Open Science › Support › Legislation

Legislation

Open access to results and data has been a trend in the EU in recent years, which is now also coming to the Czech Republic. Gradually, the requirements for the practice of open science are being implemented from the level of the European Parliament Directives into national legislation, strategies, action plans, sub-legislative standards up to the level of internal regulations and institutional policies.

CAS

The Academy of Sciences does not currently have any policy dedicated exclusively to open science.

You can find general information on thematic policies and related conceptual materials of CAS at the page OS Policies at CAS Institutes.

Code of Ethics for Researchers in the CAS

However, the Code of Ethics for Researchers in the CAS (Czech), among other things, articulate the following:

“A researcher: when publishing findings and results on a particular problem, is responsible for their completeness and verifiability and interprets them without bias; after publication, retains primary data and documentation of all significant results for the period of time customary in the relevant discipline, unless prevented by other obligations or regulations; publishes with the aim of communicating results and findings to the scientific community, not merely to report work as scientific output as indicator for evaluating process.”

Open Access Policy in the CAS

The Open Access Policy (Czech) was approved at the 21st meeting of the Academic Council of the CAS on 14 October 2010.

“An essential part of the academic mission is to ensure that the results of the scientific activities of the CAS and its departments can be used by the widest possible community of scientists and other users of research results, as well as by the general public.

The current opportunities in electronic publishing lead the CAS to support initiatives that expand the range of opportunities for free publication and dissemination of scientific results. The CAS is committed to disseminating the results of scientific research as widely as possible.

In accordance with this commitment, the CAS adopts the following publication policy: The CAS Institutes are obliged to make every effort to provide the CAS and the Library of the CAS, (hereinafter referred to as “LCAS”) with publication outputs – employee works – created by their employees and non-exclusive licenses to use them, in particular the right to reproduce by any means and in any form and the right to communicate the work to the public within the legal framework of the Czech Republic and with respect to any licensing arrangements with publishers. In order to comply with this publication policy, the Institutes of the CAS, as employers of authors, are obliged to ensure that their exercise of copyright ownership rights to these employee works is not restricted. (…)

Publication outputs will be provided in electronic form. LCAS will ensure that they are deposited in the CAS repository and made available to the public as soon as possible, taking into account the fact that some publishers may impose a publication embargo on these works…”

National regulation

Principal legal rules and regulations and documents on research and development in the Czech Republic are mostly in Czech, there is only few official translations to English:

  • ACT No. 130/2002 Coll. on the Support of Research and Development from Public Funds and on the Amendment to Some Related Acts (unfortunately only outdated version is availalbe – a few last changes, describing requirement for data management, are missing).
  • Some other research related legal rules are accessible at the official webpage of Ministry of Science

At national level, the following legislation and policies exist in this area:

Act No. 241/2022 Coll.

Act No. 241/2022 came into force in September 2022 and it amends, among other Acts, Act No. 130/2002 Coll., the Act on Support for Research and Development from Public Funds and on Amendments to Certain Related Acts (Act on Support for Research and Development).

This amendment Act implements Directive (EU) 2019/1024 on open data and the reuse of public-sector information into the Czech legislation (with a slight delay). This amendment enacted the obligation to provide research data on the results supported by public funds upon request for all projects from public competitions in research, development and innovation, international calls and public contracts announced after 1. August 2022. The transitional provision of this law postpones the obligation for research data in projects prepared for competitions announced (or in projects financed from institutional support provided) before this law enters into force.

Act No. 130/2002 Coll.

Article 2 contains definition of research data:

“o) research data (means) information, other than scientific publications, in electronic form, which is collected or generated in the course of research or development and is used as evidence in the research or development process or which is generally accepted by the research community as necessary to validate the findings and results of research or development.”

Article 9 defines the elements of a contract between a funder and a recipient:

“Modification of the relationship between the funder and the recipient (1) The funder shall enter into a contract with the recipient of the targeted support… The contract shall include at least…

(l) the manner in which the research data will be managed,
(m) …research results and research data shall not be made publicly available except where justified”

Articel 12 Provision of information – define obligation to inform about research data:

(1) Support may be granted only on condition that true and timely information is published by both the recipient and the provider about the research, development and innovation carried out and the results and research data through the research, development and innovation information system.

In 2022, Article 12a Access to Research Data was added to the Act – which defines the obligation to provide information about and access to research data upon request (only selected passages):

Atricle 12a Access to Research Data

(1) Upon request, the recipient shall provide research data, including research data that are supplements to or part of scientific publications, free of charge to a third party, (…) The obligation under the first sentence shall apply only to research data created or used in research or development supported under this Act, that has been paid for with public funds and at least 12 months since the end of the support.
(2) The beneficiary may refuse to provide research data in cases where this would result in a disproportionate interference with the right to protection of privacy and personal data, the right to protection of commercial interest, the security of the State or other legitimate interests of the recipient.
(…)
(5) Where the research data are already published in a manner allowing remote access, a reference to the place where the research data are already published shall be sufficient to fulfill the obligation under paragraph 1.

European regulation

At European level, open science policy is mainly governed by Directive (EU) 2019/1024 on open data and the reuse of public-sector information.

DISCLAIMER – If its not stated othervise, all the citations from czech laws and rules are non-authorized translations. Use it only for informative purposes.