CASRAI Dictionary

Author: MCP Service

  • CoARA National Chapters: How Reform Spreads Institution by Institution

    CoARA national chapters are the country-level structures through which the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment turns its 2022 Agreement into local policy. As of mid-2026 there are 20 active chapters across Europe, each translating a shared set of commitments into national funding, hiring, and promotion practice — at very different speeds and with very different levels of traction.

    CoARA is a coalition of more than 800 research organisations, funders, assessment authorities, and professional associations that agreed in July 2022, via the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, to move evaluation away from publication counts and journal-based metrics and toward qualitative, peer-informed judgement. National chapters are the mechanism CoARA built to stop that agreement from staying a Brussels-level document and start it becoming a Warsaw-level, Dublin-level, or Bern-level one.

    What is a CoARA national chapter?

    A CoARA national chapter is a voluntary, member-proposed structure that gives an individual country’s CoARA members a dedicated forum to coordinate reform of research assessment in their own institutional and regulatory context. Chapters are not imposed by the CoARA Secretariat; they are proposed by members from a given country and open to any CoARA member from that country who wants to participate.

    Under CoARA’s own approval guidelines, a national chapter must be inclusive — reaching at least half of the CoARA member organisations in the country concerned — and must put in place mechanisms so that organisations outside CoARA can still contribute to, and benefit from, its work. Chapters commit to producing concrete tasks and outputs within a two-year window, and to feeding lessons learnt back to CoARA’s other national chapters and working groups.

    How many national chapters are there, and where?

    CoARA had 19 established national chapters as of December 2025, according to the Coalition’s own overview booklet published on Zenodo, with the Danish chapter the most recent addition, joining at the end of that year. The live national-chapters listing on coara.org, checked in mid-2026, shows the tally has since reached 20 countries.

    The current roster spans:

    • Andorra, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary and Ireland
    • Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden
    • Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

    Five chapters launched almost simultaneously in April 2024 — Switzerland (15 April), Spain (17 April), the Netherlands (22 April), Ireland (24 April) and Germany (26 April) — suggesting a coordinated first wave rather than organic, country-by-country emergence. Denmark’s arrival more than eighteen months later shows the model is still expanding, not just consolidating.

    How a chapter gets approved and what it must deliver

    Forming a national chapter requires a formal application submitted through CoARA’s online proposal form, assessed against published approval guidelines. The bar is deliberately structural rather than symbolic: reaching roughly half of a country’s CoARA member base is a materially harder threshold than gathering a handful of enthusiastic early adopters, and the two-year output clock forces chapters to name concrete deliverables rather than issue a statement of intent.

    CoARA also runs cross-chapter accountability mechanisms that go beyond the initial approval step — including a National Chapters Exchange Forum, whose third edition was held in Madrid, and regional forums such as the June 2026 hybrid event in Budapest on research excellence and language bias in assessment. These recurring forums exist specifically to compare what chapters have actually produced, not just to celebrate that they exist.

    What separates real reform from a signing ceremony

    The clearest predictor of a national chapter’s traction is not how long it has existed but whether it is embedded in a pre-existing national reform mechanism or built from scratch as a standalone forum. Chapters that plug into a national instrument that already has regulatory or institutional weight move faster than chapters whose only function, so far, is knowledge exchange between members.

    National chapter Launch signal Core mechanism Reform indicator
    Netherlands 22 April 2024 Extension of the existing national “Recognition & Rewards” programme Embedded in pre-existing reform infrastructure
    Norway Established chapter Shared development of institutional versions of the NORCAM career-assessment framework Embedded in a national assessment tool
    Poland Established chapter Formal review of coherence between CoARA commitments and Polish national regulation Statutory/regulatory alignment function
    Switzerland 15 April 2024 Cross-cantonal, cross-linguistic coordination of universities, universities of applied sciences and funders Structural federated-governance bridge
    Ireland 24 April 2024 Knowledge exchange on peer review, promotion criteria and funder DORA adoption Concrete but not yet statutory
    Denmark Late 2025 New national stakeholder-engagement platform Too early to assess traction

    Poland’s chapter is the sharpest illustration of the distinction. Its stated mission is not simply to discuss CoARA’s principles but to assess whether the Coalition’s agreed solutions are even compatible with existing Polish law, and to propose the national regulatory changes needed to implement them. That is a policy-drafting function, not a discussion group — and it is precisely the kind of concrete, two-year-deliverable output the approval guidelines require but cannot themselves guarantee.

    By contrast, a chapter whose public description is limited to “providing a platform for exchange” carries real signing-ceremony risk until it can point to a specific institutional policy, funder criterion, or promotion-committee rule it changed. Research administrators evaluating whether to lean on a given country’s chapter for benchmarking should ask for that named deliverable before assuming the chapter reflects binding national practice.

    Common questions and what comes next

    What is a CoARA National Chapter?

    A CoARA National Chapter is a country-level, member-proposed group within the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment that coordinates local implementation of the 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. It must involve at least half of that country’s CoARA member organisations and deliver concrete outputs within two years.

    How many CoARA national chapters are there?

    CoARA confirms 19 established national chapters as of December 2025, with Denmark the most recent addition. The Coalition’s live national-chapters page shows the current total has since reached 20 countries, spanning most of the European Research Area plus Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

    What is the difference between a CoARA signatory and a CoARA member?

    A signatory has endorsed CoARA’s 10 core commitments and agreed to submit an action plan within a year; a full member has additionally joined the Coalition’s governance, gaining voting rights at the General Assembly. Both routes are free, and signatories can upgrade to member status at any time.

    How does an organisation start a CoARA National Chapter?

    A group of CoARA members from the same country applies via CoARA’s online proposal form against published approval guidelines, demonstrating support from at least half of the country’s member organisations. Approved chapters then have two years to produce named, concrete outputs supporting the Agreement’s national implementation.

    The national-chapter model is CoARA’s answer to a structural problem every voluntary standards coalition faces: a shared agreement signed by a research office in Brussels or a funder in Paris changes nothing on its own inside a promotion committee in Kraków or a hiring panel in Bergen. Chapters are the deliberate, two-year-clocked mechanism for closing that gap — and the growing cadence of exchange forums suggests CoARA itself is aware that some chapters will close it faster than others.

    For research administration teams tracking which national frameworks are worth benchmarking against, the practical takeaway is to look past chapter existence and ask what the chapter has actually produced against its two-year commitment — a published criterion, a revised promotion policy, a funder mandate — rather than treating membership in a CoARA national chapter as evidence of reform on its own. Institutions building out their own research administration capacity should watch the chapters embedded in pre-existing national instruments most closely, since those are the ones with the shortest path from commitment to enforceable practice.

  • What Is CoARA? The Coalition Reshaping Research Assessment

    CoARA — the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment — is a coalition of research funders, universities, and academies that formally commits its signatories to base research evaluation primarily on qualitative, peer-reviewed judgement rather than journal metrics and rankings. Launched via the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment in July 2022 and formally constituted in December 2022, CoARA now counts more than 800 signatory organisations working through national chapters and working groups to reform hiring, promotion, and funding criteria.

    CoARA is not a certification body or a single standard — it is a coalition structure built around a shared Agreement, a set of principles, and a menu of commitments that each signatory adapts to its own national and disciplinary context.

    What is CoARA and where did it come from?

    CoARA emerged from a two-year mutual learning exercise on research assessment reform that the European Commission ran alongside Science Europe and the European University Association (EUA), culminating in the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment being released in July 2022. Around 350 organisations formally adopted CoARA’s governance documents, rules of procedure, and code of conduct at the Coalition’s Constitutive Assembly on 1 December 2022, according to Science Europe’s official record of the meeting.

    The Coalition is explicitly framed as a European Research Area initiative with global reach: signatories include universities, funders, and academies well outside the EU. Horizon Europe has continued to underwrite the Coalition’s operating capacity directly — the CoARA Boost project (CORDIS grant 101131826) funds a cascade programme that supports pilot assessment reforms across member organisations rather than treating the Agreement as a one-off declaration.

    What does the CoARA Agreement actually commit signatories to?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment rests on 10 guiding principles and 10 commitments, split into four core commitments every signatory must pursue and six supporting commitments that describe how reform should be resourced and communicated.

    • Recognise the diversity of contributions to and careers in research, beyond publication counts.
    • Base assessment primarily on qualitative judgement, with peer review central and quantitative indicators used only to support it.
    • Ensure any use of journal- and publication-based metrics — including the Journal Impact Factor and h-index — is responsible and ethical.
    • Avoid using institutional rankings in the assessment of individual researchers or units.
    • Commit the resources needed to reform assessment practices.
    • Review and develop assessment criteria, tools, and processes.
    • Raise awareness and provide training on new criteria.
    • Exchange practices and experiences within and beyond the Coalition.
    • Communicate progress publicly against the commitments.
    • Evaluate reforms using solid evidence and make data openly available.

    The first four items above are the core commitments; the remaining six are supporting commitments. Every signatory publishes its own action plan within one year of signing, setting institution-specific milestones against this shared list — the Agreement deliberately avoids prescribing a single implementation template.

    How does CoARA relate to DORA?

    CoARA and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) share a target — the misuse of journal-level metrics in individual assessment — but differ in scope, governance, and mechanism. DORA, launched in 2012, is a shorter declaration signatories endorse with comparatively light follow-through obligations. CoARA is a formally constituted coalition with governance documents, a Steering Board, mandatory action plans, and a network of national chapters.

    Feature DORA CoARA
    Launched 2012, San Francisco July 2022 (Agreement); constituted December 2022
    Primary focus Ending Journal Impact Factor misuse Systemic reform of hiring, promotion, and funding assessment
    Governance Declaration with voluntary sign-on Formal coalition, Steering Board, code of conduct
    Follow-through No mandatory action plan Action plan required within 1 year of signing
    Regional anchor Originated in the US biology community European Research Area–facilitated, global signatories

    Many institutions sign both: DORA and CoARA are complementary rather than competing, and CoARA’s own principles explicitly build on the earlier metrics-reform movement DORA started.

    What changes for a hiring or promotion committee after signing?

    Signing the Agreement is a distinct step from becoming a CoARA Member — a distinction most explainer coverage of CoARA skips entirely. Any organisation involved in research assessment can sign; only signatories that separately apply for Member status gain voting rights at CoARA’s General Assemblies and a seat in collective governance decisions. Membership carries no fee.

    For a hiring or promotion committee, the practical shift plays out over that first year:

    • Publication of an institution-specific action plan mapping current criteria against the 10 commitments.
    • Review of hiring, promotion, and tenure criteria to reduce reliance on the Journal Impact Factor and h-index as proxies for quality.
    • Piloting of narrative CV formats that let researchers describe contributions — datasets, software, mentoring, public engagement — in context rather than as a metrics table.
    • Training for panel members and administrators on the new criteria before they are applied to live decisions.

    Committees should expect a phased transition, not an overnight switch: CoARA’s commitments are directional and self-paced, so two signatory institutions can be at very different points of implementation at the same time.

    What do CoARA’s working groups and national chapters do?

    CoARA’s first Working Groups and National Chapters formed from September 2022 onward, giving signatories two parallel routes to collaborate: Working Groups tackle a specific reform topic (such as narrative CVs or open science indicators) across borders, while National Chapters — including the UK CoARA National Chapter — adapt the Agreement’s commitments to a single country’s funding and academic-employment context.

    The UK National Chapter, for example, brings together universities and funders to share how REF-adjacent assessment practices can align with CoARA’s qualitative-first principle without duplicating existing UK compliance frameworks.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is the CoARA Agreement?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment is the founding document signatories commit to, built on 10 principles and 10 commitments — four core, six supporting. It sets a shared direction and timeframe for reform while leaving implementation detail to each signatory’s own action plan.

    Is CoARA the same as DORA?

    No. DORA is a 2012 declaration focused narrowly on ending Journal Impact Factor misuse. CoARA is a formally governed coalition, launched in 2022, with mandatory action plans, a Steering Board, and a broader systemic-reform mandate that many institutions adopt alongside DORA.

    What are CoARA working groups?

    Working Groups are cross-border teams of signatories that develop practical tools and evidence on a specific reform theme, such as narrative CVs or responsible metrics. They formed alongside CoARA’s National Chapters from September 2022 and report progress back to the full Coalition.

    How many organisations have signed CoARA?

    More than 800 organisations had signed the Agreement as of 2026, according to CoARA’s own signatory registry — up from roughly 350 at the Coalition’s December 2022 Constitutive Assembly. Signatory numbers are published and updated on CoARA’s website.

    Implications for research administrators

    For research administrators, CoARA’s practical weight sits in the action-plan cycle, not the signature itself. A signature commits leadership to intent; the action plan is the document auditors, funders, and REF-adjacent panels will actually reference. Administrators drafting or reviewing hiring and promotion criteria should treat the four core commitments as a checklist against existing forms and rubrics — particularly any surviving requirement to state a Journal Impact Factor or numeric ranking.

    Funders that have signed layer a further obligation: grant assessment panels trained under CoARA’s principles must be able to justify qualitative judgements on record, which changes what evidence applicants are asked to submit.

    Where CoARA goes next

    CoARA’s trajectory depends on converting signatures into audited action-plan delivery — the Coalition’s own commitment to “communicate progress” implies a maturing accountability layer as more institutions pass their one-year and multi-year review points. Horizon Europe’s continued funding of the CoARA Boost cascade programme signals that the European Commission expects national chapters, not just the central Coalition, to carry implementation forward. Institutions evaluating whether to sign should read the Agreement’s commitments, not just its principles — the commitments are what an action plan, and eventually an audit, will be measured against.

    For related standards work on documenting research contributions, see CASRAI’s coverage of research administration practice and the CASRAI dictionary of research-assessment terminology.

  • Horizon Europe Data Management Plan Template: A Field-by-Field Guide

    The Horizon Europe data management plan template has six sections — Data Summary, FAIR Data (split into four parts), Allocation of Resources, Data Security, Ethical Aspects and Other Issues — and beneficiaries must submit a completed version as a project deliverable, typically by month six, then keep it updated throughout the grant.

    A data management plan (DMP) is a structured, funder-required document describing what research data a project will collect or reuse and how that data will be made findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) during and after the project.

    What is the Horizon Europe DMP template, and is it mandatory?

    The European Commission publishes a recommended DMP template for Horizon Europe on the Funding & Tenders Portal, downloadable from the programme’s Reference Documents page. Its own cover note states it is “recommended but not mandatory” — beneficiaries may use an equivalent institutional tool, provided the resulting plan still satisfies the grant agreement’s research data management requirements.

    That obligation flows from the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement’s open science provisions, which apply the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.” The template builds on the core DMP requirements published by Science Europe, adapted with guidance from the Horizon Europe Programme Guide and Annotated Model Grant Agreement. Any project that generates or reuses research data — in practice, almost every funded action — must produce a DMP, even where some datasets end up closed for legal or commercial reasons.

    Section 1: Data Summary — what goes in this box?

    Data Summary is the scene-setter, asking what data the project will handle and why, before the plan moves into FAIR mechanics. Reviewers use it to check the rest of the DMP is consistent with the project’s actual work packages.

    • Purpose of data collection/generation and its relation to the project’s objectives — link each dataset back to a specific work package or deliverable, not a generic statement.
    • Types and formats of data the project will generate or reuse — for example, experimental measurements, survey responses, images, code, or administrative records, plus the file formats (CSV, FASTA, TIFF, etc.).
    • Origin of the data — state clearly whether data is newly generated, reused from an existing source, or a mix, and name the source if reused.
    • Expected size of the data — even an order-of-magnitude estimate (megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes) is acceptable at the first version.
    • Data utility — who, beyond the consortium, might reuse this data, and for what purpose.

    Pre-award staff completing this section for the first time should resist writing a literature-review-style paragraph. Reviewers want short, factual answers mapped to the bullet points above — the template rewards precision over prose.

    Section 2: FAIR Data — the four subsections explained

    FAIR Data is the substantive core of the template and the section most often under-completed. It is split into four numbered subsections that mirror the FAIR acronym itself — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable — and each subsection has its own set of prompts.

    Subsection What the template asks Practical answer to give
    2.1 Making data findable Will you assign persistent identifiers (PIDs) and rich, standardised metadata? Name the PID scheme (e.g. a repository-issued DOI) and the metadata standard (e.g. Dublin Core, DDI, or a discipline-specific schema).
    2.2 Making data openly accessible Where will data be deposited, and will access be open or restricted? Name the trusted repository (Zenodo is OpenAIRE’s default recommendation where no discipline repository exists) and justify any closed-access exceptions.
    2.3 Making data interoperable Which standards, formats and vocabularies allow the data to be combined with other datasets? Cite the community-standard formats or ontologies used, and any mapping needed for project-specific vocabularies.
    2.4 Increase data re-use Under what licence will data be released, and how long will it stay usable? State the licence (CC BY is the common Horizon Europe default) and the quality checks applied before deposit.

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is directly relevant here: EOSC is the EU’s federated infrastructure for discovering, accessing and reusing research data and services across disciplines and borders, and Horizon Europe funds its continued development. Naming an EOSC-onboarded repository in subsections 2.1–2.2 strengthens the plan’s credibility, since it shows the data will sit inside infrastructure the Commission is actively co-funding rather than an ad hoc departmental server.

    Sections 3–6: resources, security, ethics and other issues

    The remaining four sections are shorter but frequently answered with a single vague sentence — exactly where reviewers focus scrutiny at the mid-term review.

    Section What it requires Common first-time-drafter mistake
    3. Allocation of resources Costs of making data FAIR, who is responsible, and the long-term preservation plan Leaving preservation open-ended instead of naming a retention period
    4. Data security Storage, backup and access-control arrangements during and after the project Describing generic IT policy rather than project-specific storage
    5. Ethical aspects Ethical or legal issues affecting data sharing, including GDPR compliance and consent Duplicating the ethics self-assessment instead of cross-referencing it
    6. Other issues Any other national, funder or institutional procedures not already captured Leaving the box empty instead of writing “None applicable”

    A DMP that answers Sections 3–6 with genuine project-specific detail — a named repository retention period, a named responsible role, an explicit GDPR legal basis — reads as materially stronger to reviewers than one that repeats institutional boilerplate across all four boxes.

    When is the DMP due, and who should complete it?

    The Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement requires beneficiaries to establish an initial DMP by month six and keep it updated as a living document, with revised versions typically expected at the mid-term and final reporting points as the data landscape becomes clearer.

    Completing the template well is rarely a solo task. Pre-award and grants staff typically draft Sections 1 and 3 from the proposal’s work-package descriptions, while a data steward, PI or research software engineer is usually needed to answer Section 2’s technical FAIR questions accurately — naming actual repositories, metadata standards and licences rather than generic placeholders.

    Common questions about the Horizon Europe DMP template

    Is the Horizon Europe DMP template mandatory?

    The template itself is optional — the European Commission’s own guidance describes it as recommended, not mandatory. What is mandatory is the underlying Data Management Plan deliverable: any project generating or reusing research data must produce one satisfying the Model Grant Agreement’s open science requirements, whichever format is used.

    When is the Horizon Europe Data Management Plan due?

    Beneficiaries must establish an initial DMP by month six of the project as a formal deliverable. The plan is then a living document, expected to be revised as data-related decisions firm up, typically reviewed again at the project’s mid-term and final reporting stages.

    What are the FAIR data requirements in Horizon Europe?

    Horizon Europe requires data to be made Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.” In practice this means assigning persistent identifiers, depositing in a trusted repository, using interoperable formats and standards, and releasing data under a clear reuse licence such as CC BY.

    How does the DMP relate to the European Open Science Cloud?

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is the EU’s federated infrastructure for finding, accessing and reusing research data across disciplines. Horizon Europe DMPs that deposit data in EOSC-connected repositories more directly demonstrate compliance with the FAIR Data section’s findability and accessibility requirements.

    What this means for pre-award teams

    Treat the DMP template as a compliance document with real reporting consequences, not a formality to file and forget. Reviewers assess DMP quality at the mid-term review, and a plan that still reads like a first draft — vague repository names, no named responsible role, empty “Other issues” boxes — signals weak project data governance more broadly.

    The most efficient approach for institutions running multiple Horizon Europe applications is a short internal checklist mapped to the six sections above, with FAIR Data answers pre-populated using the institution’s standard repository, metadata standard and default licence — leaving only the project-specific fields (data types, sizes, ethics) to customise for each new proposal. This turns a document that stalls many first-time drafters into a largely fill-in-the-blank exercise, freeing research administration teams to focus review time on the genuinely project-specific risks: ethics, security and long-term preservation cost.

  • European Open Science Cloud: What Works in 2026

    The European Open Science Cloud is a European Commission-backed federation of research data infrastructures, and in 2026 it offers institutions a genuinely operational access point — the EOSC EU Node, launched October 2024 — alongside FAIR-data cataloguing and compute services, while long-term governance, funding beyond Horizon Europe, and full national-node coverage remain unresolved. That split between what is live and what is still roadmap matters for any institution deciding whether to connect a repository.

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a European Commission initiative to federate existing research data infrastructures across Europe into a single “web of FAIR data and services” for science. It is not a single platform an institution simply signs up to; it is a governance framework and a growing network of interoperable nodes and service providers.

    Contents

    What is the European Open Science Cloud, in practice?

    EOSC exists to make research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable — the FAIR principles first codified for research infrastructures in the mid-2010s. Rather than building one central repository, the European Commission’s approach federates existing national, thematic and institutional infrastructures under shared technical and governance rules.

    That federated design is deliberate. It means an institution’s own repository can, in principle, remain where it is and keep its own operator, while becoming discoverable and interoperable through the EOSC layer above it.

    What EOSC actually offers institutions in 2026

    The clearest operational fact for 2026 is the EOSC EU Node, procured by the European Commission and launched in October 2024 as the first live node of the EOSC Federation. It functions as both a working service point and the reference implementation that other national and thematic nodes are built against.

    Through the EU Node and its federated providers, institutions and their researchers can currently access:

    • A federated catalogue of datasets, publications and software drawn from connected repositories across Europe
    • Compute and storage services, including virtual machines and bulk data transfer
    • File sync-and-share and large-file-transfer tools for cross-border collaboration
    • Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) allowing researchers to use institutional credentials across connected services
    • An Interoperability Framework defining the metadata and technical standards a repository must meet to be discoverable

    Two governance documents anchor this offer. The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) 1.3, finalised by the EOSC community in October 2024, sets the technical and thematic priorities the EU Node and future nodes are built to. The EOSC Association — an international non-profit under Belgian law — coordinates that community input and represents institutional and researcher stakeholders in the process.

    Federation growth is measurable rather than theoretical. The European Commission’s EOSC programme page reports that fourteen new candidate nodes joined the EOSC Federation in the most recent expansion round, extending thematic and geographic coverage beyond the original EU Node.

    What EOSC doesn’t offer yet

    The single biggest change institutions need to register is that the old EOSC Portal has been decommissioned. Its own site now states plainly that “the EOSC Portal is no longer available,” redirecting visitors to the EU Node as its replacement. Any integration plan, documentation or bookmark referencing the Portal is out of date.

    Three further items remain aspirational rather than delivered:

    Area Operational now Still in progress
    Access point EOSC EU Node (live since Oct 2024) Full national-node coverage across all Member States
    Funding model Horizon Europe co-funding to 2027 Post-Horizon Europe financing not yet settled
    Governance Tripartite Commission–Steering Board–Association structure Long-term operational governance after current funding framework
    Security & trust Opinion papers setting direction (Nov–Dec 2025) Implemented FAIR-object certification and intrusion protection

    On funding and governance, the EOSC Tripartite Governance body — Commission, EOSC Steering Board and EOSC Association — states it is “addressing options for the governance, operations and financing of EOSC after the end of the current funding framework.” That is an open question, not a settled one, and institutions budgeting multi-year integration work should treat it as such.

    On security, the EOSC Steering Board published an opinion paper in November 2025 on quality assessment of FAIR objects and protection from intrusion and data pollution, and a further paper in December 2025 on strengthening European sovereignty in research data. Both set direction; neither describes a deployed certification system institutions can rely on today.

    Who governs EOSC — and should your institution connect?

    EOSC runs on tripartite governance: the European Commission, the EOSC Steering Board (EU Member States and Horizon Europe-associated countries), and the EOSC Association (the research community’s representative body). This group typically meets twice yearly to review implementation progress and set strategic direction, most recently reaffirming EOSC as a priority action of the European Research Area’s 2025–2027 policy agenda.

    For an institution, connecting means one of two routes: registering a repository or service as an EOSC provider through the EU Node’s Service Provider Dashboard, or joining an existing (or forming a new) national or thematic node to participate in governance directly. Either route requires meeting the Interoperability Framework’s metadata and access standards before onboarding — this is not a passive listing exercise.

    Institutions already running Horizon Europe-funded projects have a practical head start: Horizon Europe’s data management plan requirements already mandate FAIR-compliant data handling, so a repository built to satisfy an existing Horizon Europe DMP is largely pre-aligned with EOSC’s technical expectations.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is the European Open Science Cloud?

    The European Open Science Cloud is a European Commission initiative that federates existing European research data infrastructures into a single interoperable environment. It is governed jointly by the Commission, national representatives on the EOSC Steering Board, and the EOSC Association, rather than owned or operated by any single body.

    Is the EOSC Portal still available in 2026?

    No. The EOSC Portal has been decommissioned and its site now directs visitors to the EOSC EU Node, launched in October 2024, as its operational successor. Institutions should update any documentation, bookmarks or integration guides that still reference the old Portal address.

    How does an institution join the EOSC Federation?

    An institution can register a repository as a service provider through the EU Node’s Service Provider Dashboard, or join or form a national or thematic EOSC node. Both routes require meeting the EOSC Interoperability Framework’s metadata and access standards before the resource is listed as discoverable.

    Who runs the EOSC Association?

    The EOSC Association is an international non-profit organisation under Belgian law, representing the research community within EOSC’s tripartite governance. It coordinates community input into the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda and advocates for institutional and researcher priorities to the Commission and Steering Board.

    Implications for research administrators

    Treat the EU Node as the current baseline, not the Portal, when budgeting integration effort or referencing EOSC in institutional policy or funder compliance documents. Confirm whether relevant national research bodies already operate a candidate node — joining an existing thematic node is typically faster than seeking direct EU Node registration.

    Because post-2027 financing is unresolved, institutions should avoid framing EOSC connection as a one-off compliance task. Build it as an ongoing relationship that will need re-scoping once the tripartite governance body settles a long-term funding model.

    The bottom line

    EOSC in 2026 is a working federation, not a finished one. The EU Node, the Interoperability Framework and a growing roster of federated services are real and usable today; the funding model, full national coverage and formal security certification are still being negotiated. Institutions that plan around that distinction — connecting through the EU Node or an existing node now, while budgeting for governance change later — will get genuine value without overcommitting to infrastructure still in development.

  • Open Research Europe Impact Factor & Indexing

    Open Research Europe has no official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JIF), and by explicit policy it never will. The European Commission’s open-access publishing platform for Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries deliberately rejects journal-level metrics in favour of article-level indicators, aligning itself with the DORA Declaration and the Leiden Manifesto.

    Open Research Europe (ORE) is a no-fee, open-access publishing platform launched in 2021 by the European Commission, built on F1000-derived publishing infrastructure, that carries Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020-funded research through an author-driven, post-publication open peer-review process. That structural choice — publish first, review openly afterwards — is precisely what makes the “impact factor” question harder to answer than a simple yes or no, and it is why ORE’s Scopus listing and its absence from Web of Science are so often confused with each other.

    Does Open Research Europe Have a Journal Impact Factor?

    No. Open Research Europe has never held a Clarivate Journal Impact Factor and has stated it will not pursue one. The COST-ORE webinar Question and Answer document is unambiguous on this point: “Open Research Europe does not have an Impact Factor (IF) and will not have one in the future.” This is a design decision, not a shortfall — ORE is structured around article-level metrics rather than a single journal-wide citation average.

    Some third-party indexing directories nonetheless display a figure they label an “impact score” or “Impact IF” for ORE, often citing a value around 1.4–1.9. These figures are not the Clarivate JIF. They are derived from Scopus citation data by commercial indexing-metrics sites, and they should not be quoted on a CV or grant application as a Journal Impact Factor, because no such official figure exists for ORE.

    What Does Scopus Indexing Mean for ORE Articles?

    Scopus indexing means an ORE article has cleared enough of a quality bar — completed open peer review, stable versioning, sustained publication activity — to be catalogued in Elsevier’s abstract-and-citation database. Per LIBER Europe’s ORE FAQ, articles are included in Google Scholar immediately on publication, but are only picked up by Scopus and Inspec once they pass peer review.

    Scopus coverage delivers three concrete benefits for authors:

    • Discoverability — articles surface in the citation searches institutions and publishers run by default.
    • Evaluator recognition — many national assessment exercises and promotion committees treat Scopus coverage as a baseline quality signal.
    • Citation tracking — Scopus data feeds the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), the metric ORE actually reports in place of a JIF.

    According to SCImago Journal & Country Rank (data as of March 2026), ORE sits in the Q2 quartile of the Multidisciplinary category for 2023, 2024 and 2025, with an SJR of 0.391 in 2025 — up from 0.280 in 2023.

    Is Open Research Europe Indexed in Web of Science?

    As of mid-2026, Open Research Europe is not indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science (WoS) core collection, though WoS inclusion is a stated ambition for the platform. This matters directly for the impact-factor question, because Web of Science coverage is the prerequisite Clarivate requires before it will calculate a Journal Impact Factor for any title.

    In practice, this means ORE’s absence from WoS and its absence of a JIF are the same fact stated two ways: no WoS record, no JIF eligibility. Researchers who need WoS-indexed output for a specific funder or national assessment requirement should verify ORE’s current WoS status directly before submitting, since indexing applications are described by ORE itself as ongoing.

    Why Does Post-Publication Peer Review Complicate the Comparison?

    ORE publishes an article before formal peer review begins, then runs an open, invited, named-reviewer process afterwards — authors must nominate at least five potential reviewers and keep sourcing names until two reports are published. Each revision produces its own version with its own DOI, so a single ORE article can exist as multiple citable, indexable records.

    LIBER Europe’s FAQ flags a genuine downstream problem this creates for librarians and indexers: databases that ingest every version risk flagging near-duplicate records for removal, while databases that keep only the latest version may lose citation history from earlier versions. This versioning mechanic — not just the absence of a JIF — is a structural reason why ORE resists being scored on the same axis as a conventional subscription or hybrid journal.

    How ORE’s Citation Data Compares, Year by Year

    Article-level growth is the metric ORE wants evaluated, and the underlying Scopus-sourced data shows a platform still scaling rather than a mature, steady-state journal.

    Year Documents published SJR Total cites Cites per document
    2022 117 — 87 1.554
    2023 151 0.280 247 1.428
    2024 196 0.376 532 1.642
    2025 221 0.391 899 1.938

    Source: SCImago Journal & Country Rank, metrics based on Scopus data as of March 2026.

    One further data point exposes a common misreading. SCImago’s Journal Value tool models an “estimated APC” for ORE of roughly $2,742 for 2025, calculated purely from its SJR and output volume. That figure is a statistical estimate, not a real charge: under LIBER Europe’s FAQ, ORE authors pay nothing, because the European Commission covers all publication costs directly for eligible Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries. Treating the modelled APC as an actual fee is a documented source of confusion worth correcting explicitly.

    Common Questions About ORE’s Impact Factor and Indexing

    Does Open Research Europe Have an Official Impact Factor?

    No. Open Research Europe has confirmed it does not have, and will not seek, a Clarivate Journal Impact Factor. It reports article-level indicators — citations, views, downloads and reviewer reports — instead, consistent with the DORA Declaration and the Leiden Manifesto on responsible research assessment.

    What Is Open Research Europe?

    Open Research Europe is the European Commission’s open-access publishing platform for research funded under Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and Euratom. It offers rapid, no-fee publication across 14 article types and six discipline areas, with an open, post-publication peer-review process.

    Is It Good to Publish in Open Access Platforms Like ORE?

    For eligible Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries, ORE satisfies open-access and data-sharing mandates at no author cost while granting Scopus and Google Scholar discoverability. Researchers needing Web of Science-indexed output for a specific funder requirement should confirm current coverage before submitting.

    Implications for Authors, Institutions and Evaluators

    Research offices and evaluators should treat ORE’s metrics profile as a feature of the platform’s design, not a data gap to be filled in with an unofficial number. Institutional guidance to authors should explicitly state that quoting a scraped “impact score” for ORE on a grant application or CV is inaccurate, since no Clarivate JIF exists.

    Research administration teams responsible for tracking funder compliance and output reporting are better served citing ORE’s Scopus indexing status, SJR quartile and article-level citation counts — the same figures ORE itself publishes on every article’s dedicated metrics page.

    Outlook: What Happens Next

    The European Commission confirmed in a 26 March 2026 announcement that it is entering “a new era for Open Research Europe,” committing to continued funding for the platform and exploring its expansion to serve funders beyond the EU research programmes, potentially under a broader diamond open-access model with no author-facing fees. Whether that expansion brings a change to ORE’s metrics philosophy remains an open question, but nothing in the Commission’s public statements to date signals a reversal of the no-JIF policy. Institutions tracking ORE for compliance or assessment purposes should monitor the platform’s own indexing page directly, since Web of Science status and any future database applications are updated there as they are achieved.

  • Open Research Europe: 2026 Grantee Guide

    Open Research Europe (ORE) is the European Commission’s no-fee, open-access publishing platform for researchers funded under Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and Euratom. It publishes articles first and peer-reviews them openly afterwards, which lets grantees satisfy the Horizon Europe open access mandate immediately, without an embargo or an article processing charge. From autumn 2026, operation of the platform moves to CERN and eligibility widens beyond European Commission-funded authors for the first time.

    Open Research Europe is an open-access publishing platform established in 2021 by the European Commission, built on a publish-review-curate model in which articles are made public before formal peer review begins.

    What is Open Research Europe?

    Open Research Europe is a dedicated, fee-free publishing venue for the outputs of EU-funded research. Articles go live shortly after an editorial pre-check for integrity and compliance, then undergo open, invited peer review — reviewer names, affiliations and reports are published alongside the work rather than kept confidential.

    The platform accepts 14 article types across six discipline areas, including research articles, data notes, method articles, software tool articles, and — distinctively — null and negative results, which conventional journals routinely decline. Each review round produces a separate, individually citable version with its own DOI.

    More than 1,200 articles from over 6,300 authors at more than 3,000 institutions worldwide had been published on ORE by March 2026, according to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD).

    How does ORE satisfy the Horizon Europe open access mandate?

    Horizon Europe grant terms require beneficiaries to make peer-reviewed publications immediately open access, with no embargo period, under a CC-BY licence, and to manage underlying research data in line with FAIR principles. ORE is designed to meet all three requirements without extra administrative work by the author.

    • Immediate access: articles publish before peer review completes, so there is no embargo window to manage.
    • No cost barrier: the European Commission covers publication costs for eligible beneficiaries, removing the article processing charge (APC) that many gold open access journals require.
    • CC-BY licensing: published articles carry a Creative Commons Attribution licence by default, satisfying Horizon Europe’s reuse requirements.
    • FAIR data alignment: authors are expected to deposit supporting data in a trusted repository, and ORE’s open data policy is built around the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles.

    Because the European Commission operates the eligibility and compliance checks centrally, a grantee publishing on ORE does not need to separately verify licence terms or embargo settings the way they would with a mixed portfolio of subscription and hybrid journals.

    Who can publish on ORE after the 2026 CERN transition?

    Today, ORE eligibility is tied strictly to funding: at least one contributing author must be part of a running or completed Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe or Euratom-funded project. That restriction is changing. In December 2025, the CERN Council approved CERN as the new hosting and operating organisation for ORE, and CERN will run the platform’s technical and administrative infrastructure from autumn 2026 onward.

    The new phase turns ORE from a single-funder platform into a consortium effort. A funding consortium of national research funders and organisations from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland joins the European Commission, which continues as a permanent observer and financial contributor. Governance sits with a Funders’ Group, supported by an Executive Committee and a Scientific Advisory Board (nominations for which opened 10 June 2026).

    Two operational details matter for grant administrators tracking this shift:

    • Since its 2021 launch, ORE has run on F1000’s open-research publishing infrastructure (part of Taylor & Francis); from autumn 2026 the platform moves to CERN-hosted infrastructure built on the open-source Open Journal Systems (OJS) software.
    • Publishing remains completely free of author-facing fees both for European Commission-funded researchers and for authors affiliated with institutions in the consortium’s participating countries — the current platform stays operational until autumn 2026 for ongoing submissions.

    ORE vs a traditional journal: when should grantees use which?

    ORE is the fastest, cheapest route to Horizon Europe open access compliance, but it is not a universal substitute for every publication decision. The table below sets out the practical differences a grantee should weigh before choosing a venue.

    Factor Open Research Europe Typical gold/hybrid journal
    Cost to author Free — covered by the EC or consortium funder APC often £1,500–£4,000+, or subscription paywall
    Peer review timing Open, after publication Closed, before publication
    Eligibility Horizon 2020/Europe/Euratom beneficiaries; widening to 11 consortium countries from autumn 2026 Open to any author who pays or has a qualifying subscription
    Article types accepted 14 types, incl. null/negative results, data notes, software tools Usually limited to research articles and reviews
    Indexing status Google Scholar on publication; Scopus and Inspec after peer review passes Varies by title; established journals often carry longer indexing history
    Impact metric No Journal Impact Factor; article-level metrics, DORA/Leiden Manifesto-aligned Journal Impact Factor commonly available

    Grantees should favour ORE when the priority is fast, mandate-compliant, no-cost open access — particularly for data notes, methods papers, or negative results that a conventional journal would reject. A traditional journal route remains preferable where a field’s tenure or promotion norms still weight Journal Impact Factor heavily, or where a non-Horizon co-funder specifies a different compliant venue.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is Open Research Europe?

    Open Research Europe is the European Commission’s open-access publishing platform for researchers funded by EU programmes, launched in 2021. It uses open, post-publication peer review and, from autumn 2026, is jointly operated by CERN and a consortium of national research funders.

    Is Open Research Europe indexed in Scopus?

    Yes, conditionally. Every ORE article appears in Google Scholar immediately on publication. Once an article passes open peer review, it becomes discoverable in Scopus and Inspec as well, per LIBER Europe’s published FAQ on the platform.

    Can UK-funded researchers publish on Open Research Europe?

    Yes. Since the UK re-associated to Horizon Europe in 2024, UK-based researchers named on an eligible Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 or Euratom grant retain the same fee-free publishing eligibility on ORE as researchers anywhere else in the programme.

    What this means for research offices

    Research administration teams should note one operational wrinkle: ORE’s open peer-review process generates multiple article versions, each with its own DOI. LIBER Europe’s guidance warns that repositories harvesting all versions — rather than just the latest — risk having duplicate-detection systems mistakenly flag or remove legitimate records.

    Institutions should update repository ingestion rules and internal open access guidance to reflect the 2026 eligibility expansion, and confirm with their research administration teams which national funders now sit inside the ORE consortium before advising grantees on venue choice.

    The CERN-hosted, multi-funder version of ORE launching in autumn 2026 is a concrete step toward the diamond open access model set out in Science Europe’s 2022 Action Plan for Diamond Open Access — a model likely to shape how Horizon Europe’s successor programme frames open access requirements after 2027.

  • Widening Participation in Horizon Europe: A Practical Guide for New Institutions

    Widening Participation is Horizon Europe’s dedicated equity mechanism, channelling funding through instruments such as Teaming, Twinning and ERA Chairs to 15 lower-performing “Widening countries” plus qualifying Associated Countries. Every project funded under these instruments — like every other Horizon Europe grant — is bound by the same immediate open access and FAIR data obligations, which means institutions with the least administrative capacity face the same compliance bar as long-established research offices.

    Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area (WIDERA) is Horizon Europe’s fourth “transversal” element, sitting alongside the programme’s three main pillars. Its purpose is definitional: WIDERA exists to close the research and innovation performance gap between EU member states, not to relax the rules that apply once funding is awarded.

    What is Widening Participation in Horizon Europe?

    Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence is the set of Horizon Europe actions that build research and innovation capacity in countries whose institutions have historically won a disproportionately small share of competitive EU funding. According to the European Commission’s Research and Innovation portal, Widening countries accounted for just 5.1% of the total Horizon 2020 budget as of February 2021 — up from 4.2% under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and 4.8% in 2018, a slow but measurable trend the current work programme is designed to accelerate.

    WIDERA is not a side grant scheme. It is a structural correction mechanism embedded in the same legal and reporting framework as every other Horizon Europe action, including its Open Science obligations.

    Which countries and instruments does Widening Participation cover?

    Under the Horizon Europe Regulation, the 15 Widening countries are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Associated Countries with equivalent research and innovation performance characteristics, plus the EU’s Outermost Regions, are also eligible. The UK is not a Widening country — but as a Horizon Europe Associated Country since 1 January 2024, UK-based institutions remain eligible as project partners in most Widening actions, even where only Widening-country institutions can act as coordinators.

    Three instruments do most of the equity-building work:

    Instrument Purpose Coordinator eligibility
    Teaming for Excellence Creates or modernises centres of excellence in Widening countries via strategic partnership with a leading institution abroad Widening-country institution, conditional on securing complementary structural-fund investment
    Twinning Links a Widening-country institution with at least two top-class counterparts in different EU or Associated Countries for networking and knowledge transfer Widening-country institution acts as coordinator
    ERA Chairs Attracts a high-level researcher to a Widening university or research centre and integrates a new research team into that institution Widening-country institution hosts the chair

    The 2026-2027 work programme adds further routes, including the European Excellence Initiative, Pathways to Synergies, the Dissemination and Exploitation Support Facility, the Hop-on Facility, Excellence Hubs and ERA Talents — each aimed at a different stage of institutional capacity-building.

    How do open access and open data requirements apply to Widening countries?

    Horizon Europe’s Open Science policy applies uniformly: there is no reduced-compliance track for Widening-country grantees. Every beneficiary must provide immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications, with no embargo period, deposited as a machine-readable copy in a trusted repository and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or an equivalent open licence.

    Research data falls under the same expectation of being findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), consistent with the standards this site tracks elsewhere in its research-data vocabulary. The practical consequence for a widening-country institution is that open access compliance capacity — repository infrastructure, licensing know-how, data management planning — has to exist from day one of a grant, not be built up over a project’s lifetime.

    • No embargo is permitted on peer-reviewed outputs, regardless of an institution’s prior publishing infrastructure.
    • CC BY (or equivalent) licensing must be agreed before submission, not retrofitted after acceptance.
    • Data management plans are a deliverable, assessed on the same timetable as for established research-intensive universities.

    Building compliance capacity from scratch

    Institutions applying for Teaming, Twinning or ERA Chairs funding for the first time typically lack a dedicated open access office, an institutional repository, or staff experienced in Horizon Europe’s grant agreement terms. The European Commission has built dedicated support around exactly this gap rather than leaving it to individual institutions.

    Three support channels are worth prioritising early in a widening-country institution’s planning:

    • NCP_WIDERA.NET — the network of National Contact Points that provides free guidance on eligibility, proposal writing and reporting requirements specific to Widening actions.
    • The Dissemination and Exploitation Support Facility — free-of-charge expert support to help Widening-country beneficiaries meet dissemination obligations, including open access planning.
    • The Hop-on Facility — allows a Widening-country institution to join an already-running Horizon Europe Pillar 2 or EIC Pathfinder consortium, gaining compliance experience without having to coordinate a new proposal.

    For research administrators building this capability, mapping open science obligations against institutional workflow — who owns the repository deposit step, who signs off the data management plan, who tracks embargo-free publication dates — is the highest-leverage early task. Framing this against the broader discipline of research administration practice, rather than treating it as a one-off grant condition, is what allows the capacity to outlast any single Teaming or Twinning project.

    Widening Participation: frequently asked questions

    What are the widening countries in Horizon Europe?

    The 15 Widening countries defined in the Horizon Europe Regulation are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Associated Countries with comparable research performance, and the EU’s Outermost Regions, are also eligible for Widening actions.

    Is the EUI Widening Europe Programme the same as Horizon Europe’s WIDERA?

    No. The European University Institute’s Widening Europe Programme is a separate, institution-level initiative supporting scholars from Widening countries. Horizon Europe’s WIDERA is the EU-wide funding mechanism behind Teaming, Twinning and ERA Chairs; the two are complementary but administratively distinct.

    What this means for the 2026-2027 work programme

    The European Commission published the WIDERA Work Programme 2026-2027 on 11 December 2025, confirming that Teaming, Twinning and ERA Chairs continue as core instruments alongside the newer capacity-building routes. For institutions in widening countries, the equity mandate and the open science mandate are not competing priorities — they are the same compliance obligation, assessed on the same grant agreement. Building repository infrastructure, licensing literacy and data management capability now, rather than reactively per project, is what determines whether a widening-country institution can convert a single Teaming or ERA Chairs award into a durable research administration function.

  • Horizon Europe Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026: Open Data Rules for Applicants

    The Horizon Europe Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026 requires every funded project to meet the standard Horizon Europe open-research-data baseline — a FAIR-compliant Data Management Plan and immediate open access to publications — plus a Cluster 6-only layer: biodiversity and genetic-resource data must go through recognised repositories, follow Darwin Core-style standards, and satisfy the EU’s Nagoya Protocol access-and-benefit-sharing rules. Research offices supporting Cluster 6 applicants need to track both layers separately, because the biodiversity-specific obligations do not appear in the general Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement text that administrators may already know from other clusters.

    Cluster 6 is the Horizon Europe pillar funding research and innovation on “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment”, organised into seven policy destinations under the European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Farm to Fork strategy.

    What open data rules apply across all Horizon Europe clusters?

    Every Horizon Europe grant, regardless of cluster, operates under the Commission’s stated principle of making research data “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. This baseline applies identically to Clusters 1 through 6 and is not something Cluster 6 changes or adds to.

    Three obligations sit inside this baseline. First, a living Data Management Plan is due within the first six months of the project and must be updated as the work progresses. Second, research data must be handled according to the FAIR principles — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Third, all peer-reviewed publications arising from the grant must be made immediately open access, either via an open-access journal or by depositing the accepted manuscript in a trusted repository with no embargo.

    According to the Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement, beneficiaries must deposit machine-readable data and metadata in a trusted repository. None of this is Cluster 6-specific — it is the floor every applicant, in every cluster, must clear.

    What extra biodiversity data-sharing duties does Cluster 6 add?

    Cluster 6’s thematic link to the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 brings a second, additional layer that does not appear in the general programme text. This is the part administrators most often miss, because it is scattered across topic-level annexes rather than stated once in the core rules.

    • Recognised repositories: biodiversity and species-occurrence data generated under Cluster 6 topics is expected to flow into internationally recognised infrastructures, most commonly the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), using the Darwin Core data standard maintained by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) community.
    • Research infrastructure alignment: proposals are expected to draw on established European research infrastructures for biodiversity and life-science data, including LifeWatch ERIC and ELIXIR, rather than building bespoke, one-off data platforms.
    • Access and benefit-sharing (ABS): where a project accesses genetic resources — for example in agrobiodiversity, microbiome or bioeconomy topics — applicants must comply with Regulation (EU) No 511/2014, the EU’s implementing legislation for the Nagoya Protocol, including due-diligence declarations at key project checkpoints.
    • Global Biodiversity Framework alignment: the draft and adopted 2026-2027 destinations reference the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at CBD COP15 in December 2022, whose Target 21 specifically calls for improved availability of biodiversity data to decision-makers.

    None of these four points is a restatement of the general FAIR/DMP baseline. They are additive obligations that only attach to Cluster 6 — and, in the case of Nagoya Protocol compliance, to any topic across any cluster that touches genetic resources, but they surface most frequently in Cluster 6’s Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Sectors destinations.

    How does Cluster 6 compare with Clusters 4 and 5 on data requirements?

    Administrators who support applicants across multiple clusters sometimes assume the extra biodiversity layer is programme-wide. It is not. Clusters 4 and 5 remain governed by the general Horizon Europe open-data baseline described above, with no equivalent dedicated data-sharing regime published in their 2026-2027 work programmes.

    Cluster Domain Cluster-specific data-sharing regime beyond the Horizon Europe baseline?
    Cluster 4 Digital, Industry and Space No dedicated cluster-wide regime; individual topics may reference EU common data spaces
    Cluster 5 Climate, Energy and Mobility No dedicated cluster-wide regime; individual topics may reference Copernicus and Destination Earth datasets
    Cluster 6 Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Yes — biodiversity/genetic-resource data via GBIF-compatible standards and Nagoya Protocol ABS compliance

    This distinction matters for institutional research offices: a Data Management Plan template built for a Cluster 4 or Cluster 5 grant will not, by default, cover the ABS due-diligence declarations or repository-mapping steps a Cluster 6 biodiversity topic requires.

    Which 2026 Cluster 6 calls are open now, and what are the deadlines?

    The Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026-2027 groups more than 58 topics into seven calls across seven destinations, following Info Days held in Brussels on 22-23 January 2026. As of July 2026, several calls have already closed their first round while others remain open or are still to launch.

    Call Destinations covered Opened Deadline(s) Status (July 2026)
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-01 Biodiversity; Circular economy and bioeconomy; Zero pollution 17 Apr 2026 17 Sep 2026 Open
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-02 Farm to Fork; Climate action; Communities 14 Jan 2026 14 Apr 2026 Closed
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-03 Governance and digital solutions 14 Jan 2026 15 Apr 2026 Closed
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-04 (COFUND) Governance — Partnership on Agriculture of Data 25 Aug 2026 26 Nov 2026 Not yet open
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-two-stage Biodiversity; Circular economy; Zero pollution 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 16 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 23 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-02-two-stage Farm to Fork 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 14 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 15 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-two-stage Governance 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 15 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 30 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending

    Research offices with Stage 1 applicants who passed through in April should now be finalising the ABS due-diligence and repository-mapping annexes ahead of the September Stage 2 deadlines — this is precisely where the biodiversity-specific obligations from the previous section get tested in a live submission.

    Cluster 6 open data: frequently asked questions

    What is the 2026 Work Programme of Horizon Europe?

    The 2026 Work Programme is the European Commission’s annually detailed set of funding calls implementing Horizon Europe’s 2025-2027 Strategic Plan. It is published per cluster, sets topic-level budgets, deadlines and eligibility conditions, and forms the legal basis on which applicants submit proposals through the Funding and Tenders Portal.

    What is the Cluster 6 Horizon Work Programme?

    Cluster 6 is the Horizon Europe funding stream for Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment. Its 2026-2027 edition funds over 58 topics across seven destinations, combining Research and Innovation Actions, Innovation Actions and Coordination and Support Actions with a combined 2026 budget exceeding €580 million.

    What is the 6 cluster Horizon Europe?

    Cluster 6 targets environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and unsustainable resource use by funding transformative research across food systems, the circular bioeconomy, pollution control and climate-resilient land and ocean management. It sits within Pillar II of Horizon Europe, alongside Clusters 1 to 5.

    What are the topics of Cluster 6?

    Cluster 6 topics span seven destinations: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Sectors, Clean Environment and Zero Pollution, Fair, Healthy and Environment-Friendly Food Systems, Land, Ocean and Water for Climate Action, Communities, and Governance, Observations and Digital Solutions.

    What this means for research offices supporting Cluster 6 applicants

    Institutional research offices that reuse a single, cluster-agnostic Data Management Plan template risk under-serving Cluster 6 applicants. The template needs a supplementary checklist covering repository selection against GBIF or Darwin Core compatibility, an ABS screening question for any genetic-resource sampling, and a named contact for Nagoya Protocol due-diligence sign-off.

    This is also useful evidence for funder-liaison teams explaining why a Cluster 6 proposal’s data section takes longer to clear internal review than a Cluster 4 or Cluster 5 submission — it carries more compliance surface, not administrative overcaution.

    Administrators tracking related programme rules — including broader research administration compliance requirements — should treat the biodiversity-data layer as a standing item on Cluster 6 proposal-development checklists through the remainder of the 2026-2027 work programme, since the underlying Nagoya Protocol and GBIF-alignment expectations are set to persist across subsequent Cluster 6 call rounds.

  • Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 Guide: Open Access and FAIR Data Changes

    Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 keeps the core open science mandate intact — immediate open access, FAIR data and a Data Management Plan for every project that produces data — while cutting call topics by 35%, expanding lump-sum funding to roughly half of all calls, and introducing new cross-cluster “horizontal calls”. For grant offices, the compliance clauses have not moved; the surrounding administrative machinery has.

    The Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 is the European Commission’s final two-year implementation plan for the 2021-2027 Horizon Europe framework, published in December 2025 and covering all funding calls, budgets and eligibility rules through the end of the programme.

    What changed in the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027?

    The European Commission adopted the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 on 12 December 2025, according to the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). The Commission committed over €14 billion across the 2026 and 2027 calls, spanning all three Pillars, the Missions, Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area (WIDERA), and the New European Bauhaus Facility, as confirmed by Innovate UK Business Connect’s summary of the published documents.

    The headline structural change is scale: the Commission’s General Introduction to the 2026-2027 Work Programme states that the number of topics across Pillar 2’s collaborative research Clusters was cut by 35% compared with the 2023-2024 Work Programme, a reduction also reported independently by Science|Business and EMDESK. Fewer, broader topics replace the previous highly prescriptive call texts.

    Dimension Work Programme 2023-2025 Work Programme 2026-2027
    Pillar 2 call topics Baseline count 35% fewer topics
    Lump-sum funding share Partial, growing Approx. 50% of all calls
    Open access mandate Immediate OA, CC BY, no embargo Unchanged
    FAIR data / DMP requirement Mandatory; “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” Unchanged; EOSC integration reinforced
    Cross-cluster “horizontal calls” Not used Introduced (e.g. Clean Industrial Deal, AI in science)
    Committed budget signalled — Over €14 billion

    Open access to publications: what’s the same, what’s different

    Nothing has changed in the core publication mandate. Under the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, beneficiaries must ensure immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications reporting funded results, with no embargo period, deposit in a trusted repository, and a licence — typically Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or equivalent — that permits reuse, redistribution and text and data mining.

    What grant offices should actually re-check is the supporting metadata clause, not the licence clause. The 2026-2027 General Annexes continue to require full bibliographic metadata and persistent identifiers (DOI, ORCID iD, ROR) on every deposited publication. Institutions that let repository metadata quality slip during the 2023-2025 cycle should treat the new Work Programme as a trigger to re-audit templates, not assume automatic carry-over.

    • Confirm the trusted-repository and CC BY licence clause wording in your institutional agreement template matches the 2026-2027 General Annexes text
    • Update publication-metadata forms to capture DOI, ORCID iD and ROR identifiers consistently
    • Re-brief researchers that “no embargo” still means no embargo, even for monographs and long-form outputs
    • Flag any project bidding into a new horizontal call for additional cross-cluster reporting fields

    FAIR data, Data Management Plans and the EOSC push

    The FAIR data obligation is also unchanged in substance: research data generated or collected under a funded grant must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, and every applicable project must maintain a Data Management Plan (DMP) that is created early and updated across the project lifecycle. The principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” continues to govern the balance between openness and legitimate restriction — intellectual property, personal data and security exceptions still apply, but even restricted datasets must carry FAIR, openly accessible metadata.

    What is new is emphasis, not obligation. Work Programme documentation for the Missions strand explicitly references infrastructures “federated under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)”, and the 2026-2027 cycle leans further into EOSC as the delivery mechanism for FAIR compliance — pushing project consortia towards EOSC-compatible repositories and machine-actionable metadata rather than institution-specific solutions. Grant offices whose DMP templates still point researchers to generic “any FAIR repository” language should update guidance to name EOSC-aligned options explicitly.

    Structured contributor metadata is part of the same compliance chain: publications reporting Horizon Europe-funded work increasingly carry standardised role disclosures. CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014, and the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 — grant offices building publication-metadata checklists can treat CRediT-style role tagging as a practical way to strengthen the bibliographic metadata clause without waiting for a funder mandate to force it.

    Structural and procedural changes that affect compliance workflows

    Three procedural shifts in the 2026-2027 Work Programme indirectly affect how open science obligations get delivered, even though the obligations themselves are stable.

    • Lump-sum funding expansion. EMDESK’s analysis, citing Science|Business reporting on the final Work Programme text, puts lump-sum funding at roughly 50% of all 2026-2027 calls — up sharply from the partial rollout in 2023-2025. Lump-sum grants change how compliance is verified, since cost reporting is replaced by milestone and deliverable verification, which shifts open-access and DMP checks toward deliverable sign-off rather than cost-claim audit.
    • Horizontal calls. New cross-cluster calls address themes such as the Clean Industrial Deal and AI in science, spanning multiple Clusters within Pillar 2. These calls typically generate larger, more heterogeneous datasets, making FAIR data planning and interoperable metadata schemas more operationally important than under single-Cluster calls.
    • Broader, less prescriptive topics. With 35% fewer topics, each call description covers more ground, meaning the same open-access and data clauses now apply across a wider range of project types per topic — grant offices should not assume a topic’s compliance profile is self-evident from a shorter call text.

    Grant office FAQs and what happens next

    When did the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 take effect?

    The European Commission adopted the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 on 12 December 2025, per HaDEA’s official announcement, opening the programme’s final two-year cycle. Most single-stage call deadlines fall in September or October 2026, though some Clusters open earlier, with deadlines in March or April 2026.

    Is open access still mandatory under Horizon Europe 2026-2027?

    Yes. The 2026-2027 Work Programme retains the immediate open access mandate for peer-reviewed publications: no embargo, deposit in a trusted repository, a CC BY (or equivalent) licence, and complete bibliographic metadata with persistent identifiers. Grant offices should verify these clauses remain unchanged in institutional agreement templates.

    What is the FAIR data requirement in Horizon Europe 2026-2027?

    FAIR data means research data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, with a Data Management Plan required for projects that generate or collect data. “As open as possible, as closed as necessary” continues to apply, and metadata must remain FAIR even when underlying data is restricted.

    How many fewer call topics are there in the 2026-2027 Work Programme?

    According to the Commission’s General Introduction, Pillar 2’s collaborative research Clusters saw a 35% reduction in the number of topics compared with the 2023-2024 Work Programme, consolidating funding into broader, less prescriptive topic descriptions.

    None of this changes the substance of what a research office signs up to when it accepts Horizon Europe funding: immediate open access, FAIR-managed data, and a live Data Management Plan remain non-negotiable. What has changed is the operating environment around those obligations — fewer but broader topics, half of all calls running on lump sums, and new cross-cluster calls that will generate messier, larger datasets than before. Institutions that treat the 2026-2027 Work Programme as a compliance-template refresh, not just a new set of calls to bid into, will spend less time firefighting metadata and DMP queries once projects are underway.

  • UK Association to Horizon Europe: 2026 Status

    UK association to Horizon Europe remains in force through 2026: the UK has participated as a fully associated country since 1 January 2024, UK-based applicants can lead consortia and receive grants directly from the European Commission, and — because association status legally treats UK grantees as equivalent to EU institutions — those grantees are bound by the same immediate open-access and data-management obligations as any beneficiary in an EU member state.

    Horizon Europe is the European Union’s research and innovation funding programme, running from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of €95.5 billion; UK association is the bespoke agreement, effective 1 January 2024, that lets UK-based researchers, universities and businesses participate in it on equivalent terms to EU member states.

    Where does UK association actually stand in 2026?

    The UK’s association to Horizon Europe is not provisional or under renegotiation — it is a settled, operating arrangement. The UK and EU signed the Joint Statement on UK association on 7 September 2023, and association took legal effect on 1 January 2024, according to both the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission’s own country page for the United Kingdom.

    All Horizon Europe calls from Work Programme 2024 onward are covered directly by association. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) confirms this remains the case in its guidance updated 9 February 2026: UK applicants “are eligible to receive funding directly from the European Commission” for calls issued between 2024 and 2027, the remaining lifetime of the current programme.

    According to Universities UK’s analysis published 27 May 2026, the first full year of association reversed a multi-year decline in UK research funding that followed the post-Brexit interruption — a data point that matters for institutional strategy, not just headline status.

    How UK grantees access funding: guarantee scheme vs direct EU payment

    UK-based institutions currently sit across two distinct funding mechanisms depending on when their grant was awarded, plus one narrow exclusion. Research offices managing legacy awards alongside new Horizon Europe grants need to track which regime applies to which project.

    Funding route Applies to Paid by Status in 2026
    UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee Work Programmes 2021–2023 UK government (UKRI) Legacy; over £1 billion awarded as of April 2023, per UKRI
    Direct EU association funding Work Programmes 2024–2027 European Commission Active — current default route for new UK awards
    EIC Accelerator (equity/blended finance) Innovation Council fund N/A — excluded UK entities remain excluded from this specific fund, per the European Commission

    The exclusion is narrow and frequently misunderstood: it applies only to the equity and blended-finance component of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, not to Horizon Europe participation generally. UK organisations remain eligible for EIC Accelerator grant-only funding and for every other pillar of the programme.

    HM Treasury’s 2021 Spending Review earmarked £6.9 billion (roughly €6.5 billion) to cover Horizon Europe association costs through 2025 — spanning both the transitional guarantee scheme and subsequent association-fee payments — a figure widely cited by pan-European research-advocacy analysis of UK reassociation costs.

    What open access and data rules apply to UK grantees?

    Because association is legally equivalent participation rather than a side arrangement, UK-based grant holders sign the same Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement as any EU beneficiary, and Article 17’s open science conditions apply without modification. There is no “UK variant” of the mandate.

    • Immediate open access — peer-reviewed publications must be deposited in a trusted repository and made openly accessible at the moment of publication, with no embargo period permitted.
    • CC BY licensing — publications must carry a Creative Commons Attribution licence (or equivalent), with alternative CC licences permitted for long-form outputs such as monographs.
    • Trusted-repository deposit — a machine-readable copy of the accepted manuscript or published version must be deposited, independent of the journal’s own access model.
    • Data management and sharing — funded projects must maintain a data management plan aligned with FAIR principles and include a data-access statement in resulting publications.

    For UK research offices, the practical consequence is that Horizon Europe compliance sits on top of — not instead of — UK funder open-access policy (UKRI’s own OA policy) and REF-related outputs guidance. Grant agreement terms take precedence for Horizon Europe-funded outputs specifically, so institutions need workflows that flag Horizon Europe grants for the stricter, no-embargo standard even where a parallel UK funder policy would tolerate a delay.

    Answer-first Q&A

    Is the UK associated to Horizon Europe?

    Yes. The UK has been a fully associated country since 1 January 2024, under the Joint Statement signed with the EU on 7 September 2023. Association covers the remainder of the current programme, through 2027, and UK applicants participate on equivalent terms to EU member-state institutions.

    When did the UK join Horizon Europe?

    The UK’s association took legal effect on 1 January 2024, though eligible UK researchers had already been receiving guaranteed funding for successful Work Programme 2021–2023 bids via the UKRI guarantee scheme while the formal agreement was finalised.

    How much does the UK contribute to Horizon Europe?

    The UK government’s 2021 Spending Review earmarked £6.9 billion (around €6.5 billion) to cover Horizon Europe association costs through 2025, funding both the transitional guarantee scheme and the ongoing EU association-fee payments now in effect.

    Can UK organisations lead Horizon Europe project consortia?

    Yes. Under association, UK entities can coordinate and lead Horizon Europe consortium bids, not merely participate as partners — a right that was not guaranteed during the pre-2024 transitional period and is a material change for UK research administrators structuring proposals.

    What’s next: implications and the FP10 outlook

    For institutional leaders, the near-term implication is operational stability: association funding, eligibility and open-access terms are fixed for the remaining lifetime of Horizon Europe, so 2026–2027 planning can proceed on settled rules rather than provisional guidance. Research offices should treat any Horizon Europe award as automatically subject to immediate-OA and FAIR data-management terms, and audit existing compliance workflows against the Model Grant Agreement rather than domestic OA policy alone.

    The longer-term question is the successor programme, informally referred to across the sector as “FP10,” covering the EU’s next multiannual research cycle from 2028. The UK’s current association agreement is specific to Horizon Europe and does not automatically roll forward; continued UK participation in whatever follows will require a fresh negotiation, and institutions with multi-year projects spanning the transition should watch for European Commission and UKRI guidance on successor-programme terms as they emerge.

    For research administrators, the compliance takeaway is unambiguous: UK-based status does not create a lighter open-science obligation. Horizon Europe grantees in the UK operate under identical publication, licensing, repository and data-sharing terms to their EU-based collaborators, and that parity — not exemption — is what UK association was negotiated to secure.