EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This deliverable presents a roadmap of practical policy actions to establish the policy environment required for the effective operation of, access to and use of the European Open Science Cloud. Its strategic goal is to create an Ethical, Open, Secure and Cost-effective EOSC.

The final set of nine policy recommendations was produced by performing activities to validate and prioritise 43 draft policy recommendations previously produced by Work Package 3 of EOSCpilot, published in deliverable D3.3 in August 2018.

The nine final recommendations are:

1. Ethics: Commit to a policy of maximal transparency and accountability, in the context of any activity that relates to EOSC data, data providers, services or users, including activities carried out with third parties.

2. Access: EOSC resources must provide access to their facilities and be accessible themselves in an open, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and equitable manner for excellent Open Science and Open Scholarship to be performed, shared and exploited.

3. Open Science Conduct and Outputs: Simplify, clarify and improve consistency to enable and encourage the practice of Open Science

4. Intellectual Property Rights: Encourage open access to and reutilisation of research outputs by providing a comprehensive and coherent IPR framework.

5. Awareness and Skills: Help develop the necessary awareness and skills for the EOSC.

6. Incentives: Provide incentives for practicing Open Science and embed open principles in recruitment, promotion and evaluation of researchers at all stages of their careers.

7. Policy Supporting Services: Develop and operate Open Science Policy Supporting Services to assist policy adoption and promote best practices.

8. Data Protection and Information Security: Ensure EOSC Open Access research data use and reuse permit the rights and obligations of Data Protection Legislation (most notably the EU General Data Protection Regulation) to be achieved in a fair, transparent and accountable manner.

9. Procurement: Ensure that aggregated procurement is utilised by the EOSC where appropriate when making resources available to the EOSC marketplace.

Each recommendation is elaborated with practical, actionable implementing actions targeted at stakeholder groups including the Phase I EOSC governance, research funding organisations, research producing organisations and research infrastructures.The importance of inclusive and transparent debate is emphasised: stakeholder views and requirements should be incorporated throughout policy drafting, adoption and implementation. The implementing actions include proposals for EOSC governance substructures and expertise including a Policy Standing Committee, an Ethics and Legal Advisory Board, and IPR and Data Protection Working Groups; awareness-raising, skills and advocacy; operational frameworks and codes of conduct; and policy supporting services. A draft EOSC Data Protection framework is also provided.

Compliance with EOSC policies, once developed and adopted, is expected to be managed through the EOSC Rules of Participation. A minimal set of Rules of Participation was proposed in EOSCpilot deliverable D2.5 ^[1]https://eoscpilot.eu/content/d25-recommendations-minimal-set-rules-participation. Updates to the Rules of Participation may be required in future to ensure alignment and consistency with EOSC policies as they are adopted and implemented. Several of the proposed actions are however aimed at stakeholder groups independently of their participation in the EOSC.