Abstract

The importance of ensuring free access to results of publicly funded research is a major concern for research funding bodies. While researchers play a central role in making Open Science a reality, progress towards Open Science also depends on the state of national legislations, institutional practices at the levels of funding agencies and research organisations. European researchers currently face different requirements and conditions depending on where they work and what is the source of their funding.
In countries where participation in Horizon remains low, experience with OA requirements introduced in H2020 contracts remains limited. Hence the development of OA policies by national research funding bodies is a necessary step towards Open Science in Europe. As we plan to showcase the experience of developing and implementing OA-policies in cooperation with 8 funding agencies in Widening countries, the session will be relevant for participants interested in Open Access and those interested in research systems in Widening countries.

EEA and Norway Grants support bilateral research programmes in Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Portugal, and a joint Baltic Research Programme for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The programmes are administrated by national research funding bodies and support research cooperation with Norway and Iceland. The funds are coordinated by the Financial Mechanism Office, an international organisation which oversees the rules and regulations, and controls the reporting and financial flows.

Speakers representing the different perspectives in this cooperation will take part in the session and we foresee time for questions and contributions from the audience.
Asdis Jonsdottir <Asdis.JONSDOTTIR@efta.int> sector officer for research at the Financial Mechanism Office, formerly policy officer at the PMs Office of Iceland, will introduce the state-of-play. In 2019 EEA and Norway Grants endorsed the Plan S-initiative and introduced provisions for these programmes to pay attention to Open Access. Currently FMO is in the process of registering EEA and Norway Grants as a research funder on the OpenAire.eu platform and should by April 2022 be ready to add this experience in the presentation.
The two next panelists will focus on best practice and lessons learned by the funding agencies which have been exploring ways of implementing the OA principles in practice. The National Science Centre in Poland, represented by Marzena Oliwkiewicz-Miklasińska <Marzena.Oliwkiewicz-Miklasinska@ncn.gov.pl> is using the GRIEG-call under EEA and Norway Grants to pilot Plan S requirements for OA. Zuzana Dostálová <zuzana.dostalova@tacr.cz> will relate the experience of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic which is implementing Horizon2020 OA conditions for the first time in the KAPPA programme. Both agencies will join the session with speakers with direct experience from this process.
Aleksandra W. Haugstad from the Research Council of Norway will moderate the panel discussion. RCN is involved in the EEA and Norway Grants programmes in an advisory capacity, and Aleksandra has worked with these programmes for 10 years. She will use the combination of insider and outsider perspectives from the close cooperation between Widening and Nordic countries in this funding scheme to bring the different aspects of the experience of her Czech and Polish colleagues to a wider audience. She will also engage both the general audience and members of the audience representing other Widening countries, as the EEA and Norway Grants programmes are also active in the Baltic States, Romania and Portugal.
The session will provide insight into process of translating OA policies into practice in different institutional and national contexts. Among the questions to be discussed:
- How can funders work to promote OA?
- What challenges and issues do funders in Widening countries face?
- How are researchers in Widening countries responding to the introduction of OA-policies?
- How can established platforms for collecting and monitoring information about project results and their OA-status, such as OPENAIRE.eu, support the promotion of OA-policies?