Open Science Policy

Vorbemerkung

Open Science Policy (gültig ab 1.1.2026)

Version from 1 January 2026.

Valid for all calls and projects issued and submitted from 1 January 2026.

1. Aims and Scope

WWTF supports the principles of openness throughout the entire research process and promotes the ideas of Open Science. WWTF recommends that all grantees allow their research to be guided by the following principle: “as open as possible, as closed as necessary."1

For this purpose, WWTF has developed the following Open Science Policy, which defines requirements and guidance for all WWTF grantees as of 1 January 2026.

2. Rights, Roles and Responsibilities

WWTF is responsible for:

  1. Fostering the transition to Open Science (OS), as outlined in this policy, by applying measures of openness and adoption of the FAIR principles2 within internal processes and increasing the transparency of its actions.
  2. Ensuring funds to cover the costs of open access publication and related to data management and the stewardship of OS practices.
  3. Providing guidance material for the creation of a short and concise Data Management Plan (DMP)
    within applicable calls.
  4. Where applicable, introducing proper “openness” - related criteria during the evaluation and selection of proposals for funding.
  5. Practising responsible and fair research assessment by structuring the review process appropriately.
    This includes placing emphasis on the intrinsic merit of the work, rather than journal titles or publishers, journal impact factors or individual H Index when assessing research outputs during evaluation procedures (WWTF is a signatory of The Declaration on Research Assessment - DORA3).
  6. Monitoring policy compliance and encouraging grantees to provide public accounts of their OS activities and research impact.
  7. Actively supporting the uptake of OS practices (in addition to open access publications and research data). This includes involving relevant stakeholders to foster collaborations that extend beyond the academic discourse.

Grantees are responsible for:

  1. Adopting principles of openness and application of the FAIR principles in their research practices wherever possible and embracing openness as an inherent process in the design and implementation of research projects.
  2. Managing and sharing research outputs in adherence to the principles and requirements outlined in this policy. Depositing publications and research data in repositories that meet trusted quality standards4 and/or are linked with initiatives such as the EOSC EU Node (formerly European Open Science Cloud)5. Publications supported in whole or in part by WWTF should include a statement describing how other re- searchers can access any research data, original software or materials underpinning the research.
  3. Using persistent identifiers such as DOIs, ORCID or WWTF Grant ID for grant applications, management and reporting processes. This is important in enabling the persistent availability and tracking of research activities and in increasing transparency for researchers and WWTF as a funder.

3. WWTF Open Science Focus

All OS research practices aim to increase transparency and collaboration between institutions and disciplines. WWTF has identified two main areas where this can play an important part: i) providing access to publications and ii) providing access to shareable research data. Funded publications (and research data) must be made available under an open -usage license, such as Creative Commons (CC BY, CC0) or similar according to cOAlition S standards6.

3.1 Open Access to Publications

The following rules apply to all peer-reviewed publications that result from research supported entirely or in part by WWTF.

  1. In the case of “Gold Open Access”, WWTF requires that a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication be deposited in a suit- able open access repository. The published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript should be made available immediately and the metadata made fully open, searchable and machine-readable from the time of deposit.

  2. In the case of “Green Open Access”, WWTF requires that the full text of all such publications be made publicly available upon acceptance for publication (after peer-review but prior to the publisher’s copy-editing and production)7.

  3. In the case of “Hybrid Open Access”, the costs of open access for a single contribution in a subscription venue (Hybrid Open Access) can be covered. Please note that this option is only possible if there is a transformative open access agreement between the publisher and research institution (see list
    of agreements8) or if the journal is a transformative open access journal according to the cOAlition S
    criteria9.

  4. WWTF will recognise open access publication fees such as article processing charges (APCs) or book processing charges (BPCs) as eligible costs. For quality assurance purposes, journal titles must be listed in standard directories such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)10 for the costs to be eligible.

  5. WWTF requires that funded publications be made available under an open content license, such as
    Creative Commons (CC BY, CC0) or similar according to cOAlition S standards11.

  6. While the dominant type of scientific publication is the journal article, grantees are strongly encouraged to provide open access to other types of publications such as monographs, book chapters, conference proceedings, grey literature, reports etc.

  7. Where relevant, WWTF strongly encourages its grantees to post preprints of their work under an open license on a preprint platform and/or in a repository. When an article is published, grantees should request the repository to add a journal DOI to the preprint record.

3.2 Open Access to Research Data

Research data are the data used to validate the results presented in scientific publications, or other research data used during a project and described in the DMP. They include, but are not limited to, study protocols, software codes, results of experiments, measurements, observations, interview recordings, images and metadata. WWTF does not require that all research data be made available. However, WWTF strongly encourages grantees to provide shareable research data according to each calls’ specifications and requirements.

  1. WWTF regards DMPs as a tool to support open practices. The core elements of a DMP include descriptions of research data characteristics, documentation and metadata, availability and storage and legal / ethical issues. Through the development of a succinct DMP, grantees will be encouraged when designing and performing their project to reflect on how they will handle their research data. WWTF also requires grantees to update the DMP in the event of significant changes during the project through a statement in the annual report.
  2. WWTF require that grantees deposit shareable research data, metadata or any other data (not directly attributable to a publication or raw data) arising entirely or partly from WWTF-funded grants in a research data repository. Where possible, data should be provided with persistent identifiers, contextual information and should be linked to publications.
  3. WWTF places strong emphasis on the re-usability and therefore on the availability and quality of re- search data. WWTF also encourage grantees to handle research data according to the FAIR principles12 (FAIR = Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable). Research data should be traceable and, when possible, available for subsequent use. If research data cannot be open due to legal, privacy or other concerns (e.g. personal or sensitive research data) this must be clearly explained (e.g.
    a clear differentiation between data protection and copyright issues needs to be argued). Access can still be possible by restricted or closed modalities.
  4. WWTF encourages grantees to make their research data available through the assignment of appropriate open licenses and post-project usage rights.
  5. Costs associated with the management of research data are considered eligible costs. They should be specified in the grant application and in the DMP.

4. Costs

Estimated costs for OS practices should be stated in the funding application. Consideration must be given to the relation of OS costs to other costs, especially for personnel.

During the project: The costs of publications in scientific journals with appropriate quality assurance (peer- reviewed), book publications and activities for curating research data (costs associated with the management of research data) can be covered by the budget of WWTF-funded projects.

After the project: Costs for OS activities, e.g. for providing research data, curating research data or for publications from the project, that incur after the end of the project can be covered, given that the full funding amount has not yet been used during the project period. Please check the current version of the recognition of costs document provided in the WWTF Wiki. A concise OS exploitation plan should be included in the final project report. 

5. Compliance

WWTF will consider the grantee’s compliance with this policy when assessing research performance and when future applications for funding are received. Reporting on compliance will be required both during (annual report) and at the end (final report) of the funding period for projects that receive funding from WWTF. In the event of non-compliance, WWTF retains the right to reduce the amount of the grant at the payment of balance or thereafter.

6. Open Science Policy Evaluation

An evaluation of the implementation of this Open Science Policy will take place five years following its adoption by WWTF. Thereafter, the policy will be reviewed and checked for updates every five years.

7. Annex: Glossary

Article Processing Charges (APCs) fees that some scholarly publishers charge authors of academic papers to publish their work in open access.
Book Processing Charges (BPCs) fees charged by a publisher to make a book open access.
Data Management Plan (DMP) a document that describes the data management life cycle of research data to be collected, processed and/or generated.
Embargo the period during which a publication can be ‘closed’ while deposited in the repository (the publication is not openly available).
FAIR Data Principles for scientific management and data stewardship the set of principles to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, emphasizing machine-actionability.
Gold Open Access the process of achieving open access through publication in an open access journal (open access publishing).
Grant ID a persistent identifier allocated to every individual WWTF project.
Green Open Access the process of providing open access through an open access repository
(also known as “self-archiving”).
Metadata the descriptors to describe, trace, use and manage the deposited item. They include the title of publication, author(s), institutional affiliation, name of journal where the publication has been accepted.

Footnotes:

1 https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/strategy-2020-2024/our-digital-future/open-science_en

2 https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

3 https://sfdora.org/

4 https://www.re3data.org/

5 https://open-science-cloud.ec.europa.eu/

6 https://www.coalition-s.org/faq/which-licences-are-compliant-with-plan-s-2/

7 If there is an embargo period during which archiving is not permitted, the period should not be longer than 12 months. If the embargo period is longer, select an alternative publishing outlet. For publisher’s self-archiving policies, please consult the Jisc Open Policy Finder (https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/) database prior to choosing the outlet.

8 https://www.kemoe.at/english/open-access

9 https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-the-implementation-of-plan-s/

10 Directory of Open Access Journals: https://doaj.org/

11 https://www.coalition-s.org/faq/which-licences-are-compliant-with-plan-s-2/

12 “How to make your data fair”: https://www.openaire.eu/how-to-make-your-data-fair

Open Science Policy (gültig bis 9.3.2022)

Version from 9 March 2022.

Valid for all calls and projects issued and submitted from 9 March 2022.

1. Aims and Scope

WWTF supports the principles of openness throughout the entire research process and promotes the ideas of Open Science. WWTF recommends that all grantees allow their research to be guided by the following principle: “as open as possible, as closed as necessary."1

For this purpose, WWTF has developed the following Open Science Policy, which defines requirements and guidance for all WWTF grantees as of 09.03.2022.

2. Rights, Roles and Responsibilities

WWTF is responsible for:

  1. Fostering the transition to Open Science (OS), as outlined in this policy, by applying measures of openness and adoption of the FAIR principles2 within internal processes and increasing the transparency of its actions.
  2. Ensuring funds to cover the costs of open access publication and related to data management and the stewardship of OS practices.
  3. Providing guidance material for the creation of a short and concise Data Management Plan (DMP)
    within applicable calls.
  4. Where applicable, introducing proper “openness” - related criteria during the evaluation and selection of proposals for funding.
  5. Practising responsible and fair research assessment by structuring the review process appropriately.
    This includes placing emphasis on the intrinsic merit of the work, rather than journal titles or publishers, journal impact factors or individual H Index when assessing research outputs during evaluation procedures (WWTF is a signatory of The Declaration on Research Assessment - DORA3).
  6. Monitoring policy compliance and encouraging grantees to provide public accounts of their OS activities and research impact.
  7. Actively supporting the uptake of OS practices (in addition to open access publications and research data). This includes involving relevant stakeholders to foster collaborations that extend beyond the academic discourse.

Grantees are responsible for:

  1. Adopting principles of openness and application of the FAIR principles in their research practices wherever possible and embracing openness as an inherent process in the design and implementation of research projects.
  2. Managing and sharing research outputs in adherence to the principles and requirements outlined in this policy. Depositing publications and research data in repositories that meet trusted quality standards4 and/or are linked with initiatives such as the EOSC EU Node (formerly European Open Science Cloud)5. Publications supported in whole or in part by WWTF should include a statement describing how other re- searchers can access any research data, original software or materials underpinning the research.
  3. Using persistent identifiers such as DOIs, ORCID or WWTF Grant ID for grant applications, management and reporting processes. This is important in enabling the persistent availability and tracking of research activities and in increasing transparency for researchers and WWTF as a funder.

3. WWTF Open Science Focus

All OS research practices aim to increase transparency and collaboration between institutions and disciplines. WWTF has identified two main areas where this can play an important part: i) providing access to publications and ii) providing access to shareable research data. Funded publications (and research data) must be made available under an open -usage license, such as Creative Commons (CC BY, CC0) or similar according to cOAlition S standards6.

3.1 Open Access to Publications

The following rules apply to all peer-reviewed publications that result from research supported entirely or in part by WWTF.

  1. In the case of “Gold Open Access”, WWTF requires that a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication be deposited in a suit- able open access repository. The published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript should be made available immediately and the metadata made fully open, searchable and machine-readable from the time of deposit.

  2. In the case of “Green Open Access”, WWTF requires that the full text of all such publications be made publicly available upon acceptance for publication (after peer-review but prior to the publisher’s copy-editing and production)7.

  3. In the case of “Hybrid Open Access”, the costs of open access for a single contribution in a subscription venue (Hybrid Open Access) can be covered. Please note that this option is only possible if there is a transformative open access agreement between the publisher and research institution (see list
    of agreements8) or if the journal is a transformative open access journal according to the cOAlition S
    criteria9.

  4. WWTF will recognise open access publication fees such as article processing charges (APCs) or book processing charges (BPCs) as eligible costs. For quality assurance purposes, journal titles must be listed in standard directories such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)10 for the costs to be eligible.

  5. WWTF requires that funded publications be made available under an open content license, such as
    Creative Commons (CC BY, CC0) or similar according to cOAlition S standards11.

  6. While the dominant type of scientific publication is the journal article, grantees are strongly encouraged to provide open access to other types of publications such as monographs, book chapters, conference proceedings, grey literature, reports etc.

  7. Where relevant, WWTF strongly encourages its grantees to post preprints of their work under an open license on a preprint platform and/or in a repository. When an article is published, grantees should request the repository to add a journal DOI to the preprint record.

3.2 Open Access to Research Data

Research data are the data used to validate the results presented in scientific publications, or other research data used during a project and described in the DMP. They include, but are not limited to, study protocols, software codes, results of experiments, measurements, observations, interview recordings, images and metadata. WWTF does not require that all research data be made available. However, WWTF strongly encourages grantees to provide shareable research data according to each calls’ specifications and requirements.

  1. WWTF regards DMPs as a tool to support open practices. The core elements of a DMP include descriptions of research data characteristics, documentation and metadata, availability and storage and legal / ethical issues. Through the development of a succinct DMP, grantees will be encouraged when designing and performing their project to reflect on how they will handle their research data. WWTF also requires grantees to update the DMP in the event of significant changes during the project through a statement in the annual report.
  2. WWTF require that grantees deposit shareable research data, metadata or any other data (not directly attributable to a publication or raw data) arising entirely or partly from WWTF-funded grants in a research data repository. Where possible, data should be provided with persistent identifiers, contextual information and should be linked to publications.
  3. WWTF places strong emphasis on the re-usability and therefore on the availability and quality of re- search data. WWTF also encourage grantees to handle research data according to the FAIR principles12 (FAIR = Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable). Research data should be traceable and, when possible, available for subsequent use. If research data cannot be open due to legal, pri- vacy or other concerns (e.g. personal or sensitive research data) this must be clearly explained (e.g.
    a clear differentiation between data protection and copyright issues needs to be argued). Access can still be possible by restricted or closed modalities.
  4. WWTF encourages grantees to make their research data available through the assignment of appropriate open licenses and post-project usage rights.
  5. Costs associated with the management of research data are considered eligible costs. They should be specified in the grant application and in the DMP.

4. Costs

Estimated costs for OS practices should be stated in the funding application. Consideration must be given to the relation of OS costs to other costs, especially for personnel.

During the project: The costs of publications in scientific journals with appropriate quality assurance (peer- reviewed), book publications and activities for curating research data (costs associated with the management of research data) can be covered by the budget of WWTF-funded projects.

After the project: A maximum of € 5,000 from the project budget may be reserved for a maximum of two years after the end of the project for OS activities, e.g. for providing research data, curating research data or for publications from the project. A concise OS exploitation plan should be included in the final project report. The disbursement is charged via the final instalment as a non-refundable lump sum.

5. Compliance

WWTF will consider the grantee’s compliance with this policy when assessing research performance and when future applications for funding are received. Reporting on compliance will be required both during (annual report) and at the end (final report) of the funding period for projects that receive funding from WWTF. In the event of non-compliance, WWTF retains the right to reduce the amount of the grant at the payment of balance or thereafter.

6. Open Science Policy Evaluation

An evaluation of the implementation of this Open Science Policy will take place five years following its adoption by WWTF. Thereafter, the policy will be reviewed and checked for updates every five years.

7. Annex: Glossary

Article Processing Charges (APCs) fees that some scholarly publishers charge authors of academic papers to publish their work in open access.
Book Processing Charges (BPCs) fees charged by a publisher to make a book open access.
Data Management Plan (DMP) a document that describes the data management life cycle of research data to be collected, processed and/or generated.
Embargo the period during which a publication can be ‘closed’ while deposited in the repository (the publication is not openly available).
FAIR Data Principles for scientific management and data stewardship the set of principles to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, emphasizing machine-actionability.
Gold Open Access the process of achieving open access through publication in an open access journal (open access publishing).
Grant ID a persistent identifier allocated to every individual WWTF project.
Green Open Access the process of providing open access through an open access repository
(also known as “self-archiving”).
Metadata the descriptors to describe, trace, use and manage the deposited item. They include the title of publication, author(s), institutional affiliation, name of journal where the publication has been accepted.

Footnotes:

1 https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/strategy-2020-2024/our-digital-future/open-science_en

2 https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

3 https://sfdora.org/

4 https://www.re3data.org/

5 https://open-science-cloud.ec.europa.eu/

6 https://www.coalition-s.org/faq/which-licences-are-compliant-with-plan-s-2/

7 If there is an embargo period during which archiving is not permitted, the period should not be longer than 12 months. If the embargo period is longer, select an alternative publishing outlet. For publisher’s self-archiving policies, please consult the Jisc Open Policy Finder (https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/) database prior to choosing the outlet.

8 https://www.kemoe.at/english/open-access

9 https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-the-implementation-of-plan-s/

10 Directory of Open Access Journals: https://doaj.org/

11 https://www.coalition-s.org/faq/which-licences-are-compliant-with-plan-s-2/

12 “How to make your data fair”: https://www.openaire.eu/how-to-make-your-data-fair

Open Access Regelung des WWTF (gültig bis 8.3.2022)

Version von Dezember 2014

Gültig für alle Calls und Projekte, die bis zum 8.3.2022 ausgeschrieben und eingereicht wurden

Der WWTF unterstützt den offenen Zugang zu wissenschaftlichen Publikationen und empfiehlt, dass alle WissenschaftlerInnen die im Rahmen von WWTF-Vorhaben finanzierten Publikationen frei zugänglich machen. Die dafür ggf. notwendigen finanziellen Mittel können im Rahmen der Projektantragstellung budgetiert werden und sind damit Teil des Gesamtbudgets eines geförderten Vorhabens.

1. Umfang

Die Regelung betrifft sowohl Zeitschriftenartikel als auch Buchpublikationen, die aus WWTF finanzierter Forschung entstanden sind-

2. Artes des Zugangs zu offenen Publikationen

WWTF geförderten Vorhaben stehen grundsätzlich drei Wege der Open Access Veröffentlichung offen:

Gold Open Access: ist die Veröffentlichung in einem Open-Access-Organ mit unmittelbaren und uneingeschränkten elektronischem Zugang in der endgültigen Fassung der Publikation unter Verwendung der Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Lizenz. Üblicherweise werden dafür den AutorInnen Kosten verrechnet.1

Green Open Access: ist die Selbstarchivierung der von einer Zeitschrift akzeptieren Version des Artikels in einem fachspezifischen und/oder institutionellen Repositorium, das auf nachhaltige Archivierung unter bestimmten Qualitätsstandards ausgerichtet ist.2 Dabei sollten die Embargozeiten, d.h. die Zeit zwischen Erstpublikation und Selbstarchivierung nicht länger als 6 Monate, in begründeten Ausnahmefällen, nicht länger als 12 Monate sein.

Hybrid Open Access: ist die parallele Anwendung von Publikations- und Subskriptionsgebühr für ein und dieselbe Zeitschrift. Da dadurch erhöhte Kosten für das Gesamtsystem entstehen, sieht der WWTF diese Form der Open Access Publikation als problematisch an. Sie wird aber als momentan gegebene Realität anerkannt. Die Kosten dafür können aus dem Projektbudget bestritten werden. Regelungen, in denen für bezahlte Hybridgebühren ein Nachlass für die institutionelle Subskriptionsgebühr gewährt wird, sind zu begrüßen.

Buchpublikationen: können über Gold Open Access oder Green Open Access zugänglich gemacht werden. Eine kostenpflichtige Parallelveröffentlichung als gedruckte Publikation ist zulässig.

3. Publikationskosten

Publikationskosten sind bereits in der Antragstellung zu berücksichtigen. Für wissenschaftliche, in qualitätsgesichterten Zeitschriften erscheinende Artikel sowie Buchpublikationen können Kosten im Rahmen laufender WWTF-Projekte aus dem Projektbudget bezahlt werden. Dabei ist auf eine Verhältnismäßigkeit der Publikationskosten zu anderen, insbesondere Personalkosten zu achten ist.

Für nach dem Projektende erscheinende Publikationen können max. 5.000 Euro aus dem Projektbudget für maximal zwei Jahre reserviert werden. In den Schlussbericht ist dafür ein konziser Publikationsplan zu inkludieren. Die Auszahlung erfolgt über die Schlussrate als nicht-rückzahlbare Pauschalsumme. Die Verwendung ist im Rahmen der Ex-Post-Evaluation (siehe Punkt 4) anzuführen.

4. Berichtswesen

Die Erfüllung der Open Access-Pflichten ist im regelmäßigen Berichtswesen (Jahresberichte und Schlussbericht) nachzuweisen (durch die Eingabe eines sog. persitent identifiers3 der Open Access Publikation in das WWTF-Online-Reporting System). Das Reporting der nach Projektende entstandenen Publikationen erfolgt im Rahmen der Ex-Post-Evaluation der Projekte.

Im Final Report zum Projekt sind die Angaben über den für künftige Open Access Publikationen reservierten Betrag zu machen. Dazu gibt es unter Non-Personnel Costs die Kategorie „Dedicated Open Access Costs“. Im Textfeld soll ein knapper Verwendungsplan für die Kosten eingebeben werden und danach der Betrag, der für künftige Open Access Kosten reserviert werden soll.

Fußnoten

1 Als Maßnahme der Qualitätssicherung sollen Gold Open Access Zeitschriften im DOAJ gelistet sein: https://doaj.org/

2 Ein Verzeichnis von Open Access Repositorien findet sich unter https://opendoar.ac.uk/

3 Ist eine dauerhafte Referenz im Web für digitale Objekte, z.B. eine DOI Nummer oder ein Link zu einem Objekt in einem Repositorium. Persönliche und institutionelle Webseiten werden in der Regel nicht als dauerhaft genug angesehen, um einer dauerhafte Referenz zu gewährleisten.