The Czech Science Foundation (GACR) is actively involved in the promotion of Open Science with the aim of increasing transparency and accessibility of the results of scientific research projects it funds. The costs associated with the principles of Open Science can be covered from the budget of the grant.
Open Data
Research data is necessary to enable verification and further use of research results. In order to comply with its legal obligations in the area of open data, GACR has included research data management in its grant funding policy. The objectives of this policy are:
- all scientific publications produced within GACR-funded projects have traceable open data (with legal exceptions such as the protection of intellectual property, trade secrets, national security or legitimate commercial interests of the recipient or a third party)
- GACR project investigators submit a Data Management Plan (DMP) latest along with the submission of the first Interim Project Report, and they update the DMP regularly
- open data follows the FAIR principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR)
- costs related to open data are eligible project costs, GACR recommends the creation of a data steward position within the project
Data Management Plan
The Data Management Plan is submitted to GACR latest along with the first Interim Project Report (for projects starting in 2024 and later) and must be updated, if necessary, in the next Interim or Final Project Reports.
As a minimum, the data management plan should include information on:
- what research data will be generated, processed or collected by the beneficiary in the framework of the project
- what methods and principles of management the beneficiary will use
- whether and how the data will be shared, published or made public, or an explanation of why the research data cannot be disseminated or made public (the beneficiary will not disclose information on research data whose disclosure would unduly interfere with the intellectual property rights, trade secrets, national security or legitimate commercial interests of the beneficiary or of a third party)
- how the data will be stored during the project and preserved after the end of the project
GACR recommends the use of the following tools, as well as other appropriate tools such as:
- Data Management Plan template based on the Horizon Europe template (translation available in the National Technical Library repository)
- Data Stewardship Wizard
Alternatively, other appropriate tools can be used to prepare a data management plan.
Open Access
Scientific publications published in the form of open access can be read, downloaded and used by the research community and the general public without restrictions. Although there is usually a financial cost associated with this form of publishing scientific results, GACR encourages its use because it makes new knowledge more usable and thereby increases the efficiency of the project funding. GACR supports Open Access in all its formats, i.e. Green Open Access, Gold Open Access and Diamond Open Access. Grant funding can be used to cover the costs of open access publishing.
Over the last 10 years, the number of GACR-funded projects published in open access has doubled.
GACR respects the free choice of the investigators to choose in which form and in which publication media they will publish their results. Publishing in open access form is encouraged, not mandatory, for investigators of GACR-funded projects. It is the responsibility of each researcher to consider in which scientific journal it is appropriate to publish the results of their research, also taking into account the expected impact of the publication in the scientific community, the quality of the peer review process and the practice of the scientific field, etc.
Free Open Access Publishing with CzechELib
GACR is a member institution of the National Centre CzechELib of the National Technical Library, which among its other activities supports open access publishing. Through CzechELib, authors from virtually all the key institutions that are part of this consortium have the opportunity to publish for free in open access in selected journals. CzechELib brings together a total of 130 institutions. To be able to publish for free, the publisher of the selected journal must have what is known as a Transformative Agreement with the NTK and the corresponding author’s institution must be part of this agreement with the publisher – in total, the agreements cover almost 9,000 journals from 14 publishers.
See the list of all journals and detailed conditions for getting a free publishing token.