Netherlands

National Platform Open Science

In February 2017 the National Plan Open Science in the Netherlands was published. This Plan shows the ambition of the involved institutes towards Open Science. The implementation of this plan will be followed up by the National Platform Open Science. Together with the publishing of the plan a new website was launched: National Platform Open Science.

The parties involved are Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, national funders NWO and ZonMw, the Academy KNAW, DANS, Association of Universities VSNU etc.

The focus of the Platform is to accelerate the key areas:

  • Full open access publishing: The Netherlands’ ambition is to achieve 100% open access in 2020. The leading principle in this regard is that publicly-funded research results should also be accessible to the public at no extra cost.
  • Optimal reuse of research data: The aim of open science is that researchers reuse other parties’ research data and services where possible and make their own data available as far as possible.
  • Corresponding evaluation systems for recognition and rewards: in May 2018 the publication “Memo – Researcher Recognition and Rewarding” was published.
  • Encouraging and supporting open science.

In May 2019 NPOS changed to a programme, with 10 projects in the field of the above-mentioned topics.

EOSC-related activities

In the Netherlands there are a number of institutes involved in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) project aims to make it easier for researchers to share and combine data, also across disciplinary boundaries.

  • The Library of TU/Delft and DANS are the National Open Access Desks of OpenAIRE. OpenAIRE support the Open Science of the European Commission. DANS is also leader of the RDM (Research Data Management) Task Force of OpenAIRE.
  • DANS is projectleader of FAIRsFAIR. The ambition of FAIRsFAIR is to assist the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) governance bodies to deliver FAIR-aligned Rules of Participation in the EOSC. These rules will be designed to establish FAIR compliance of components and practices. Moreover, FAIRsFAIR will open up and share all knowledge, expertise, guidelines, implementations, new trajectories, courses and education needed to turn FAIR Principles into reality.
  • The EOSC-hub project has a consortium of 100+ partners from more than 50 countries. The consortium will develop the vision of the Hub as the integration and management system of the future European Open Science Cloud. Involved institutes in the Netherlands are SURF, DANS, University Utrecht, Astron, KNMI, and Meertens Institute. Project leaderof EOSC-hub is EGI Foundation in Amsterdam.
  • FREYA is a 3-year project in which twelve partners are involved. The project aims to build the infrastructure for persistent identifiers (PIDs) as a core component of open science, in the EU and globally. FREYA will improve discovery, navigation, retrieval, and access of research resources. A partner of FREYA is the institute DANS.
  • The aim of SSHOC – Social Sciences & Humanities Open Cloud is to ensure that initiatives from the current European research infrastructures in the field of Social and Human Sciences (SSH) are better aligned with each other and with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). In the Netherlands involved partner are CentERdata and DANS.
  • EOSC-synergy extends the EOSC coordination to nine participating countries by harmonizing policies and federating relevant national research e-Infrastructures, scientific data and thematic services, bridging the gap between national initiatives and EOSC. In the Netherlands partners are DANS and EGI Foundation.
  • DANS  is member of the EOSC Working Group Skills and Training. In the Netherlands there are more members of the different EOSC Working Groups.