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

At the end of 2024, the Czech Academy of Sciences approved a new strategic document, the Open Science Principles of the Czech Academy of Sciences, which provides a fundamental framework and recommendations for implementing the principles of open science across CAS institutes.

You can find more information about this document and thematic policies and related conceptual materials of CAS at the page OS Policies at CAS Institutes.

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the Support of Research and Development from Public Funds and on the Amendment to Some Related Acts (unfortunately only outdated version is availalbe – a few last changes, describing requirement for data management, are missing).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.

Last updated on July 7, 2025