Horizon Europe (2021-2027) is the European Union’s largest Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. It provides €95.5 billion of funding in a bid to boost the competitiveness and growth of the European Union on a global scale, as well as achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set out by the United Nations (UN). It follows Horizon 2020, which was the previous Framework Programme.
Horizon Europe strengthens the open access requirements for grantees. They must ensure immediate open access to all peer reviewed scientific publications under a CC-BY license or equivalent, at the time of publication. Data supporting articles need to be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) and open by default, but it can be closed according to the principle of ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’ when specific exceptions apply. These exceptions are clearly detailed in the Horizon Europe Grant Agreement and should be laid out in the Data Management Plan. However, it is important to recognize that balance is necessary between protecting and disseminating knowledge.
One of the most significant benefits for researchers, when they choose to publish with Open Research Europe is that its publishing features fully align with those requirements of Horizon Europe. Although the Platform is open to publishing research that stems from both Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funding, submissions need to respect the open science requirements of the current Framework Programme – which is Horizon Europe. This takes the burden of compliance away from beneficiaries, either Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020, by ensuring these requirements are met during the publishing and peer review process.
Understandably, IP lies at the center of open science, and good IP management enables open science practices. A key novelty in Horizon Europe regarding intellectual property (IP) is that it asks for grantees or authors to maintain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with the open access requirements for publications.
The European Intellectual Property (IP) Helpdesk hosts a wealth of resources to help grantees manage their IP to comply with the open access requirements of the Horizon 2020/Europe Framework Programmes. One recent webinar titled “IP in Horizon projects (Horizon2020/Europe)” aimed to simplify the process and make the most important factors clearer to researchers. The section below summarizes the main takeaways.
The IP rules for recipients of Horizon Europe funding are found in the following documents:
The IP Helpdesk stresses the importance for grantees to be aware of what their IP on each part of the project is, to allow for safe sharing of their knowledge and ideas; prove ownership of the knowledge; profit from the commercial use of the project’s results; and prevent or discourage the unauthorized use of the project outcomes. It is important to note that IP covers both tangible and intangible assets. Examples of a tangible asset include an actual product developed from the research and data, whilst an intangible asset could be an idea, or a theory developed from the research.
The parameters of the IP need to be established by the project partners in the DESCA Consortium Agreement (DESCA is an EU-funded project but is not affiliated with the European Commission), a document prepared by the project partners after the Grant Agreement has been established. Different stages of the grant bring about different IP requirements:
- Background: the data/information held by the project partners before starting the grant. This IP belongs to the partners and receiving Horizon funding does not affect this.
- Results: data generated during the project. This IP also belongs to the project partners.
- Exploitation: this refers to utilizing results from the project’s research activities for further development, creation, and commercialization of a product or service. Access rights should be granted to the EU on a royalty-free basis if researchers use the work only for non-commercial and non-competitive purposes. The EU should be able to access any IP created from the project free-of-charge if the use of the research does not generate income.
- Dissemination: this means spreading the knowledge produced during the project to the wider community. Doing this is a project requirement, but it is important to protect the use of results for commercial or industrial purposes before public disclosure (e.g., via publishing). Recommended channels for sharing results from the project include scientific/non-scientific publications available through open access, conferences, and social media.
When a researcher publishes their article on Open Research Europe their findings and data will always be open access, so researchers retain the intellectual property and copyright to their own work. The Platform ensures authors keep the rights to their work, but it also guarantees all Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe grant requirements are fully met and minimizes the author’s administrative burden as the European Commission covers all article processing charges.
