CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: horizon europe data management plan

  • Horizon Europe Open Access Policy: Gold vs Green

    Under Horizon Europe, gold open access lets grantees claim Article Processing Charges (APCs) as an eligible cost when publishing in a fully open access journal, while green open access requires no APC but demands immediate deposit of the accepted manuscript in a repository — Horizon Europe permits no embargo period on either route. The route chosen changes what a grant can reimburse, not whether the underlying obligation to provide open access is met.

    Horizon Europe open access policy is the European Commission’s mandate, set out in the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, requiring immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications arising from EU-funded research, with no embargo and a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence as the default. This article resolves the specific pre-award question research administrators and principal investigators raise most often: which route — gold or green — is cheaper, faster to budget, and lower-risk to comply with.

    What does the gold open access route require and cost?

    Gold open access means publishing the final version of record directly in a journal or platform that is open access from the moment of publication. Under Horizon Europe, APCs for publishing in a fully open access journal are an eligible cost and can be charged to the grant budget, provided the journal is genuinely open access rather than a subscription title offering a paid open option.

    The European Commission’s Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement draws a firm line here: APCs paid to hybrid journals — subscription journals that unlock a single article for a fee — are not an eligible cost unless the journal is covered by an institutional transformative agreement the funder recognises. Grantees who publish gold must still deposit a copy of the final published version, and its metadata, in a trusted repository at the time of publication; paying the APC does not remove the deposit obligation.

    A cost-free variant of the gold route exists: Open Research Europe (ORE), the European Commission’s own peer-reviewed publishing platform for Horizon Europe and Euratom beneficiaries. ORE carries no APC for eligible authors, publishes under CC BY, and satisfies the immediate-access requirement without a grant budget line at all.

    What does the green open access route require, and is there really no embargo?

    Green open access means publishing as normal — including in subscription or hybrid journals — and separately depositing a copy of the work in a trusted repository so readers can access it without a subscription. Because no APC is typically paid, the green route carries no direct cost to reimburse, which is its main budgetary appeal.

    The compliance burden shifts instead to timing and rights. Horizon Europe’s Model Grant Agreement requires the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) — the final peer-reviewed text before typesetting — to be deposited and made publicly accessible immediately on publication, with no embargo permitted. This is stricter than many national funder policies, several of which still allow embargoes of six to twelve months for the green route. Grantees must also apply a CC BY licence to the deposited manuscript, which means notifying the publisher of their funder obligations at submission, since standard subscription-journal copyright transfer agreements do not grant this right automatically.

    Retaining the necessary rights is the single most common green-route compliance failure. Institutions increasingly rely on rights-retention strategies — asserting a CC BY licence on the AAM ahead of acceptance — to avoid publisher pushback after the fact.

    Gold vs green: how APC reimbursement actually differs

    The financial and compliance trade-offs are distinct enough that they warrant a direct route-by-route comparison rather than treating “open access compliance” as one undifferentiated obligation.

    Factor Gold open access Green open access
    APC reimbursement Eligible for fully open access journals and platforms; must be budgeted in the grant Not applicable — no APC in most cases
    Hybrid-journal APCs Not eligible, unless covered by a recognised transformative agreement Not relevant — publish anywhere, then self-archive
    Embargo allowed Not applicable — immediate by definition None permitted under Horizon Europe
    Version deposited Final published version (Version of Record) Author’s Accepted Manuscript
    Licence required CC BY (CC BY-NC/ND permitted for monographs) CC BY on the deposited manuscript
    Zero-cost option Open Research Europe (no APC) Always zero-cost by design

    For grant budgeting, this comparison has one practical consequence: a grantee who assumes any APC is reimbursable, or that green deposit can wait for a standard embargo, will fall out of compliance. Horizon Europe’s no-embargo rule on green deposit is stricter than UKRI’s REF-era transitional allowances and than several national mandates still permitting embargoes — a distinction that trips up researchers moving from a previous funder’s rules onto a Horizon Europe grant.

    Common questions on Horizon Europe open access requirements

    What are the open access requirements for Horizon Europe?

    Horizon Europe requires all peer-reviewed scientific publications resulting from funded work to be made immediately open access, with no embargo, under a CC BY licence (or CC BY-NC/ND for monographs). This applies whether the grantee chooses the gold or green route, and a repository deposit is required in both cases.

    What is the European Commission’s open access policy under Horizon Europe?

    The Commission’s policy treats open access as the default expected outcome of publicly funded research, not an optional extra. It requires immediate access, open licensing, and open metadata, and extends beyond publications to FAIR research data underpinning them, governed by the grant’s Data Management Plan.

    Is open access always free for the author?

    No. Gold open access typically involves an APC, which Horizon Europe treats as an eligible grant cost only for fully open access venues. Green open access is generally free, since it relies on self-archiving rather than a publication fee, making it the lower-cost default where budget is constrained.

    What is an open access policy, in funder terms?

    An open access policy is a funder’s binding condition that research outputs be made freely accessible and reusable, typically specifying the timing (immediate vs embargoed), licence type, and eligible cost treatment. Horizon Europe’s version is among the strictest in Europe because it removes the embargo option entirely.

    What this means for grant budgeting and compliance teams

    Research offices preparing a Horizon Europe proposal should budget APCs only against fully open access venues or confirmed transformative agreements, and should not assume hybrid-journal costs will be reimbursed. Where budget certainty matters more than journal choice, green open access or Open Research Europe removes APC risk entirely while still meeting the immediate-access mandate.

    Compliance teams should build rights-retention language into author guidance before submission, not after acceptance, since the no-embargo rule leaves no room to negotiate access timing with a publisher post hoc. Institutional repository workflows that trigger deposit reminders at the point of acceptance — rather than publication — reduce the risk of missing the immediate-deposit requirement.

    As the European Commission continues to expand Open Research Europe’s remit and cOAlition S partners refine rights-retention model policies, the practical gap between the two routes is likely to narrow further on cost but remain wide on process — gold trades money for simplicity, green trades cost for rights-management discipline.

  • 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.