5 openness aspects your EU project may be missing for compliance and impact

EU-funded projects represent one of the tangible expressions of European values. As such, they need to show these values not only in WHAT they produce but also HOW. This means these values need to be reflected in project operations.
The European values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights manifest themselves in EU projects particularly in efforts towards openness.

However, it isn’t enough to just say your project subscribes to these values. Proponents of projects need to credibly show how these values are reflected. Fortunately, the guesswork can be taken out because these values have been reflected via policy - and as long as you align with them, you are also demonstrating your project’s commitment to these values. A few policies or frameworks that provide openness as either an obligation or guideline are the project Grant Agreements, Open Science Policy, FAIR data principles, Open Data Directive, European Interoperability Framework, GDPR, Data Act, Data Governance Act, AI Act, and Cyber Resilience Act. 

Here are the 5 most critical overlooked project aspects where openness requirements are frequently forgotten:

Open science and dissemination for scientific results and publications

For Horizon Europe projects, open science is a legal obligation. This means as a default, except only in special circumstances (i.e. relating to personal data, IP protection, trade secrets/competitiveness, security or politically sensitive issues), research results, data and publications should be made publicly accessible. A useful guideline to follow is “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. 

This can be ensured by depositing publications in a trusted repository, using open licenses, and providing data or tools needed to validate the results. Research data in particular should comply with the FAIR data principles, ensuring that research data is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. 

Open source for software 

Many EU projects bring forward new software or digital tools as part of their outputs or deliverables. While not always mandatory, the EU supports and favours open source software. This means, if your project is bringing forward a software solution, you need to consider making the code available in an open repository like GitLab or GitHub. 

If the software is expected to also interact with other external tools or software, you might also consider working in open application programming interfaces (APIs) and to apply interoperability standards.

While the points above may be more critical and may even be a mandatory requirement, to a certain extent, even the tools used to also develop software outputs or those used within the project would benefit from being open source in nature. This is particularly true for projects that are funded under topics where communities are championing the use of open source. One example is the use of NextCloud or OwnCloud as the internal project repository and workspace for the consortium in projects that have a strong open source community following. 

Open standards for technical solutions and architectures

The EU is moving towards more integration - even across its technological infrastructure. When funding topics are designed, you will notice attention paid to ensuring integration with other related initiatives. Hence, the application of widely accepted open technical standards, having interoperable APIs, structuring metadata to be machine-readable and building in semantic interoperability in EU project solutions you produce would make your project or proposal align with what is required by the EU and more likely to be easily integrated into the technological ecosystem where your project needs to position itself. 

Open access for licensing

By nature, licenses place certain limits on how intellectual property can be reused or shared. However, the application of the right open licence, if properly selected, can also support the free use or reuse of your output. Having an open license communicates how external stakeholders can freely take up what you have produced.

Whether for deliverables, software, publications or datasets, the open licenses should be used as much as possible. For software, Apache 2.0 is an example. For publications this could be CC-BY or CCO, among others. Similar to the approach for scientific outputs, any restrictions need to have a convincing justification. 

Open data for datasets and data infrastructures

With data almost being compared to resources like water or clean air, ensuring free access to data and enabling its reuse has become a priority. Projects contributing to digital government or datasets produced by public authorities, municipalities and research infrastructures should make data machine-readable, be accessible via APIs, apply open licenses and have rights for reuse. Openness should also be factored into the architecture of data infrastructures as earlier emphasised under the point on open standards.

Similarly to the guideline for the dissemination of research outputs, datasets should be as open as possible, and  as closed as necessary especially for high value datasets, public sector data or publicly-funded datasets. 

Openness as a default

Openness is a principle that shouldn’t be applied to just a small part of EU projects. Apart from the examples above, it needs to apply to other project aspects such as open calls, procurement, AI use, external stakeholder participation, ethics, peer review, among many others.

The human mind can come up with all sorts of fantastic ideas to the challenges of society today. But what separates European projects from the others is bringing these solutions to life while championing the European values - human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights.

By following the principles of openness and translating this principle into your EU project operations and solutions, your project comes one step closer to aligning with the EU’s higher level objectives - proposals get funded, funded projects achieve wider impact.

Trust-IT has been operating in the EU publicly-funded space for more than a decade and has extensive experience not only in open-by-design outputs and solutions, but also in the enabling tools for the consortium to use during the project duration. Have an idea in mind? Reach out to us!