Horizon 2020 – funding opportunity and a sensible approach to Open Data | Open Science

"The launch of Horizon 2020 is probably the most important event in the academic world of the last few months (from an organizational point of view, of course – I’m not comparing it to the supernova blast in M82 or the discovery of the next species of river dolphin). Not only because of the huge amount of money that is going to be spent (€15 billion in the first two years only!), but also because of the strict Open Access policy enforcement. Application calls are open right now and probably some of you have already considered them. The program includes calls both for individual researchers, at any stage of career, and for organizations. What is more, anyone can join, regardless of nationality. The most interesting part of the program for me is the Pilot on Open Research Data. The goal of this pilot is to examine the possibilities of enforcing the Open Data policy. It introduces Data Management Plans (DMP) (for some participants it will be obligatory, for others optional). Participants are also obligated to deposit their data in repositories. They are allowed to keep some of it closed to third parties, but these cases have to be explained it in their DMP, citing for example privacy (which might occur, for instance, in qualitative social sciences) or copyright issues. Otherwise data has to be free for everyone. This is a wise approach and I think it will help the European Union to elaborate a universal policy for opening scientific data in full.  Which, in turn, may pose a major challenge, with regards to a potential collision between Open Data and privacy issues ..."