Requirements of funding institutions

SNSF

A data management plan (DMP) is an integral part of the research proposal. Once your proposal is accepted, you have to deliver a DMP to the SNSF. 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

A data management plan must be submitted no later than six months after the start of the project. Templates are available for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. 

Researchers from Switzerland can once again apply for funding from the Horizon Europe framework program. Switzerland’s Horizon Europe association is retroactive to January 1, 2025 (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 (SERI).

The following requirements for open access publishing and research data management apply to these 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.
• 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

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.

Further information:

• SNSF Regulations and Guidelines

Horizon Europe 

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). OA publication costs must be budgeted in the Horizon Europe applications.

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