The Working Group on Open Science deals with the impact of the progressive and rapid changes that the world of research is going through with regard to the sharing of research outputs, research data management, review processes, reward systems, and related issues.
These changes and developments affect the entire research system, and thus the entire ERC’s funding programme, impacting on the way in which ERC grantees, their teams and their research operate in the larger context. Some of them also reflect changes in the relationship between science and society, such as an increased demand for transparency and accountability. Science plays a crucial role in the social, cultural and economic development of the societies that fund it. Thus, science needs to maintain the trust of the general public by acknowledging the underlying concerns while maintaining its standards of rigor and objectivity.
Given the complexity of the subject area, the wide range of actors involved, and the rapid pace of change, a major challenge for the ERC Scientific Council consists in keeping abreast of the developments and react to them in a way that optimally supports its designated function: to fund excellent frontier research. Thus, the Scientific Council needs to develop and implement strategies that allow it to maintain the highest standards in the changing research environment.
Activities of the working group
For that purpose, the Scientific Council has created a Working Group that:
- monitors developments in scientific communities, funding organisations, universities, research performing organisations, and other stakeholder communities, such as publishers, learned societies, or civil society that affect the Scientific Council’s remit;
- investigates the effects of these developments and those of the Scientific Council’s strategies in this area on the scientific communities that the ERC serves;
- and advises the Scientific Council, upon request or on its own initiative, on new strategies that the Scientific Council should adopt and on measures to effectively implement these strategies.
ERC group of experts for a study of repositories
In March 2022, the Open Science Working Group set up a small expert group in order to review the landscape of research data and publication repositories and to establish to what degree repositories fulfil the requirements outlined in the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement used for ERC grants. The group consisted of four experts with a broad range of skills, experience, and expertise in areas relevant for the study: Emma Lazzeri (Chair), Najko Jahn, Mikael Laakso and Peter McQuilton. The results from the study have been published on Zenodo. See also the corresponding news item.
Members
ERC Executive Agency secretariat: Dagmar Meyer and Anna Pelagotti, Unit ‘Support to the Scientific Council’
Contact the ERC Open Access Team at erc-open-access@ec.europa.eu