Belgium

European Commission

Commission Representation in Belgium

EOSC-A Mandated Organisation

Belnet

EOSC Steering Board representatives

Bart Dumolyn, Department of Economy, Science and Innovation of the Flemish Government (EWI)

Belgian organisations have invested in Open Science infrastructure and policies since the early 2000s. Universities subscribed to the Berlin declaration in 2007, as did the Belgian, Flemish and French Community ministers of research in 2012. The European projects DRIVER and OpenAIRE started coordinating efforts in Belgium, uniting Open Science ambassadors in the informal network Open Access Belgium. Research organisations have set up publication and data repositories throughout the years, most of them compliant to OpenAIRE guidelines and thus part of the OpenAIRE Research Graph.

Research is a regional competence, managed by Flanders and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Flanders started the Flemish Open Science Board (FOSB) to coordinate efforts, in Wallonia-Brussels Federation a working group is established. The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) is managing the Open Science (OS) policies at the Federal level. In November 2019, the first Belgian EOSC event "Belgian Open Science EOSC Initiatives" was organised by the three policy levels.

Source: EOSC-Pillar

ICC-FCC OS EOSC

The National structure in Belgium is a taskforce named International Cooperation Commission (ICC) and Federal Cooperation Commission (FCC) Open Science EOSC Taskforce or in short: ICC-FCC OS EOSC. This Taskforce is for consulting or common decision making only.

The federal Science Policy Office (Belspo), the research foundation of Flanders (FWO) and the Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation are the three entities in Belgium who are actively engaged in Open Science. They consult within the ICC-FCC OS EOSC and have all committed to the EOSC Partnership.

The ICC-FCC OS EOSC wants to foster Belgian participation with EOSC through sensitising or creation of infrastructures. The taskforce wants to participate in the EOSC decision making process accordingly with Belgium's engagements regarding Open Science as expressed in Belgium and its entities' multiple national and international engagements.

Main priorities for the ICC-FCC OS EOSC taskforce are:

  • Disseminating and promoting EOSC at national level
  • Offering a channel to connect the national stakeholders with the EOSC governance
  • Coordinating EOSC activities at national level

Belgium is represented in the EOSC Steering Board and a consensus was reached to provide Belnet, the National Research and Education Network (NREN), as a mandated organisation to the EOSC Association.

Policies

Via the Brussels Declaration on Open Acces most Belgium universities, research institutions and research funders request their researchers to provide open access to their research publications. An open acces provision (Right to Secondary Publication) has been adopted in the Belgian law in September 2018 (art.29). Furthermore, Open Research Data mandates have been issued at funders’ level, actively implementing DMPs.

EOSC Association Members and Observers

Belnet, Belgisch telematica-onderzoeksnetwerk - Réseau télématique belge de la recherche

Mandated organisation

Belnet, the Belgian national research and education network, has been providing high-quality, innovative network infrastructures and related servic... Read more

Visit the website

Agentschap Meise Botanic Garden

Observer

Meise Botanic Garden (92 hectares), with 18,000 plant species, a Herbarium of around 4 million collection items, of which nearly 2 Mio have been di... Read more

Visit the website

CESAER

Member

CESAER is the European association of leading specialised and comprehensive universities of science and technology that: champion excellence in hig... Read more

Visit the website

Conseil des recteurs

Observer

The Conseil des recteurs (CRef), created in 1990, is a consultation body that brings together the rectors of the universities of the Federation Wal... Read more

Visit the website

EBRAINS AISBL

Member

EBRAINS is the digital pan-European research infrastructure that provides digital tools and services which can be used t... Read more

Visit the website

EuroFIR AISBL

Member

EuroFIR AISBL is a non-profit international member-based organisation, the purpose of which is to develop, harmonise, and deliver food composition ... Read more

Visit the website

European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents AISBL (ERINHA)

Observer

ERINHA is a pan-European distributed Research Infrastructure dedicated to the study of high-consequence emerging and re-... Read more

Visit the website

European University Association (EUA)

Observer

The European University Association (EUA) represents more than 800 universities and national rectors’ conferences in 48 European countries.... Read more

Visit the website

Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (Research Foundation Flanders)

Member

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) is a Public Utility Foundation.... Read more

Visit the website

Ghent University

Member

Ghent University is a top 100 university and one of the major universities in Belgium.... Read more

Visit the website

Hasselt University

Member

Hasselt University is an independent university which is regionally anchored and has a pronounced international orientation.... Read more

Visit the website

KU Leuven

Member

Founded in 1425, KU Leuven has been a centre of learning for almost six centuries.... Read more

Visit the website

League of European Research Universities (LERU)

Observer

The League of European Research Universities is a well-established network of research-intensive universities.... Read more

Visit the website

Open scholarly communication in the European Research Area for the Social Sciences and Humanities (OPERAS)

Member

OPERAS is the Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities in the European Research Area.... Read more

Visit the website

Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe

Member

The mission of PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) is to enable high-impact scientific discovery and engineering research and deve... Read more

Visit the website