Open Science

Open science is the main topic of the research and innovation agenda of the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will last until July 2016 and features a number of interesting conferences. A large conference on open science is scheduled for 4-5 April in Amsterdam, with a main focus on open access to data and publications, thereby fostering discussions on the steps to take to support the transition to open access business models. The European Commission (EC) on their side will work on the establishment of an Open Science Policy Platform (OPSP), which should guide the governance and implementation of open science in Europe. The composition of the OPSP steering group will be announced during the conference and several technical working groups reporting to the steering group will be created on issues such as research integrity, altmetrics, and the European Open Science Cloud. The creation of a European Open Science Cloud, i.e., a common European supercomputing and scientific data infrastructure, will be the main element of the communication on the governance and implementation of the European Cloud Initiative (ECI) to be published soon by the EC. An estimated envelope of €6 billion is foreseen to support the ECI for the coming 5 years. The digital European Research Area (ERA) and the way towards the European Open Science Cloud will be the topic of SwissCore’s annual event this year.

Horizon 2020 mid-term evaluation

The mid-term review of Horizon 2020 will concretely start with the conclusion of the evaluation of FP7, which was published on 19 January 2016. The FP7 ex-post evaluation goes beyond the mere counting of publications, citations and patents to look at broader effects by also defining and capturing the longer term scientific, economic and societal impact of the programme. The methodology used will directly feed into the mid-term evaluation of Horizon 2020, for which a stakeholder consultation will be launched in autumn 2016. The evaluation should be completed in October 2017 and will amongst others be crucial in assessing the number of FET Flagships that might be funded from 2018 and how the instrument will be implemented. The 10 FET Proactive sub-projects can be seen as embryos for the future FET Flagships and the Dutch presidency conference on Quantum Technology on 17-18 May will be used as preparation for an eventual future FET Flagship. Finally, another important item under review will be the creation of a European Innovation Council (EIC), which should improve the way innovation is supported at European level. 2016 will be a decisive year in determining how this future EIC can best be modelled. 2016 will also be decisive for the future status of Switzerland in Horizon 2020. We strive to do our best to serve the whole Swiss research and innovation community in these uncertain times.