Monitoring the open access policy of Horizon 2020

The key findings of this study indicate that the European Commission’s leadership in the Open Science policy has paid off. Uptake has steadily increased over the past four years, achieving an average success rate of 83% in Horizon 2020 for open access to scientific  publications, which places the European Commission at the forefront globally. What is also  apparent from the study is that monitoring – particularly with regard to the specific terms and requirements of the policy – cannot be achieved by the reporting alone, or without the  European Commission collaborating closely with other funding agencies across Europe and beyond, to agree on and promote common standards and common elements of the underlying infrastructure. In particular, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) should encompass all such components that are needed to foster a linked ecosystem in which information is exchanged on demand and eases the process for both researchers (who only need to deposit once) and funders (who only need to record information once).