Switzerland

Programme Open Science II – 2025 to  2026: Switzerland’s second iteration of the Programme Open Science continues the work of its predecessor. It sets out the strategy to develop Open Science in Swiss Higher Education Institutions and research communities sustainably. The programme is based on the Swiss National Open Research Data Strategy and the Swiss National Open Access Strategy, accompanied by an action plan (in German). * The programme was scheduled to run for four years but has been shortened to 2025-2026 due to financial policy developments.

The programme, approved by the Higher Education Council of the Swiss Conference of Higher Education Institutions, is structured into three dimensions:

• Open Access to Scientific Publications (OA): Implementation of the goals and measures of the Swiss National OA Strategy. In the shortened programme, the following five lines of action will be implemented: cost monitoring; negotiations with publishers; long-form and other publication formats; green Open Access; and diamond Open Access.
• Open Research Data (ORD): Activities and measures of the Swiss National ORD Strategy and the associated action plan, which are under the responsibility of swissuniversities, will be continued and consolidated. The following five action lines will be implemented: A1: Swiss Open Research Data Grants (CHORD); B3.2: ORD funding for existing infrastructures of strategic relevance; B5.2: ORD specialists / data stewardship at HEIs; B5.3: Swiss Research Data Support Network; and support for higher education institutions in projects for the ORD Strategy Council.
• Further innovative areas of Open Science: dedicated to the promotion of Open Science-compatible knowledge and technology transfer between Higher Education Institutions and industry and society. The following two action lines will be implemented: cooperation with international organisations; and knowledge security.

Open Access policies: All results from public funded research must be 100% Open Access. All Swiss higher education institutions (HEI) have to draft their own Open Access Policy, with the minimum requirement that Open Access rules are applied to “scientific works published in journals and books (i.e. monographs, anthologies, book chapters)” as defined by the SNSF policy.

Open Research Data: SNSF expects all its funded researchers and research organisations to

• put in place the infrastructure and guidance so that research data they have worked on and produced during the course of their research work are properly managed. The preparation of data management plans prior to starting research activities is encouraged,
• share these data with other researchers, unless they are bound by legal, ethical, copyright, confidentiality or other clauses, and
• deposit their data and metadata onto existing public repositories in formats that anyone can find, access and reuse without restriction.

Research data is defined as any collected, observed or generated factual material that is commonly accepted in the scientific community as necessary to document and validate research findings.