Declaration Open Science Macedonia (2021), National Open Science Cloud Initiative

What is this about?

The Declaration Open Science Macedonia (2021), produced by the National Open Science Cloud Initiative, provides a national framework for open science and open access in North Macedonia. It translates high-level principles into actionable guidance for researchers, institutions, funders, and publishers, promoting openness as the default while respecting ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and security. The declaration links openness to research quality, reproducibility, equitable access, and faster translation of knowledge, particularly for communities with limited resources. Key elements include open access to publications with preferred licensing (e.g., Creative Commons), deposition in trusted repositories, FAIR data principles, and robust data management plans. Responsibilities are defined for authors and institutions, including funding acknowledgment, rights retention, and budget considerations, while justified embargoes and sensitive-data exceptions are documented transparently. The declaration encourages enabling infrastructure—repositories, registries, discovery services—and aligns with international initiatives like Plan S and the European Open Science Cloud. Assessment emphasizes the quality of openness, not just publication counts, including machine-readable metadata, persistent identifiers, and sharing of methods, code, and data. Equity, multilingual communication, and capacity building are emphasized to prevent reinforcing disparities. Implementation requires early planning, institutional support, and funder-backed infrastructure. The document serves as a practical reference, checklist, and benchmark, supporting compliance, transparency, and harmonization with global norms.

For whom is this important?

ResearchersResearch institutionsPolicy makersFundersJournal publishers

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