, confidentiality, trade secrets, Union competitive interests, security rules, intellectual property rights or any other obligations mentioned in the Grant Agreement. 

Open science – European Commission

Helpful resources

Laserlab-Europe on Zenodo
https://zenodo.org/communities/laserlab/records?q=&l=list&p=1&s=10&sort=newest

Detailed user manual for uploading data to Zenodo
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5603317

European IP helpdesk: Your guide to open science in Horizon Europe
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/d0aa4b5d-47ec-11ef-aea6-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

Open Research Europe, an open research publishing venue offering rapid and transparent publication of all research outputs, in all disciplines, for European Commission-funded researchers.
https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/

Information and resources provided by the European Liaison Office of the German Research Organisations (KoWi) on Open Science in the context of EU research funding.
https://www.kowi.de/en/kowi/Horizon-Europe/horizon-europe/tabid-746/open-science.aspx

Journal checker tool: can help to determine whether a specific publishing venue allows compliance with the open access obligations of Horizon Europe
https://journalcheckertool.org/

Directory of open access journals: can help to identify full open access journals that allow open access publishing under CC BY or an equivalent licence
https://doaj.org/

OpenAIRE webpage (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe; provides, e.g., model letters/amendments to publishing agreements)

Checklist for compliance with EU regulations

 

Publication is in open access (no embargo)

Publication carries an open licence

 Publication includes EU funding acknowledgement