European Commission invests 8.5 billion EUR in research and innovation – and data sharing becomes default

Yesterday, the European Commission (EC) announced an investment of 8.5 billion Euros into research and innovation in 2017.

This investment follows an update to the work programme of the 8th research framework program of the European Union (better known as “Horizon 2020”).

From the perspective of the research data management, this update incorporates some important changes: The current Open Research Data Pilot will be extended so that research data sharing by default will apply to all Horizon 2020 calls covered by the 2017 Work Programme. This means that grant beneficiaries must take measures to enable third parties to access, mine, exploit, reproduce and disseminate research data underlying their scientific peer reviewed publications free of charge. Horizon 2020 beneficiaries are encouraged to also share datasets beyond these publications. Projects can “opt-out” of these provisions in case of conflicts with IPR, personal data protection, national security or other concerns.

The updated Work Programme builds on the success of Horizon 2020 to date, but introduces important novelties. A particularly important change is the introduction of open research data in all new Horizon 2020 calls and the strong commitment to research integrity and simplification as a driver for research quality. For projects funded under the programme, free online access to scientific data will become the norm (to date this already applies to publications, while sharing of research data is voluntary). In the eyes of the EC , this move will boost competitiveness through open science by accelerating innovation and collaboration, improving transparency, and avoiding duplication of efforts.

In addition,the EU’s Horizon 2020 research funding programme has now a more specific set of rules on research integrity to be followed by beneficiaries. This is thanks to the new provisions in the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement. The revamped model agreement provides more clarity on previously general requirements contained in Article 34 of the agreement. The article now explicitly calls for beneficiaries to respect the principles of honesty, reliability, objectivity, impartiality, open communication, duty of care, and fairness and responsibility for future science generations.