Requirements of funding institutions

Research funders and institutions demand free access to publications and research data. We provide you and your team with individual support and workshops tailored to your needs upon request. Please contact us at openscience@unibe.ch.

Datamanagement

SNF

A data management plan (DMP) is an integral part of the research proposal. The proposal can only be submitted once the DMP has been completed. The DMP must be written in the same language as the research proposal. See the guidelines for researchers.

The costs of making research data accessible can be covered up to a maximum of CHF 10,000 (AR 2.13) if the requirements are met. This must be taken into account when submitting the application.

Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020, and ERC grants

A data management plan must be submitted no later than six months after the start of the project. A form can be downloaded here.

All projects are part of the “Open Data Pilot,” which means that you must make research data underlying publications openly accessible. Exceptions for ethical, legal, contractual, copyright, or similar reasons are possible (“opt-out”) and must be justified to the EU.

The requirements of the European Research Council (ERC) differ only in details from the general Horizon 2020 requirements. This page provides a good overview and links to further resources and the ERC DMP form.

Costs for making research data collected, observed, or generated with contributions from Horizon 2020 accessible can be reimbursed during the project period.

Researchers from Switzerland can once again apply for funding from the Horizon Europe framework program under a transitional agreement. Formal reassociation is expected by the end of 2025, with retroactive validity covering the entire 2025 program year (more information). Between 2021 and 2024, replacement funding measures for Swiss researchers were provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SBFI).

The following requirements for open access publishing and research data management apply to these replacement measures:

The SNF's open science requirements (see above and here) apply to the SNF-funded replacement measures.

The European Union's guidelines (see here) apply to replacement measures funded by SERI. These essentially state that:

  • Data must be managed in accordance with the FAIR data principles. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.
  • A data management plan (DMP) must be drawn up, submitted as a rule six months after the start of the project, and updated at least at the end of the project period. The use of the official template is recommended.
  • Research data must be shared openly in repositories unless this is prevented by legal, copyright, ethical, contractual, or similar obstacles. Unlike Horizon 2020, the EU requires a CC0 or CC-BY license (or equivalent).

If you are unsure what the respective requirements mean for you, please contact us at openscience@unibe.ch

 

Publish

SNSF

The SNSF supports the principle of Open Access and expects its grant recipients to make their research results publicly available for re-use in electronic form.

  • SNSF projects approved as of 1.1.2023: Article immediately in open access without embargo, license: CC-BY.
  • SNSF projects approved before 1.1.2023: Articles no later than six months after first publication
  • Published books an book chapters have to be open access after 12 months. 

The Open Access obligation also applies to all other publications if at least 50% of the underlying research is SNSF-funded.

Detailed information on the SNSF regulations can be found here.

Further information:

 

Horizon Europe and ERC Grants

Peer-reviewed publications which result from funded Horizon Europe projects must be available in open access.

  • immediately upon publication, a machine-readable, digital copy of the publisher-version or the final, peer-reviewed and accepted manuscript must be deposited and made available in a trustworthy repository for scholarly publications (for example: BORIS).
  • The publication has to be made available under the latest version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public License (CC BY) or an equal license. Monographs  and other long-form texts can use more restrivtive licenses such as CC BY-NC or CC BY-ND.
  • Open access publishing costs are only paid for peer-reviewed publications which are published in pure open access publications (no hybrid OA)

This link will take you to the Model Grant Agreement which has further details about metadata, identifiers, etc.