Council of theEuropean Union
Brussels, 27 May 2016
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OUTCOME OF PROCEEDINGS
From:
To:

General Secretariat of the Council
Delegations

No. prev. doc.:

8791/16 RECH 133 TELECOM 74

Subject:

The transition towards an Open Science system- Council conclusions (adopted on 27/05/2016)

Delegations will find in the annex the Council conclusions on the transition towards an OpenScience system, adopted by the Council at its 3470th meeting held on 27 May 2016.

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ANNEXCOUNCIL CONCLUSIONS ON THE TRANSITION TOWARDS AN OPEN SCIENCESYSTEMTHE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNIONRECALLING-the Commission Recommendation of 17 July 2012 on "Access to and preservation ofscientific information" 1 and the Communication of 17 July 2012 on "Towards better access toscientific information: boosting the benefits of public investments in research" 2;-the general principles under Horizon 2020 3, through which open access to scientificpublications is ensured and open access to research data is promoted in publicly funded
research at EU level;-the Commission's Report of February 2015 on " Validation of the results of the publicconsultation on Science 2.0: Science in Transition" 4;-the Commission Communication of 6 May 2015 on "A Digital Single Market Strategy for
Europe" 5, which acknowledges the importance of science and research to boost innovation,
notably by its goal to improve the framework conditions for data-driven science;

1
2
3

4
5

Doc. 12846/12.
Doc. 12847/12.
Regulation (EU) No 1291/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11December 2013 establishing Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for Research andInnovation (2014-2020).
Report available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/science2.0/science_2_0_final_report.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none
Doc. 8672/15.

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its Conclusions of 29 May 2015 on a “European Research Area Roadmap 2015-2020” 6,
adopting the ERA Roadmap and stressing the importance to start the implementation of thetop action priorities identified in the Roadmap by mid-2016, including for priority 5 “Optimalcirculation of knowledge”;-its Conclusions of 29 May 2015 on "Open, data-intensive and networked research as a driverfor faster and wider innovation" 7, which express political support for setting the rightframework conditions for research and innovation focused on big data and for strengthening
the whole data value chain in Europe.

Open science
1.

RECOGNISES that the exponential growth of data, the availability of increasingly powerful
digital technologies, the globalisation of the scientific community, as well as the increasing
demand from society to address the societal challenges of our times, are the bases of an ongoing transformation and opening up of science and research, referred to as ”open science”
affecting the modus operandi of doing research and organising science.

2.

ACKNOWLEDGES that open science has the potential to increase the quality, impact andbenefits of science and to accelerate advancement of knowledge by making it more reliable,
more efficient and accurate, better understandable by society and responsive to societal
challenges, and has the potential to enable growth and innovation through reuse of scientificresults by all stakeholders at all levels of society, and ultimately contribute to growth andcompetitiveness of Europe.

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Doc. 8975/15.
Doc. 9360/15.

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3.

STRESSES that open science entails amongst others open access to scientific publicationsand optimal reuse of research data, citizens science, and research integrity; TAKES NOTE
that open access to scientific publications and optimal reuse of research data are of utmost
importance for the development of open science; TAKES NOTE of the ERAC Opinion on"Open Research Data" 8, and of the Amsterdam Call for Action that was issued at the occasionof the Netherlands’ Presidency Conference on Open Science 9 and various initiatives pursued
by Member States, the Commission and stakeholders 10; INVITES the ERAC Standing
Working Group on Open Science and Innovation to assess the proposed actions on theAmsterdam Call for Action on feasibility, effectiveness and prioritisation, and to report on
this; STRESSES the need for concerted action by all partners involved: the Commission, theMember States, civil society and the stakeholders 11.

Open Science Policy Platform and European Open Science Agenda
4.

NOTES the establishment of the Open Science Policy Platform 12 by the Commission, whichaims at supporting the further development of the European Open Science policy andpromoting the uptake by stakeholders of best practices, including issues such as adapting
reward and evaluation systems, alternative models for open access publishing andmanagement of research data (including archiving), altmetrics, guiding principles for optimal
reuse of research data, development and use of standards, and other aspects of open sciencesuch as fostering research integrity and developing citizen science; CALLS on theCommission to inform the Member States and stakeholders on a regular basis on the ongoingdevelopments and outputs of the Open Science Policy Platform at least twice a year.

89101112Doc. ERAC 1202/16.
The Netherlands’ Presidency Conference on Open Science – From Vision to Action,Amsterdam, 4-5 April 2016.
E.g. the development of open science agendas and policies at national level.
Stakeholders include researchers (universities, research and technology organisations,enterprises), funding organisations, publishers and service organisations.
http://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=open-science-policy-platform

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CALLS on the Commission, in cooperation with the Open Science Policy Platform and inclose cooperation with the Member States and stakeholders, and taking into account existing
initiatives to further develop the European Open Science Agenda, in order to further increase
the impact of science to society at large, to stimulate an effective mobilization of all thepotential knowledge from open science actions, and to address the requirements for trainingof ICT and data skills, in particular professional data management skills, which help tocontribute to the access of citizens to the results of research.

Removing barriers and fostering incentives
6.

AGREES that the results of publicly funded research should be made available in an as open
as possible manner and ACKNOWLEDGES that unnecessary legal, organisational andfinancial barriers to access results of publicly funded research should be removed as much aspossible and appropriate in order to attain optimal knowledge sharing, taking into accountwhen necessary the need for exploitation of results; ENCOURAGES the Commission andMember States to further engage with third countries in order to accelerate the transition
process to open science and to ensure mutual benefits regarding open access to scientificpublications and optimal reuse of research data in a global context.

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7.

CONSIDERS that assessing scientific quality should be based on the work itself and bebroadened to include an assessment of the impact of science on society at large, while thecurrent focus is on indicators based on impact of journals and publication citation counts.
ENCOURAGES the Commission, Member States and the stakeholders to further develop andimplement, in a coordinated way, initiatives for better quality assurance in their review andevaluation systems. STRESSES that incentive mechanisms need to be put in place to reward
researchers (and research stakeholders) for sharing the results of their research for reuse;
CALLS on the Commission, the Open Science Policy Platform, the Member States and thestakeholders to explore possible mechanisms, including training activities and awarenessraising, to change the ways of doing science. ENCOURAGES the Commission, through theOpen Science Policy Platform, to collaborate in particular on incentives for an internationallyaccepted system for data citation, making use of initiatives and expertise that already exist.

8.

WELCOMES the Commission Communication of 9 December 2015 on "Towards a modern,more European copyright framework" 13 and LOOKS FORWARD to the legislative proposals
from the Commission announced therein; STRESSES the importance to enhance the EU’s
competitiveness, and technological and scientific leadership, which could include allowing
public interest research organisations to carry out text and data mining of content, to which
they already have lawful access, for scientific research purposes; STRESSES the need tocontinue the support by the Commission and Member States to allow all bodies andorganisations, including citizens, scientists and businesses and SMEs, to mine results ofpublicly funded research they already have legal access to.

9.

BELIEVES that optimal access and reuse of the results of scientific work can be enhanced if
researchers or their employers retain the copyright on their scientific works; INVITES theCommission and the Member States to explore legal possibilities for measures in this respect
and promote the use of licensing models, such as Creative Commons, for scientificpublications and research data sets.

13Doc. 15264/15.

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Open access to scientific publications
10.

WELCOMES open access to scientific publications 14 as the option by default for publishing
the results of publicly funded research; RECOGNISES that the full scale transition towards
open access should be based on common principles such as transparency, research integrity,
sustainability, fair pricing and economic viability; and CALLS on Member States, theCommission and stakeholders to remove financial and legal barriers, and to take the necessary
steps for successful implementation in all scientific domains, including specific measures fordisciplines where obstacles hinder its progress.

11.

INVITES the Commission to develop and encourage measures for optimal compliance withthe provisions for open access to scientific publications under Horizon 2020, together with thestakeholders and the Member States; ENCOURAGES Member States to work withstakeholders to do the same at the national level on publicly funded research.

14For the purposes of these Conclusions, ‘open access to scientific publications’ is understoodas having its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download,copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them forindexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without
financial, legal, or technical barriers. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution,and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over theintegrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited (main source:
Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002, available at:
http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read).

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12.

AGREES to further promote the mainstreaming of open access to scientific publications bycontinuing to support a transition to immediate open access as the default by 2020, using thevarious models possible and in a cost-effective way, without embargoes or with as short as
possible embargoes, and without financial and legal barriers, taking into account the diversity
in research systems and disciplines, and that open access to scientific publications should beachieved in full observance of the principle that no researcher should be prevented frompublishing; INVITES the Commission, Member States and relevant stakeholders, including
research funding organisations, to catalyse this transition; and STRESSES the importance ofclarity in scientific publishing agreements.

13.

CALLS on all partners to engage in synchronized efforts to reach this goal – withintermediate milestones 15 for 2018; CALLS on the Commission and the Member States for
close monitoring on a regular basis during this period through the National Points ofReference 16, and to align it as much as possible with the monitoring of the ERA progress;
ASKS the Commission to assist Member States and stakeholders to build up expertise and to
facilitate information sharing, e.g. through EU funded projects to that effect.

Optimal reuse of research data
14.

UNDERLINES that research data originating from publicly funded research projects could beconsidered as a public good, and ENCOURAGES the Member States, the Commission andstakeholders to set optimal reuse of research data as the point of departure, whilst recognising
the needs for different access regimes because of Intellectual Property Rights, personal dataprotection and confidentiality, security concerns, as well as global economic competitivenessand other legitimate interests. Therefore, the underlying principle for the optimal reuse ofresearch data should be: “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.

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The milestone covers Gold, Hybrid and Green Open Access.
As foreseen by the Commission Recommendation of 17 July 2012 on "Access to andpreservation of scientific information" (doc. 12846/12).

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WELCOMES the intention of the Commission to make research data produced by theHorizon 2020 programme open by default 17, whilst recognising the right of opting out ongrounds based on Intellectual Property Rights, personal data protection and confidentiality,
security concerns, and other legitimate interests; CALLS on the Commission to promote data
stewardship – including training activities and awareness-raising – and to implement DataManagement Plans as an integral part of the research process and to continue to make thecosts incurred for both data management and preparation of research data eligible for fundingin Horizon 2020; ENCOURAGES Member States and stakeholders to set up strategies
accordingly and to implement the use of Data Management Plans as a standard scientificpractice in their national research programmes.

16.

EMPHASISES that the opportunities for the optimal reuse of research data can only berealised if data are consistent with the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable andre-usable) within a secure and trustworthy environment; RECALLS the importance ofstorage, long term preservation and curation of research data, taking into consideration thecapacity of the research group or organisation, as well as ensuring the existence of metadata
based on international standards; ENCOURAGES Member States, the Commission andstakeholders to follow the FAIR principles in research programmes and funding mechanisms.

17Commission Communication of 19 April 2016 on a "European Cloud Initiative - Building acompetitive data and knowledge economy in Europe".

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17.

TAKES NOTE OF the Commission Communication of 19 April 2016 on a "European Cloud
Initiative - Building a competitive data and knowledge economy in Europe" 18 andACKNOWLEDGES that Europe may benefit from a European Open Science Cloud 19 thatenables, amongst others, safe and long-term storage, efficient analysis, and user-friendly(re)use of research data across borders and disciplines; CALLS on the Commission, incooperation with Member States and stakeholders, to explore appropriate governance andfunding frameworks, taking sufficient consideration of existing initiatives and theirsustainability and of a European-wide level playing field.

Follow-up
18.

CALLS on the Commission, the Member States and the stakeholders to take the necessary
actions needed for making open science a reality and to advocate the need for concerted
actions in relevant national, EU, multilateral and international fora; CALLS on theCommission to keep the Member States informed of and involved in the work of the OpenScience Policy Platform and to coordinate its activities with the Member States, and AGREES
to take stock on the progress together with the Commission and the Platform on a regularbasis, starting no later than one year from now.

1819Doc. 8099/16.
The European Open Science Cloud will federate existing scientific data infrastructures, today
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