Czech Republic

Czech Republic

Overview

European Commission

Mandated Organisation

CESNET

EOSC Steering Board representatives

The Czech Republic  has taken important steps towards the implementation of Open Science in the country. Czech universities and research institutions have created various fora to develop and adopt Open Science practices and working groups set up to study specific aspects of EOSC’s implementation in the country.

The Czech National Strategy for Open Access to Research Information for 2017-2020 dates back to 2017, followed by the Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Strategy of the Czech Republic’s Open Access to Scientific Information for 2017-2020 in 2019. While a full national policy is still in the works, the existence of all these initiatives, some of them with explicit support or initiated by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport indicate that this could be achieved in the near future.

Mandated organisation

CESNET (main contact: Luděk Matyska), appointed as EOSC-A Mandated Organisation by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic, is the association of universities  and the Czech Academy of Sciences. CESNET’s operates and develops of the national e-infrastructure for science, research and education which encompasses a computer network, computational grids, data storage and collaborative environment and further offers in addition several services to its members.

National structure

To coordinate all activities linked to the implementation of EOSC in the country, the e-INFRA CZ consortium has launched the national initiative EOSC-CZ with  the EOSC-CZ Secretariat in charge of the daily operations of EOSC-related matters based at CERIT-SC, the national centre for computing and data storage infrastructure for research and development, at the Masaryk University in Brno.

Other Open Science stakeholders in the country include:

Working groups

EOSC CZ involves the academic and research community in the implementation of the EOSC in the Czech Republic through several Working Groups (WGs), aimed at achieving consensus among national players about the design and development of EOSC. Besides proposals towards its architectural, operation and metadata, the WGs have within their remit the development of binding standards for the implementation of the National Data Infrastructure (NDI). The WGs are divided in two sub-groups:

  • Core (cross-cutting) working groups: these WGs aim to find consensus over a common ground, architecture and shared services across the NDI, and include representatives from various disciplines and with different expertise.
  • Thematic (discipline) working groups: The main objective of these WGs is to find a consensus on the needs, the integration of the thematic architecture into the common environment, and specific services of the thematic (discipline) clusters of the NDI. They comprise mainly experts from the given discipline units that represent so-called “thematic (discipline) clusters”.

The WGs are open to all researchers working at Czech institutions. For more information, please visit https://www.eosc.cz/en/working-groups.

The FAIR Data Expert Group at CERIT-SC is the national OpenAIRE node.

National Events

National Tripartite Event: Czech Republic
calendar_month 21 May 2025
pin_drop Brno, Czech Republic

The Czech Republic will host its National Tripartite Event on 21 May 2025 in Brno. The event is a part of the conference titled Research Data Day & EOSC National Tripartite Event, linking information on the latest...

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Policies

 

The Czech Republic has dedicated substantial funding in the last years to transition to Open Science and make EOSC happen. This is supported by advances on the policy side, in particular the National Research, Development and Innovation Policy of the Czech republic 2021+, where it is established the dissemination via open access of results and data from (publicly funded) research activities. While a national Open Science strategy is not currently in planning, many related topics originally addressed in the previous National Open Access to Scientific Information Strategy 2017-2020 are continued in the current National Policy.

To raise the EU Cohesion Policy Fund for the public research sector in 2021-2027, Czechia has created the Operational Programme Johannes Amos Comenius  (JAC), with dedicated calls for the implementation of EOSC. The total budget for 2021-27 is of around EUR 120 million. The JAC programme supports the following goals:

  • launch of the EOSC-CZ Secretariat
  • development and capacity building of the National Metadata Directory
  • coordination and providing of education and training activities for the FAIR data management
  • development and capacity building of the National Repository Platform
  • capacity building of the thematic cluster data repositories
  • activities for uptake and up-skilling.

NRDIP 2021+

The National Research, Development and Innovation Policy of the Czech Republic 2021+ (NRDIP 2021+) represents a strategic framework for the advancement of all components of research, development and innovation (RDI) in the CR (fundamental research, oriented and applied research, experimental development and innovation) and makes use of their synergy to advance the knowledge society and support the economic, environmental, cultural and social development of the CR. Download now arrow_forward

EOSC in Practice

Embracing the principles of transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility, these examples highlight the innovative approaches adopted by researchers across various disciplines. From open data sharing and collaborative platforms to pre-registration and open peer review, these practices enhance scientific integrity and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

People

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    Luděk Matyska – CESNET

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    NTE Czech Republic