Open science is not free. The costs associated with implementing open science must be borne by various stakeholders: researchers, research institutions, the public and private sectors, the state, and citizens.
Costs related to open science include:
Supporting research work, publishing, data and programming practices, including open-access publishing, curation, archiving, and monitoring research outputs.
Infrastructure and service costs for open science, including computing centers and digital public infrastructure and services.
Education and training for open science stakeholders, including changing research culture to transition to open science.
Innovative, collaborative, and inclusive scientific initiatives, including platforms that enable knowledge transfer between researchers and society.
Open science funding schemes should align with relevant open science policies, including institutional, national, and international policies.
Open science is a political priority for the European Commission and a standard method in its research and innovation funding programs because it improves research quality, efficiency, and responsiveness. Therefore, the Commission requires recipients of research and innovation funding to make their publications openly accessible and their data as open as possible.
Horizon Europe Program (since January 2021) is the EU’s research and innovation funding program following Horizon 2020. The Commission requires funded projects to make publications available via open access and manage data and other research outputs according to FAIR principles. Horizon Europe also recognizes and rewards citizen and societal engagement, preregistration of research projects, open peer review, etc.
The Estonian Research Council (ETAG) issues and mediates competitive research grants.
The largest funding instrument managed by ETAG is the personal research grant.
Postdoctoral grant, starting grant, and group grant are intended for conducting high-level basic or applied research by a researcher or research group working in a research and development institution.
A proof-of-concept grant is intended for carrying out an experimental development project in an Estonian research and development institution. A development grant can be applied for one year, and the maximum amount of the grant is €150,000.
For information about institutional funding opportunities, the best sources are the grant and research centers of universities!
