About Open Science

• Better accessibility of scientific results
• Improved efficiency and rapid dissemination
• Higher visibility for authors and institutions
• Increased economic and social impact
• Facilitates reproducibility
• Possibility of sharing & saving resources

• The systematic support of open science is a priority area of the Strategic Plan of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT Prague).
• Preparation of the Open Science Strategy of UCT Prague is underway. 
• The preparation and implementation of the Strategy are being addressed by the Coordination Team for Open Science established by the Rector in 2023.
• Informational support for Open Science on the web can be found at open.vscht.cz.
• Open publishing (Open Access, OA) is consistently supported at UCT Prague through a central OA fund.
• Methodological support for open access is provided by an OA coordinator and an OA administrator.
• Authors now have the opportunity to use so-called tokens for article processing charges (APCs) within transformative agreements negotiated by the National CzechElib Center.
• For long-term archiving and dissemination of research outputs, authors from UCT Prague can utilize the publicly available repository Zenodo, managed by CERN. Zenodo allows for the allocation of persistent identifiers and meets credibility requirements, including open access to metadata. UCT has established an institutional community on Zenodo, enabling metadata curation.
• Methodological support for research data management is provided by the university data management coordinator along with other data stewards supporting individual faculties.
• For planning research data management and creating Data Management Plans (DMPs), UCT Prague has access to an intuitive online tool, the Data Stewardship Wizard (DSW), under its own instance. DSW enables collaboration and the creation of DMPs, including their updating throughout the project.
• For storing and sharing research data in accordance with FAIR principles, it is advisable to use a data repository preferably within the disciplinary field or a general repository like Zenodo.
• In the future, the National Data Infrastructure and the utilization of services from the national repository platform are anticipated.
• UCT Prague is a member of the National ORCID Center Consortium and provides methodological support to authors at UCT Prague in establishing and managing ORCID profiles.

In 2022, UCT Prague joined the international coalition CoARA to support the change in the evaluation of science. In this context, the system for evaluating science, scientists, and grants will take into account various outputs, processes, and activities that maximize the quality and impact of research, including the implementation of Open Science practices.

CoARA: 4 key commitments:

• Recognizing the diversity of scientific outputs, activities, and careers.
• Basing evaluations on qualitative assessments.
• Abandoning the inappropriate use of publication metrics.
• Avoiding the use of rankings of research organizations.

• Peer-reviewed scientific articles
• Conference contributions
• Monographs Chapters in specialized books
• Articles in proceedings
• Methodologies Therapeutic and heritage procedures
• Specialized maps with expert content
• Comprehensive research reports
• Textbook and commentary publications containing scientific information

• Authors publish their work in a subscription journal and then self-archive a version of the manuscript in a repository.
• There is no cost for authors, but publishers typically require the publication (or one of its versions) to be made available only after a specified embargo period (usually between 6 to 24 months). 
• More information on publishers' policies regarding (self)archiving is provided by Sherpa/RoMEO.
• Institutional repositories are most commonly used for publications. More information about OA repositories is available in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

• This allows immediate OA to publications upon their release on the publisher's website.
• However, it is often associated with a fee for article processing (known as APC, Article Processing Charge). 
• APCs are typically covered by authors (e.g. from grants) or through their institution (e.g. from an OA fund/tokens).

Where No costs for OA publishing is required from authors/institutions, because it is covered directly by publisher/professional society, it is commonly known as Diamond OA (a sub-variant of the gold route).

• Copyright: Typically, when researchers publish their work, copyright can either be transferred to the publisher or retained by the authors. Retaining copyright allows authors more control over how their work is shared and reused.
• Licenses: Authors can retain copyright and grant publishers a license to publish the work. Common licenses used in OA include Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which allow various levels of reuse and distribution.
• Retaining sufficient rights: Researchers need to be aware of their OA obligations and ensure they retain sufficient rights to comply with these requirements. This might involve negotiating terms with publishers or choosing journals that support the required level of access.
• It is recommended that authors/institutions do not transfer IPRs, but instead grant the publisher only a license necessary for publication, preserving the author/institution's ability to publish the work under open licenses.

As open as possible, as closed as necessary, but sometimes it may be necessary to restrict access. There may be legitimate reasons to protect the created data, such as situations where the dataset contains personal information or national security data, or where data publication would hinder subsequent commercialization of research results.

Open Access to research data and metadata is typically implemented through data repositories.

Section 9: Regulation of Relations between Provider and Recipient

(1) The provider shall conclude with the recipient a specific support agreement for a project under Section 3(2) regarding the provision of support...

The contract must contain at least:

• (l) the method of research data management,
• (m) information on the availability and dissemination of research results and research data, if created with the support of public funds under this law, following the principle that research results and research data are not published only in justified cases...

They can vary for different types of publications.

For scientific articles and data.

Default recommendation is:

• CC BY (4.0) license - allowing others to access, extract, use, distribute, and reproduce the research work and data, including derivative works. The only requirement is attribution to the author.

For monographs and other long texts (such as a chapter in a book), the license may exclude commercial use and derivative works.

• CC BY-NC
• CC BY-ND
• CC BY-NC-ND

An approach where the research plan and methodology are publicly shared even before the research commences, for example, by submitting it to a registry.

Open (laboratory) notebooks provide access to and sharing of records from a research project.

They may include, for example:

• significant scientific equipment or systems of instruments
• knowledge resources, collections
• repositories, archives, and scientific data
• information systems for research results analysis and evaluation
• computing services and data processing services
• digital infrastructures, virtual research environments, and digital research services; open laboratories
• repositories for publications, research data, and source code.

• A repository is an information system/digital archive designed for the long-term preservation and dissemination of digital objects (research outputs), ensuring storage, protection, integrity, authenticity, and access to digital objects over the long term.
• Repositories (institutional, subject-based, multidisciplinary, general) are used for storing and providing open access to scientific publications, data, and other research outputs.

• They consist of facilities, equipment, capacities, resources, and related services used to support testing, conducting experiments, and verifying functionality for the purpose of developing new or improved products, services, or procedures, testing innovative technologies, and transferring knowledge or PR.

• They represent unique facilities essential for research, development, and innovation activities with high knowledge and technological requirements:
• Operated by research organizations in the Czech Republic, possibly in cooperation with the Czech Republic abroad.
• Accessible on the principle of open access policy to all interested parties for research and development purposes.
• In relevant fields: Physical sciences and engineering, Energy, Environmental sciences, Health and food/biological and medical sciences, Social and humanities sciences, e-Infrastructure.