Horizon 2020

The Politecnico di Torino successfully takes part in the European Union’s research funding programmes with the aim of accrediting the University among Europe’s best technical universities and promoting the quality of research.

To this end, Horizon 2020, a European Commission funding programme for scientific research and innovation in support of a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy, was launched.

The programme thus designed aims to improve access to scientific information and increase the benefits of public investment in research by making publicly funded scientific information available online, at no extra cost, to European researchers, innovative industries and the public, ensuring its long-term preservation.

In the H2020 Programme Guidelines the European Commission:

  • indicates the use of repositories (for the Politecnico: Porto@Iris) as a means of depositing publications;
  • requires that any refereed article published within the framework of the H2020 project be deposited in a repository and made available for open access immediately after publication or no later than 6 months after the official publication date (12 months for SSH);
  • indicates that it is possible to deposit both the editorial version postprint and the author’s accepted manuscript;
  • reminds researchers that any costs for open access publication (APC) are reimbursable if these costs were foreseen in the budget at the proposal stage.

H2020@polito

To this end, the Politecnico designed “H2020@polito”, a project to encourage participation in the programme.

The project comprises a comprehensive set of actions and tools to support the University’s lecturers and researchers with the aim of increasing/maintaining a comparable level of performance in Horizon 2020 (2014-2020).

More in detail, the project aims to:

  • increase participation and improve project capability;
  • increase the multidisciplinarity of project proposals;
  • increase the involvement of stakeholders, large companies and the capability to work as a system;
  • improve visibility internationally and towards the European institutions.

 

The Research Area of the Politecnico has also drawn up a document Open Access in H2020: operational modalities (Italian version (629.74 kB) - English version) (612.52 kB) that provides the main operational modalities to comply with the obligations set out by the European Commission for peer-reviewed scientific publications produced within the framework of projects funded by the European funding programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 (H2020).

HOW TO COMPLY WITH OPEN ACCESS REQUESTS
WINNING HORIZON 2020 WITH OPEN SCIENCE

Supporting initiatives

Within the framework of Horizon 2020, supporting initiatives and programmes have emerged:

  • Plan S, the initiative launched in September 2018 by Science Europe, the association of the largest organisations funding and conducting Research in Europe;
  • the SIR (Scientific Independence of young Researchers) programme - the call for applications for which was published on 23 January 2014 on the Miur website;
  • The PRIN call.

Plan S is the initiative launched in September 2018 by Science Europe, the association of the largest organisations funding and conducting research in Europe.

The key principle of Plan S states that, by 2021, publicly funded research must be published in open access journals or platforms.

The plan is structured in 10 principles of which the main ones are as follows:

1) From 2021, articles must be in Open Access at the time of publication without embargo, preferably with a CC BY licence

2) Authors must retain copyright on their publications

3) It will no longer be possible to publish in hybrid journals (traditional journals, for which a subscription is already paid, which offer, for an additional fee, the possibility of making individual articles Open)

4) A cap is set on the publication charges (APC, Article Processing Charges) required in Open Access journals

5) Funding entities will pay for APCs

 

Useful links on Plan S

What is cOALition S?
Why Plan S?
Principles and implementation
Journals or platforms providing routes to compliance with Plan S

Within the framework of Horizon 2020, the SIR (Scientific Independence of young Researchers) programme was launched in Italy, and its call for proposals was published on 23 January 2014 on the MIUR website. The aim of the project is to support under-40 researchers in the early stages of their careers, with an allocation of over 47 million Euro. “The programme,” as stated on the MIUR website, “consists of funding research projects carried out by independent research teams of high scientific quality, under the scientific coordination of a Principal Investigator (PI), Italian or foreign, resident in Italy or from abroad, who has obtained a PhD (or medical specialisation, in the absence of a doctorate) no more than six years prior”.

The project selection procedure is aligned with that of the European Research Council.

Special attention is paid to the topic of Open Access: the programme stipulates that all funded scientific publications must be made open access.

The 2015-2020 National Research Programme (PNR - Programma Nazionale Ricerca) has the ambition of becoming a platform for driving industrial competitiveness and the country’s development through knowledge tools. An agile prioritisation and coordination tool available to all players in the research and innovation system. The PNR has earmarked 2.5 billion public funds for research, over 40% of total resources for Human Capital, with the aim of increasing the number of researchers and PhDs in the Country and attracting the best talent, supporting the youngest in the competition for EU funds. Particular attention will be paid to European Grant (ERC) winners, who will be encouraged to choose Italy as the location for their projects through additional funding to set up their own research teams.

The main objectives of the PNR are:

  • internationalisation, coordination and integration of national initiatives with European and global ones
  • give centrality to investment in human capital
  • provide selective support for research infrastructures
  • public-private collaboration, meant here as a structural lever for research and innovation
  • implement priority actions for the South of the country
  • efficiency and quality of expenditure, through the definition and strengthening of evaluation, monitoring, transparency, simplification and administrative reinforcement processes.

 There are four priority areas for applied research: Aerospace, Agrifood, Health, Industry 4.0.

Bando relativo al programma SIR 2014
participating institutions
National Research Programme 2015-2020

Objective of the Italian call for proposals: Facilitate the strengthening of national scientific foundations, also in view of a more effective participation in European initiatives related to the EU Framework Programmes

Deadline: 29 March 2018

Lines of action:

  • Main Line
  • Youth line (all participating researchers must be under-40 on the date of submission)
  • SOUTH line (all operational units must be based in Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Apulia, Sicily, Abruzzo, Molise and Sardinia)

Field of interest: LS - Life sciences; PE - Physical sciences and engineering; SH - Humanities and social sciences

Duration: 36 months

Go to the call PRIN