Read the National Pilot Interview from Austria and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Spichtingerand Victoria Eisenheldfrom the Univerisity of Vienna (UNI WIEN), Tomasz Miksafrom the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)and Ilire Hasani-Mavriqifrom the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). Enjoy!

 "OSTrails provides the Austrian community with the means to further enhance the quality and interoperability of RDM services. Specifically, it helps us to digitally transform data management planning at TU Graz, TU Wien, Uni Wien, and AUSSDA by maximizing the uptake of maDMPs and the FAIR principles in Austria and thus benefiting researchers by lowering the effort involved in data management."

-Can you briefly introduce your organisation? How does it/do they contribute to EOSC? 

Three universities — TU Graz, TU Wien, and Uni Wien — collaborate to implement the Austrian national pilot. Each of these universities has significantly contributed to the EOSC:  

Uni Wien, member of the EOSC Association since 2020, is actively involved in several EOSC-related projects and task forces, both nationally and internationally, including major EU projects like EOSC BEYOND and EOSC Future. TU Wien has been engaged in EOSC from the early stages through its involvement in the EOSC Secretariat, participating in various EOSC projects and contributing to national initiatives. TU Graz is a member of the EOSC Focus project consortium that works towards aligning the technical development of EOSC. All three organisations are members of the EOSC Support Office Austria (the operational branch of the Austrian Mandated Organization of the EOSC Association). 

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to? 

In OSTrails, we are looking forward tocontributing to the Plan-Track-Assess framework components by considering several use cases in the pilot, with each organisation focusing on complementary aspects. Our common goal is to enhance DMP support, which we aim to achieve through extending, aligning and integrating DMP tools, enhancing DMP support to researchers, supporting data stewards in creating discipline-specific DMPs, providing further support implementing RDM policies, promoting FAIR principles and assessing their implementation in digital objects, as well as contributing to relevant national and international initiatives. TU Wien is specifically looking forward to adoption of the Interoperability Frameworks developed by OSTrails to better integrate their RDM services, e.g. DMP Tool based onDAMAP with repositories, SKGs, and environments where researchers work with data.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research realised in your country/scientific domain? 

In Austria, the current situation is as follows:

Planning is primarily addressed through the development and support of Data Management Plans (DMPs), including tools such as DAMAP. TU Graz, TU Wien and Medical University Graz run DAMAP as an institutional tool. They integrate it with their internal systems to maximise the reuse of information and to help in planning. Additionally, other Austrian universities participating in the national project SharedRDM are considering using DAMAP, with roll-out of the tool ongoing in some cases, and others still in the planning phase. Furthermore, many universities, including Uni Wien help researchers to meet funder requirements by manually reviewing DMPs, clarifying questions and offering trainings for researchers who write DMPs.

Tracking: Most of the universities in Austria use a CRIS system to track publications. However, these systems do not track other types of digital research objects systematically. Users can manually update relevant entries, sometimes by integration with ORCID. There is no national SKG or a comparable tracking mechanism for all types of digital research objects.

Assessing: As mentioned, staff of participating universities manually reviews DMPS on request before submission to funders. Funders usually perform simple checks of DMPs. To our knowledge, the production of digital research objects – other than publications – is not systematically reflected in the assessment of researchers’ performance at the moment. Hopefully, this will change with the adoption ofCoARA.  

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails? 

All universities in the Austrian pilot, Uni Wien, TU Wien and TU Graz, have approved institutional RDM policies to guide the implementation of the FAIR principles.¹ They provide extensive RDM-services, including support for creating and implementing DMPs, and offer workshops and training to help researchers understand and apply FAIR principles in their work. They are also involved in EOSC initiatives and projects to align with national and international standards and policies. 

Uni Wien hosts the institutional repositoryPHAIDRA and is the coordinator of AUSSDA, the Austrian Social Science Data Archive consortium, which serves as the Service Provider ofCESSDA ERIC for all of Austria, offering services for the social sciences. PHAIDRA facilitates the long-term storage of research output from all scientific disciplines and multiple institutions use its open-source software across Europe. AUSSDA is certified with the Core Trust Seal that recognises it as a “trustworthy repository”. The two repositories allow and encourage the use of open licenses and provide permanent addresses for research data, along with comprehensive metadata. Uni Wien has also implemented training programs for data stewards to help bridge the gap between researchers and data management requirements.² Furthermore, Uni Wien is involved in several large international open e-infrastructures, sometimes as a coordinator and in a leading role. The Open Data movement is a significant component of this involvement. One of Uni Wien’s primary priorities in OSTrails is to develop standardised DMP evaluation practices in line with national funder requirements and thereby improve the quality of their feedback processes to researchers.

TU Wien supports researchers to publish their research output according to FAIR principles by addressing relevant issues early on with the machine-actionable DMP toolDAMAP. They also provide a data repository that offers persistent identifiers, standardized and machine-readable usage licenses, and open, free, and standardized communication protocols. FAIRness is further assured by allowing metadata to be exported in various machine-readable formats and by adding interfaces for other external services. Additionally, TU Wien integrates FAIR principles into regular workshops and a course for master students. TU Wien also serves as the primary contact for theGO FAIR Austria office, reinforcing their commitment to FAIR data principles.  

TU Wien will deploy the extended version of DAMAP that follows OSTrails Interoperability Framework for DMPs. This will allow them to have a standardised way to access information on ongoing experiments through a standardised API. Furthermore, the university plans to integrate DAMAP with software running in laboratories, where researchers conduct their experiments, to ensure better integration and to enable DMPs to become true live documents: changing contributors in a DMP created with DAMAP will result in a change of privileges in other systems, like the experimentation environment, or data repository. 

TU Grazhas ratified two discipline-specific RDM policies to implement the FAIR principles. The university has been a seminal contributor to efforts such asFAIR Data Austria, developing tools and repositories for FAIR data management, and has also instituted a marketplace for FAIR/RDM-related projects. 

The primary priority of the universities in the Austrian pilot is the enhancement of DMP support. This includes enhancing DMP support to researchers and supporting data stewards in creating discipline-specific DMPs. TU Graz, in collaboration with TU Wien, also focus on technological integration by improving and aligning machine-actionable DMP tools. Additionally, both universities aim to connect current repositories and machine-actionable DMP tools to the OpenAIRE Graph and other SKGs. Other goals of the Austrian pilot include to further support implementing RDM policies, promoting FAIR principles and assessing their implementation in digital objects, as well as contributing to national and international initiatives. 

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

Given that the national pilot is supposed to start in month 18 of the project,we are still in theearly stages ofestablishing the next steps in our retrospective organisations. As a next activity, we will organise anotheronline meeting of the Austrian National Pilot. On a more technical level,AUSSDA will upgrade its repository software to increase its score in the F-UJI FAIR metric. TU Wien’s next steps willbe: a) toidentify groups of researchers for whom integration ofDAMAP via the DMP IF could be beneficial, b) to flesh out specific use cases and collect specific requirements, and c) to analyse the pathways described in Deliverable D1.1. and to discuss which of them are relevant to what extent for the university.

Thank you for the interesting discussion! 

¹ Uni Wien:RDM policy: https://rdm.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_forschungsdatenmanagement/Dokumente/RDM_Policy_UNIVIE_v1_en.pdf 

TU Wien: RDM policy: https://www.tuwien.at/index.php?eID=dms&s=4&path=Directives%20and%20Regulations%20of%20the%20Rectorate/Policy%20for%20Research%20Data%20Management.pdf

TU Graz:RDM policy: https://www.tugraz.at/sites/rdm/policies/tu-graz-framework-policy-for-rdm

² See the websiteData Stewards at the University of Vienna for further information : https://rdm.univie.ac.at/data-stewards-at-the-university/

Read the National Pilot Interview from Germany and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Jochen Johannsen and Dominik Schmitz from the RWTH Aachen University Library.Enjoy!

- Jochen Johannsen	- Dominik Schmitz

“By adopting the interoperability measures taken by the OSTrails project the DMP tool RDMO – widespread in Germany – can overcome the limitations of a national silo as well as benefit from the integrations with other tools – even beyond repositories and CRIS – to really make data management a tool to support research instead of just a burden.”

-Can you briefly introduce your organisation? How do they contribute to EOSC?

RWTH Aachen University is one of the largest technical universities in Germany with a strong focus on natural and engineering sciences.Accordingly, we alsoparticipate with a leading part inNFDI4ING andNFDI4Chem–two consortia of theNationalResearchDataInfrastructure in Germany (NFDI) focussing on engineering and chemistry. Additionally, we actively contribute to the NFDI's foundational services, particularly through theResearch Data Management Organizer (RDMO), a widely adopted data management planning tool in Germany that is central to our involvement in OSTrails.Through our engagement with the NFDI, we aim to enhance our contributions to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) beyond our individual efforts at RWTH Aachen University.

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?

Delivering a data management plan (DMP) without deriving any benefit during the actual research process can feel burdensome. We strongly believe that machine actionable DMPs are a way to overcome this situation. Thus, we pursue this goal by offering to integrate the RDMO tool with platforms used in engineering and chemistry, including repositories and electronic lab notebooks. In addition, we hope that the interoperability framework developed by OSTrails will facilitate integration with many additional tools beyond our initial focus. If successful, this approach will break down silos and provide comprehensive assistance to our researchers.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your country?

In 2015,theGerman Science Foundation (DFG) started to fund the development of a tool to support data management planning. Following a successful second funding phase that concluded in 2020, the Research Data Management Organizer (RDMO) wasestablished and quickly adopted by several universities and institutes. In 2024, RDMO entered the first of threephasesto be recognized as a prospective base service of the national research data infrastructureby means of theDMP4NFDI project.

Over time, we haveobserved a gradual increase in acceptance, driven by the implementation of individual discipline-specific templates, as well as the provision of software management planning and the German Science Foundation checklist as templates within this open platform.At RWTH Aachen University, we have noticedthat large projects particularly value DMPs as effective tools for tracking subprojects and ensuring alignment.Common decisions of a projectare embedded by altering templates and answering options thereby helping to alleviate the burden of filling out a DMP.While integration with other research tasks and systems is still in itsearly stages, initial attempts are being made to access DMPs via API for analysis. Although this cannot yet be considered a full assessment, it doesrepresentan important step toward monitoring.

By offering the RDMO tool as a hosted service with a common database within the DMP4NFDI project, weaim to support interoperable templates that are compatibleboth within and across different scientific domains.This approach will alsoestablish a solid foundation for developing effective assessment criteriaforDMPs and the digital objects they describe.

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails?

The national pilot for Germany builds on the data management planning tool (RDMO) that originates in the scientific community, since it was funded by the German Science foundation. This toolis currently being established as a base service of the national research data infrastructure in Germany (NFDI) via the DMP4NFDI project. 

Beyond RWTH Aachen University, our collaboration partners are thetechnical university of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt) andZBMed, the information centre for life sciences. The aim is to onboard as many discipline-specific consortia of the NFDI as possible.NFDI4Ing (engineering) andNFDI4Chem (chemistry) have been chosen to showcase the integration with other tools namelyChemotion andeLabFTW, an electronic lab notebook platform. By building on the interoperability framework that OSTrails aims for, we aim to establish these integrations swiftly. If successful, we anticipate extending this interoperability framework to facilitate similar integrations across other national and thematic pilots, enabling the rapid expansion of machine-actionable DMPs to support additional consortia effectively.

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

During the first half of the OSTrails project, the major task of a national pilot is to promote the OSTrails project to local services and stakeholders and of course to learn about the findings and developments of the basic working packages to evaluate their effect on the national infrastructure. To this end, we are in touch with both the developer and user community of the central RDMO DMP tool, as well as the working group infra-DMP of the national research data infrastructure NFDI.

Through the DMP4NFDI project, which is funded by the NFDI, we aim to establish RDMO as a fundamental service in Germany, supported by helpdesk services and template management. At the same time, we are working to develop a sustainable funding and support infrastructure for the ongoing enhancement of the tool.

We look forward to learning about OSTrails interoperability framework to be ready to start our integrations with other tools as soon as it becomes available.

Read the National Pilot Interview from Greece and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Zisis Simaioforidis, Technical Coordinator, Theodora Karaiskou,Librarian and RDM Support Officer at HEAL-Link and Maria Kontopidi, associate at the Athena Research Center. Enjoy!

"The Greek pilot leverages the collaboration between OpenAIRE NOADs, Athena Research Center, and HEAL-Link—two organisations actively involved in shaping policies and enhancing infrastructure to support Open Science implementation in Greece. We are excited to contribute to standardising practices across the three phases of research, which will help us align more closely with the EOSC and create streamlined pathways between services, making it easier for researchers to manage and share all types of scientific information and research outputs."

 Elli Papadopoulou, Athena ResearchCenter. 

-Can you briefly introduce your organisations? How do they contribute to EOSC?

The Greek pilot for OSTrails builds on the successful collaboration of OpenAIRE NOADs: Hellenic Academic Libraries (HEAL-Link) and Athena Research Center (ARC). The two organisations have been instrumental in advancing the Research Data Management (RDM) landscape in Greece towards more transparent and FAIR practices. Through their involvement in the Hellenic Open Science Initiative (HOSI), which published the National Open Science Plan in 2020, these organisations are actively implementing Open Science policies within their institutions and contribute to the Plan’s wider adoption by Greek research funders and institutions. OSTrails provides us with the opportunity to invest in FAIRifyng data and in management the planning of data activities and outputs, the latter supported by CITE SA.

HEAL-Link manages significant infrastructure projects such as HARDMIN, a federated data repository infrastructure that supports 15 Greek universities and serves as the academic backbone of HELIX, the Hellenic Data Service managed by ARC. These initiatives are designed to enhance the interoperability of Greek data repositories with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) by integrating services such as Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and machine-actionable DMPs (maDMPs). Furthermore, ARC is a member of the EOSC Association, a founding member of OpenAIRE that serves as a pillar infrastructure for EOSC, and recently has been coordinating the project that is building and deploying the EOSC EU Node.

Our work complements each other to ensure that Greece is well-integrated into the EOSC ecosystem, facilitating open and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data practices across its regions and public sectors.

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?

As part of the Greek pilot, at HEAL-Link we are particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity to significantly enhance the adoption of FAIR principles within the national research ecosystem. The pilot is working on developing customised DMP templates that align with the specific needs of Greek institutions and national policies. These templates will be machine-actionable, allowing for greater automation in data management processes and improving the interoperability of Greek data services with the broader European infrastructure.

This project represents a critical step towards breaking down silos within the Greek research community, fostering better communication between researchers and data stewards, and aligning national practices with European standards. With ARC and CITE we share the prospect of culminating these efforts to shift the Greek research landscape into a FAIR-enabling and open research ecosystem.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your country?

In Greece, research planning, tracking, and assessment are guided by a combination of national policies and institutional frameworks. The National Open Science Plan, published by HOSI in 2020, serves as the foundation for Open Science practices across Greek institutions. Both of us, HEAL-Link and ARC, lead the developments of HOSI, guiding and supporting others in implementing these policies. This year, the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation included open access requirements in national calls of EREVNO KAINOTOMO, while similar provisions had been introduced in the past by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (ELIDEK).

At the university level of HEAL-Link, we perform research assessment by manually collecting and analysing data, primarily focusing on bibliometrics. At ARC we are developing tools for tracking and assessing research outputs, including a demo monitor for projects funded by the GSRI. ARC’s involvement in the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and its participation in projects like GRASPOS further highlight its commitment to reforming the research assessment landscape in Greece.

The Greek pilot also plans to test and evaluate new methods and tools for research assessment, with a focus on aligning these practices with both national and European standards. This work will help ensure that Greece’s research ecosystem is not only compliant with Open Science principles but also competitive on the global stage.

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails? 

The Greek pilot is spearheaded by HEAL-Link and ARCand supported byCITE SA, a key service provider in the Greek public sector. Our primary focus is to enhance the interoperability of Greek data repositories and enrich their metadata and semantics by utilising the OpenAIRE Graph as well as configure and connect them with tools to support FAIR data management planning and sharing. The services that will be employed for the pilot’s implementation are HARDMIN data repository infrastructure, ARGOS-GR DMP platform, and PID infrastructure.

 Key activities to be performed include the development of maDMP templates, the assessment of FAIRness in university repositories, and the implementation of policies that align with the National Open Science Plan.

The Greek pilot will co-develop and adopt the results of OSTrails by integrating them into the national research ecosystem. This involves our existing national and thematic data services to follow the interoperability frameworks for SKGs, DMPs and FAIR assessment delivered by the project so that their outputs are exchanged seamlessly and in an automated way. Moreover, we will configure maDMP templates to meet the specific needs of Greek institutions and funding bodies.

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

Currently, the Greek pilot is in the preparatory phase of establishing the necessary technical infrastructure to support its objectives. This includes the development of suitable metrics for Research Data Management (RDM) and the assessment of data deposit policies within Greek universities. The pilot is also working on aligning its activities with the upcoming national policies that GSRI intends to implement, particularly concerning Open Access and DMPs in national project calls.

Next steps for the pilot include:

• Community Engagement to establish a community of stakeholders, including researchers, librarians, and data stewards, who will be involved in testing and refining the tools and services developed by the pilot.
• Cross-Pilot Collaboration within the OSTrails project to share best practices, align methodologies, and contribute to the overall success of the project.

To learn more about our Open Science efforts, visit also:

• OpenAIRE country page
• HEAL-Link
• HEAL-Link Scholarly Communication Unit

Read the National Pilot Interview from Ireland and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Lindsay Dowling, Open Research Support Unit Lead at Technological University Dublin.

 - Lindsay Dowling

TU Dublin will benefitgreatly from leading the Irish National Pilot for OSTrails, providing us with an opportunity to engage with both ourlocal Irish technological universities as project partners, and our international colleagues, to jointly implement truly interoperable systems for future development of the sector.

-Can you briefly introduce your organisation? How do they contribute to EOSC?

Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) is Ireland’s first technological university, established under theTechnological Universities Act of 2018. It is one of five new universities created as part of this initiative, all of which are collaborating as part of the national pilot for OSTrails.

These new institutions are working together across various networks, formal and informal, to develop shared approaches to research and research infrastructure development, such as the implementation of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and Data Management Planning PlatformArgos. 

As new institutions, we are in a good position to ensure our systems are truly interoperable, aligning withEOSC andOpenAIRE  frameworks. We are also actively involved in the development of Ireland’s national EOSC node, envisaged to run through our mandated member, but overseen by our nationalEOSC Association and Stakeholder Group, of which TU Dublin is an active member.

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?

What excites us most about OSTrails is thechancetocollaboratewiththe international colleagues,drawing on theirinsights andexpertiseto broaden our perspectives. We are particularlylooking forwardto the opportunity to implement and test system(s)in real-world scenarios, gaining invaluableexperiencethat will shapeour approachto future planning andsystem developmentat ourinstitutions. 

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your country?

At presentthere is no unified national strategy for planning, tracking, and assessing research in our country. These processes are typically managed at the institutional or funderlevel. Our pilot will be one of the first to look at a multi-institutional approach, aimingto inform the development of a national strategy. This effort serves asboth a proof of concept for a joint approach anda demonstration ofbest practice for technologicalimplementationsacrossthe research sector.

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails?

TU Dublin is leading the national pilot in collaboration with Ireland’s four other technological universities:South East Technological University,Munster Technological University,Atlantic Technological University andTechnological University of the Shannon. The project team consists of members from each institution from the Library & Research Offices. 

Priorities include the implementation of Argosacross our institutions as part of a suite of interoperable services designed to plan, track, and assess research activities. We see this part of the project as the building blocks for:

• A Proof of Concept for a shared national approach to research planning, tracking, and assessment. 

• Emphasizing data quality as a critical requirement for research infrastructure and its interoperability.

Further we see the ability to assess digital objects beyond ‘just’ data for FAIR compliance as being key to realising ourshared Open Research ambitions and we envisage the implementation of a recognised FAIR assessment tool - or suite thereof - as a core service at a local level, as an outcome of this project.

As emerging institutions with rapidly growing research outputs, we need systems that automated and standardized tracking and assessment of our research. At the same time, these systems must ensure flexibility and interoperability, allowing us to adapt and remain cost-efficient.

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

We are currently working closely with the OpenAire office (thanks Elli!) on developing and refining our Argos instance. Current efforts focus on creating local templates, drafting comprehensive support documentation, and testing import/export functionalities to ensure seamless operation. We aim to have our test instance ready by Q3 of 2025 to begin researcher testing and training across our institutions. 

Beyond the technical implementation, we are working on joint documentation and positions for utilization of the system to ensure as much synergy and shared approach as possible, while still accommodating the unique requirements and context of individual organizations. This dual focus ensures a robust and adaptable foundation for the pilot’s success.

Read the National Pilot Interview from Serbia and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with ObradVučkovac from the University of Belgrade, “Vinča” Institute of Nuclear Sciences - Library department. Enjoy!

 - ObradVučkovac

"The Serbian research ecosystem, particularly its funding bodies and policymakers, stands to benefit significantly from theOSTrails national pilot. One of the biggest challenges in advancing Open Science practices lies in the effective planning and assessment of research. The introduction of tailored, machine-actionable DMP templates, integrated with the national CRIS system and institutional repositories, alongside automated FAIR assessment tools, will enhance the quality and compliance of research outputs. These efforts are expected to strengthen Serbia's position within the EOSC and foster a more robust Open Science culture nationwide."

-Can you briefly introduce your organisation(s)? How does it/do they contribute to EOSC?

Established in 1808, theUniversity of Belgrade is the oldest and largest higher education institution in Serbia and one of the leading academic institutions in South-East Europe and the Mediterranean region. Dedicated to promoting Open Science practices, the University of Belgrade embraced Serbia’s national Open Science policy in 2019 and is an active member of the EOSC Association. The University is actively participating in the OSTrails national pilot through itsComputer Centre RCUB (in Serbian: Računarski centar Univerziteta u Beogradu) and theLibrary of the“Vinča” Institute of Nuclear Sciences. This initiative will involve collaboration with three additional RPOs to assess their institutional repositories and train their researchers. RCUB is the leading service provider of institutional repositories in Serbia, operating more than forty repositories. All RCUB’s repositories are designed in compliance with theOpenAIRE’s Guidelines and integrated with theOpenAIRE Research Graph. Several repositories were onboarded at the EOSC Marketplace. It serves as the OpenAIRE National Open Access Desk (NOAD) and has been involved in numerous Open Science projects and initiatives, including GEANT, BE-OPEN, OpenAIRE Advance, and NI4OS-Europe. The “Vinča” Institute of Nuclear Sciences’ Library represents the growing community of research librarians in Serbia, who have been active in managing institutional repositories and promoting Open Science practices, particularly in areas such as Research Data Management, FAIR and Open Data, and Open Access. Research librarians in Serbia are positioning themselves as leaders and advocates for Open Science by offering educational activities and providing research support to facilitate the publication of FAIR and open research results. Some of these initiatives have even been awarded through Horizon Europe-funded projects.

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?

The Serbian national pilot aims to address some of the current challenges researchers in Serbia face when practicing Open Science activities, particularly those mandated by the National Policy on Open Science and by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, the national research funder. One pressing issue is the absence of a proper DMP template in the Science Fund’s research calls. The OSTrails national pilot aims to address this by developing a machine-actionable DMP template aligned with FAIR principles, enabling the Science Fund to better integrate and utilize DMPs in their workflows. Additionally, the pilot will address the need for a FAIR assessment tool, which is crucial for evaluating research outputs in line with the mandated FAIR principles. This tool is essential for fostering Open Science practices and ensuring that data, software, and research outputs align with the broader goal of integrating into EOSC. Projects and activities like this are expected to significantly influence researchers in adopting Open Science practices. This national pilot will address all current issues and fill the gaps necessary to fully embrace the culture of Open Science in Serbia.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your country/scientific domain?

TheScience Fund of the Republic of Serbia mandates Data Management Plans (DMPs) but lacks a suitable template, leaving researchers without effective guidance. Whileprevious initiatives, including those by the EOSC Secretariat, have promoted DMP culture and developed a template in Argos DMP platform, itremains vague and insufficiently tailored for specific disciplines, particularly in managing sensitive data. This national pilot will address these gaps by creating two machine-actionable DMP templates in Argos—one for Science Fund applicants and another for University of Belgrade PhD students—aligned with Science Europe’s guidelines and FAIR principles. Additionally, guidelines for manual DMP evaluation and a FAIR assessment tool will be integrated. By2023, all research outputs in Serbia are tracked via the national CRIS, eNauka, which automatically aggregates outputs from institutional repositories, library OPAC catalogues, andCrossRef and researchers' ORCID. The planned deposition of DMP into institutional repositories through Argos and integration with other digital entities is expected to enhance overall data management practices by promoting greater transparency and usability of research outputs. Although both the national Open Science policy and the national research funder require adherence to FAIR principles for research data and outputs, there is currently no recommended or customized service for FAIR assessment. DMPs are evaluated manually, without clear guidelines on quality assessment or FAIR compliance. The existing national regulation for the assessment of research outputs primarily focuses on research articles, monographs, and similar publications, and does not adequately address the assessment of research data, software, or Open Science activities. The integration of automated FAIR assessment metrics, resulting from the OSTrails project, is expected to significantly improve the evaluation process, particularly in the project planning phase, by providing early insight into the compliance of research outputs with FAIR principles.

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails? 

The implementation of Serbia's national Open Science policy in 2018 mandates that research funded by the Ministry be publicly accessible and deposited in trusted repositories. This policy led to the rapid establishment of institutional repositories across research institutions in Serbia, with the RCUB playing a crucial role in developing the infrastructure. RCUB-developed repositories feature clear policies, long-term preservation, and integration with the OpenAIRE Research Graph. Notably, theDAIS repository of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts received the Core Trust Seal certificate in 2022. RCUB's expertise in infrastructure design and standards has been crucial to building the national CRIS, eNauka, launched in 2023. The librarian community is familiar with the Argos platform for writing and publishing DMPs, thanks to an EOSC Secretariat-funded initiative in 2020 aimed at creating a model for local capacity building in research data management, tailored to the needs of non-EU Western Balkans countries. This project produced an initial DMP template for the Science Fund, complete with guidelines. As the main priority in the OSTrails national pilot, we will continue developing Argos by designing customized, machine-actionable DMP templates. Institutional repositories and the eNauka CRIS will be enhanced with new digital object types to accommodate machine-actionable DMPs and to integrate current repositories and machine-actionable DMP tools with the OpenAIRE Graph and other SKGs. The Serbian national pilot will also support the implementation of RDM policies, promote FAIR principles, and evaluate their application in digital objects.

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

Though the national pilot officially begins in the 18th month of the OSTrails project, preparatory work is already underway. One of our key tasks is designing a machine-actionable DMP template for the national funder. We held an initial meeting with the Science Fund to present our ideas for the template and the evaluation guidelines, which received a positive response. 

Before the pilot’s official start, the following steps are planned:

a) Identifying research groups for assessing the DMP templates. 

b) Promoting the OSTrails project and our involvement in the national pilot at the “Open Science Days” conference, organized by the University of Belgrade in November 2024. 

c) Discussing the design of the DMP template for PhD students with the University representatives. 

We expect this national pilot to build on our previous efforts and significantly improve the adoption of FAIR principles and research practices in Serbia. A new national Open Science policy is forthcoming, which will cover more aspects of Open Science, such as Research Data Management, Open Data, Open Software and Hardware, and Open Infrastructures. The OSTrails project results are expected to significantly impact on the implementation of these new policies. By thoughtfully implementing machine-actionable and integrated DMPs in research processes, tracking and connecting research results with SKGs, and assessing digital objects for FAIRness, Serbian science could see substantial improvements in research support.

Read the National Pilot Interview from Spain and explore all the progress of OSTrails pilot studies. Check the latest on their national activities and learn how they’re progressing with the integration of open science and research assessment. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Diana Furcila and Pilar Rico – Castro from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).Enjoy!

 

"Our research ecosystem will be enhanced by standardizing Data Management Plans, improving metadata quality, and integrating automated tools for quality and content assessment. All these developments will improve the national alignment with the scientific FAIR principles, facilitate the collaboration between researchers at both national and international level, and impact the overall quality of Spanish scientific outputs."

-Can you briefly introduce your organisations? How do they contribute to EOSC?

The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, F.S.P. (FECYT) is a public foundation attached to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Thanks to this collaboration, FECYT works to strengthen the link between science and society through actions that promote open and inclusive science, culture and scientific education, responding to the needs and challenges of the Spanish system of science, technology and innovation.  

RECOLECTA, or Collector of Open Science, is the national aggregator of open access repositories. All Spanish digital infrastructures in which research results are published and/or deposited in open access are grouped together on this platform. Its focus is on facilitating metadata interoperability at the national level and providing access, visibility and impact to scientific research outputs. RECOLECTA provides several services to the national community of open access repositories such as metadata validation, metadata enrichment, quality assessment, harvesting, usage statistics, and a search engine.  

Regarding EOSC, FECYT represents Spain at the EOSC Steering Board together with the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, it participated in EOSC Future, and it belongs to several Open Science initiatives that will be part of the EOSC federated nodes like OPERAS AISBL and OpenAIRE. FECYT’s contribution to EOSC includes enhancing metadata quality and facilitating interoperability among repositories, which aligns with EOSC's objectives of promoting accessible and reusable research data. 

-What are you most excited about in OSTrails? What are you looking forward to?

Scientific policies in Spain are still evolving, and our pilot in OSTrails aims to contribute to a more structured and measurable scientific approach aligned with international standards. Regulating Data Management Plans (DMPs), improving metadata quality, and developing tools for quality assessment and certification is a key action to the enhancement of the Research Data Management (RDM) practices and the scientific overall quality content. This is a basic requirement for Open Science policies to run smoothly. 

Furthermore, this pilot will also enhance our own validation processes,and it will represent a guarantee that both metadata and content quality assessments evolve among standards in the European research ecosystem.

-How is planning, tracking and assessing research being realised in your country?

Beneficiaries of R&D projects from theNational Research Agency (AEI) must ensure that research results, including publications, data, software, and methodologies are available in open access and deposited upon publication in repositories according to Article 37 of Law 14/2011 (reviewed in 2022) and to Article 12 of theUniversities Spanish Organic Law 2/2023. These results must adhere to FAIR principles to facilitate validation and reusability. In addition, theNational Open Science Strategy (ENCA) calls for RDM to follow FAIR principles and foster open science practices at public R&D funding.

However, there has been no formal measurement of the implementation of these policies yet. This is where OSTrails national pilot will play a key role, by integrating FAIR principles into national systems and developing quality assessment criteria for DMPs in collaboration with the National Research Agency (AEI).

-Can you provide some details on your pilot's main actors, services and priorities? How will your pilot adopt the results of OSTrails? 

Our pilot involves key actors, such as our national repository community -and their researchers- as well as the AEI.  In collaboration with the AEI, we will first analyze the minimum quality criteria for Data Management Plans (DMPs) to be applied during the assessment process. To simplify the evaluation of DMP content, we aim to develop a natural language processing (NLP) tool for our funder, significantly reducing the administrative burden of research assessments. Additionally, the DMP content will be easily updated and monitored throughout the project lifecycle. 

Next, we will validate and enhance the quality of DMPs through RECOLECTA’s metadata validation service. We prioritize developing a standardized DMP template based on ARGOS, validating DMP metadata, and linking DMPs to key research artifacts. 

Our goal is to ensure that data is accessible, interoperable, and reusable across different systems and platforms. Improved technology will positively impact data repositories, enhancing national collaboration and integration into future broader initiatives.

Therefore, by adopting OSTrails results, we will establish a solid framework for national open access policies that align with international best practices. 

-Ongoing activities and Next Steps? 

Currently, we are in an initiation phase which includes an optimization of the technical infrastructure of our metadata validation tool while analyzing the main requirements of a DMP in our national environment. Meanwhile, we will collaborate with the AEI to also establish the DMP quality assessment criteria. These criteria will be integrated into the requirements for beneficiaries, and we plan to help researchers and institutionsby providing guidance on DMP FAIR principles and its content quality. 

Looking ahead, our next steps also include the implementation of an NLP-based tool for automated DMP evaluation, which will help to reduce administrative burdens and offer additional benefits to the research community.

National
Pilots

Overview

In brief

• Croatia

  The Ruđer Bošković Institute, the largest Croatian scientific research center of a multidisciplinary character. Within a Croatian national pilot activities, a data management plan template (maDMP) for the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ) will be developed, and the archiving of these maDMPs in local repositories will be facilitated. Additionally, metadata pertaining to maDMPs and research datasets will be integrated into the national CRIS system and interconnected with other relevant entities. This will be accomplished through the utilization of the national repository infrastructure (Dabar), the national scientific information system (CroRIS), and the Argos open-source software.

• Greece

  HEAL-Link, Hellenic Academic Libraries Link,will develop maDMP and dataset templates for the Universities of the HEAL-Link consortium, interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph, and assess FAIRness of HEAL-Link repositories’ digital objects. For this purpose, the Hellenic Academic Research Data Management Initiative (HARDMIN), HEAL-Link scholarly infrastructure services and HEAL-Link ARGOS-GR DMP tool will be employed.

• the Netherlands

  SURF, the cooperative association of Dutch educational and research institutions, will develop maDMP templates suitable for Dutch Research Council (NWO) and Universities, evaluate criteria for DMPs taking discipline specific requirements into account, and test them against the NWO rubric, embed FAIR Implementation Profiles (FIPs) into NWO and Leiden University (LU) maDMP templates, PID-ify NWO and LU maDMP templates, interoperate maDMP templates with PID Graph, extend PID Graph with maDMPs, and interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph. For this purpose,PID Graph, CWTS, research information and RDM community, EPIC Handle resolver and RAiD repository  will beemployed.

• Norway

  Sikt, the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, will develop maDMP templates for the Norwegian research community, configure and link templates with the new joint CRIS system and publications repository, extend the new joint CRIS system and publications repository with entities and Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph, Assess FAIRness of data archive digital objects, codefine DMP evaluation criteria with the Research Council of Norway, enhance the OA-Barometer with links to publications, DMPs, data and software. For this purpose, Sikt national joint CRIS and publication repository, national data archives, Sikt DMP tool and the Norwegian OA-Barometerwill beemployed.

• Serbia

  University of Belgrade will develop maDMP templates for national funder and University of Belgrade, including FAIR metrics within the template to assess DMPs content, codefine FAIR metrics for Life Sciences, Social Sciences and Applied Sciences, assess FAIRness of repositories’ digital objects and create qualified references with DMPs. For this purpose, national repositories (DAIS, CER, VinaR, etc) and Argos DMP tool will be employed.

• Austria

  In the Austrian pilot, three Austrian universities will collaborate to align and improve the support provided at Austrian research performing organisations about DMPs:
  • the Graz University of Technology Graz (TU Graz), (https://www.tugraz.at/en/home/),
  • the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), (https://www.tuwien.at/en/),
  • and the University of Vienna (UNIVIE), (https://www.univie.ac.at/en/), specifically the University Library (https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/en/) and the departments AUSSDA (The Austrian Social Science Data Archive, https://aussda.at/en/) and PHAIDRA (the University of Vienna's institutional repository, https://datamanagement.univie.ac.at/en/page/33/?l=566).
  In OSTrails, the Austrian pilot will extend, align and integrate DMP tools developed at TU Wien and TU Graz, explore and develop means to implement customizable DMP templates with dynamic building blocks, create an overview of the most popular DMP templates, and support data stewards to create discipline-specific DMP templates and processes. "

• Poland

  Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) and Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM) of Poland will develop ma-templates for National Science Center (NCN) DMPs, including metrics within the template to assess DMPs against FAIRness of their described outputs, extend ROHub tool with PIDs for different digital objects and other research entities, (ma-)DMPs and FAIR metrics and interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph, enable interoperability of repositories with the OpenAIRE Graph, codefine DMP evaluation criteria with NCN, assess FAIRness of repositories and ROHub digital objects. For this purpose, ARGOS-PL, ROHub, PIONIER.ID, National Data Storage, RepOD, RDS, MX-RDR will be employed.

• Ireland

  Ireland's first technological university, incorporated in 2018 and encompassing three previous institutes of technology. A multidisciplinary institution with five faculties. In the context of OSTrails, TU Dublin will act as the national lead for the now five technological universities in Ireland, who will take part in the project as a consortium.

• Portugal

  The University of Minho was funded in 1973 and its mission is to generate, disseminate and apply knowledge, based on freedom of thought and the plurality of critical exercises, promoting higher education and contributing to the construction of a model of society based on humanist principles, with knowledge, creativity and innovation as factors of growth, sustainable development, well-being and solidarity. know more - https://www.uminho.pt/EN/Pages/default.aspx
  The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) is the national public agency that supports research, technology and innovation in all areas of knowledge. Under the supervision of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, the FCT began its activities 1997. FCT's mission is to continuously promote the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge in Portugal, to achieve the highest international standards of quality and competitiveness in all scientific and technological fields, and to stimulate its dissemination and contribution to society and the productive fabric. know more - https://www.fct.pt/

• France

  Inria, the French national research institute for digital science and technology, will act as the national lead for the computer science community and develop 2 maDMP templates. Having pioneered OS software infrastructure (co-founding Software Heritage), we pay particular attention to software and its place in DMPs in relation to data. Inria works closely with the French Recherche Data Gouv ecosystem to improve DMP software integration by linking relevant articles citing software and data and aims at archiving these maDMPS in the French national repository HAL.

• Finland

  CSC provides solutions to Finnish research community, coordinating the DMP Consortium, FAIR data services, national CRIS system, and Academy of Finland’s funding proposal management tool. In the Finnish pilot focus will be on data interoperability rather than building specific solutions, and the national DMP Consortium and the Finnish National Open Science Coordination will be heavily involved, ensuring a greater effect on the Finnish research community. Finnish CRIS system (Research.fi), the Academy of Finland’s online services (SARA) and several DMP tools (e.g. DMPTuuli, and other relevant) will be employed and technical API interphases tested.

• Germany

  RWTH Aachen University will Develop ma-templates for the NFDI4Chem and NFDI4Ing DMPs, including metrics within the templates to assess DMPs against FAIRness of their described outputs, configure and link NFDI4Chem template with Chemotion Electronic Lab Notebook, create qualified references of DMPs and Lab Notebooks, interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph. For this purpose, RDMO; Chemotion Electronic Lab Notebook and repository will be employed.

• Spain

  RECOLECTA, or Collector of Open Science, is the national aggregator of open access repositories. All Spanish digital infrastructures in which research results are published and / or deposited in open access are grouped together on this platform.
  The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, F.S.P. (FECYT) is a public foundation attached to the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Thanks to this collaboration, the FECYT works to strengthen the link between science and society through actions that promote open and inclusive science, culture and scientific education, responding to the needs and challenges of the Spanish system of science, technology and innovation.
  More Info: https://recolecta.fecyt.es/

• Czech Republic

  Czech technical university in Prague (CTU) will develop maDMP templates for NTK, including metrics within the template to assess DMPs against FAIRness of their described artefacts, assess FAIRness of CTU digital objects, deploy the DMP evaluator Tool, codefine DMP evaluation criteria with national funders (Czech Science Foundation and Technology Agency of the Czech Republic). For this purpose, DSW Czech instance, PID infrastructure and CTU Dspace will be employed.  

• Sweden

  University of Gothenburg (UGOT) and the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE) will  develop ma-template for DMPs based on the SND Checklist for DMPs, embedding FAIR metrics within the template to assess DMPs against FAIRness of their described artefacts, align with DORIS and explore links with local and national CRIS systems (SweCRIS), interoperate with the OpenAIRE Graph, assess FAIRness of SND DORIS digital objects, deploy DMP Evaluator Tool at SND. For this purpose, SND and DORIS (data organisation and publication system), SweCRIS systems and local CRIS from Universities will be employed.

Partners

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  Rudjer Boskovic Institute

• 

  Hellenic Academic Libraries Link

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  "Athena" Research Center

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  SURF

• 

  Centre for Science and Technology Studies

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  Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education & Research

• 

  University of Belgrade

• 

  TU Wien

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  University of Vienna

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  TU Graz

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  Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center

• 

  University of Warsaw

• 

  Technical University of Dublin

• 

  University of Minho

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  Foundation for Science and Technology

• 

  Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique

• 

  Finnish IT centre for science

• 

  RWTH Aachen University

• 

  FECYT

• 

  Czech technical university in Prague

• 

  University of Göteborg

The occasion

On May 7th 2024, OSTrails was in Madrid for the 1st Symposium of Research Infrastructures (RIs) organised by the RICH Europe project. The event complemented the project’s activities to strengthen and standardise the services of Research Infrastructures National Contact Points (NCPs) across Europe. It highlighted Horizon Europe's support for Open Science and broader access to RIs, showcasing funded projects, educating NCPs, and fostering global dialogue on RIs.

Supporting EOSC and Open Science Policies

During the Symposium, a session was held to reflect on the project's lessons learned and gather feedback that would enhance the Open Science policy landscape in Europe. Pilar Castro, Head of the Open Access, Repositories and Journals Unit at FECYT, a beneficiary of OSTrails, moderated the session and Elli Papadopoulou, deputy coordinator of OSTrails, provided an overview of the project activities contributing to enhancing the EOSC infrastructure and policies for open science. 

OSTrails has set the ambitious goal of delivering a FAIR-enhanced, interconnected and machine actionable environmentalong with the pathways to navigate scientific informationshared across services that enable and support planning, tracking and assessing research activities. To achieve this, the consortium consists of major service providers of data management plans (DMPs), FAIR assessments and scientific knowledge graphs (SKGs)who collaborate to ensure interoperability and develop common methods, standards and tools for integrating and harmonising best practices. 

Complementary to the technical work, 25 pilots serve as the backbone of the project ensuring that the results are fit-for-purpose and pragmatic, respecting the diverse research ecosystems of the 15 national infrastructures and the 9 Science Clusters RIs that they represent. In this endeavour, the user communities, research funders and local stakeholders are engaged to co-define and validate the outcomes of the project in different countries and domains reflecting on and supporting their open science policies. Finally, a pilot on the Horizon Europe framework programme aims to scale up the adoption of OSTrails results leveraging the OpenAIRE Graph data.  

Key takeaways

All presentations of the dedicated policy session emphasised the importance of community involvement in driving progress -> “by community, for community”. Furthermore, the discussion highlighted the opportunities arising by infrastructures in strengthening data sharingand eliminating market failures similar to the scientific publishers phenomenon, and they challenged the implementation of Open Science which is different at macro and micro levels (European vs national vs institutional). Overall, it underscored the use of curated data, transparent indicators, and knowledge graphs, such as the OpenAIREGraph, to inform policymaking effectively, and exuded hope towards initiatives such as CoARA that have the ability to accelerate Open Science adoption targeting the much needed shift of the research culture today.

Resources

• The presentation is available at the OSTrails Zenodo community. 
• The recordings of the symposium can be found on YouTube: RICH Europe 1st Symposia. "The role of the RIs in the Open Science and the ERA implementation" (youtube.com)

Open Science Days, the national biannual conference organized by the University of Belgrade since 2016, showcases the latest developments and projects in Open Science across Serbia and the Western Balkans. This fifth edition featured over ten initiatives supported largely by EU-funded projects, highlighting contributions from researchers, university professors, and librarians to advancing Open Science practices and infrastructure.

Among the presentations, Obrad Vučkovac, a librarian from the University of Belgrade’s Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, introduced the OSTrails project and the forthcomingSerbian national pilot. His talk outlined the project's goals, with full pilot results to be presented at the next Open Science Days in 2026.

Another presentation on OSTrails and the Serbian national pilot was held at theBEAMING Open Science Clustering event at the University of Novi Sad. The BEAMING project, a Horizon Europe initiative under the WIDERA programme, fosters innovation and bioeconomy through cooperation between higher education institutions, focusing on widening countries in Central-Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, thereby boosting Open Science practices and enhancing the visibility of Serbian scientific work within international frameworks.