THE REQUIREMENTS OF HORIZON 2020 REGARDING OPEN ACCESS AND OPEN DATA
Horizon 2020 Open Access (OA) policy
The policy:
 Is mandatory for peer-reviewed publications;
 Is mandatory for Green OA: researchers publish as usual in subscription-based journals and place
copy of peer-reviewed publications in repositories, at the latest upon publication;
 Sees payments for OA journal publication (Gold OA) as eligible for grant expenditure; 
 Does not however favour either Gold or Green OA;
 Requires open access via a repository to the bibliographic metadata that identify the deposited 
publication;
 Is silent as regards monographs;
 Is definite on data, announcing an Open Data pilot for H2020.
Member States
The European Commission recommends that Member States:
 Develop OA policies;
 Ensure consistency between Member States and H2020 OA policy;
 Promote coordination at EU level;
 Report on progress at MS and EU level;
 Establish multi-stakeholder dialogue. 
(Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020.  European 
Commission, 2013.  Available at: 
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-
pilot-guide_en.pdf)
Policy Alignment in Member States
The rationale for policy alignment in Member States is to:
 Iron out dissonances for researchers working in interdisciplinary areas or on international teams;
 Support the EU harmonisation agenda for ERA (research conditions, researcher mobility, etc.); 
 Change authors’ practices and norms;
 Allow generic infrastructural services to be established in support of policy.
Research Data
The 2012 European Commission recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information
states that: “open access to scientific research data enhances data quality, reduces the need for 
duplication of research, speeds up scientific progress and helps to combat scientific fraud”.
Research data are defined as the data, files, and other records, produced in research or that evidences 
and validates research results, or more specifically as units of information: facts or numbers used as the 
basis for reasoning and calculation European Commission 2012 recommendation on access to and 
preservation of scientific information.
OA Policy Alignment Checklist
An OA Policy Alignment Checklist has been produced by the PASTEUR4OA Project 
(http://pasteur4oa.eu/resources).  It enables institutions and funders to measure their compliance with 
the requirements of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Multi-beneficiary General Model Grant 
Agreement ( http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/mga/gga/h2020-mga-gga-
multi_en.pdf).
David Ball
April 2016