Platforma za otvorenu nauku (2018), Ministry of Education Science and Technological Development (MESTD)

What is this about?

The Platforma za otvorenu nauku (2018), produced by Serbia’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (MESTD), provides a national framework for open science and open access in Serbia. 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 platform 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 detailed data management plans. Responsibilities are defined for authors and institutions, covering funding acknowledgment, rights retention, and budgeting, while justified embargoes and sensitive-data exceptions are transparently documented. It encourages enabling infrastructure repositories, registries, discovery services and aligns with international initiatives such as Plan S and the European Open Science Cloud. Assessment focuses on the quality of openness, including machine-readable metadata, persistent identifiers, and sharing of methods, code, and data. Equity, multilingual communication, and capacity building are emphasized. Implementation relies on early planning, institutional support, and funder-backed infrastructure. The document serves as a practical reference, checklist, and benchmark, supporting compliance, transparency, reproducibility, and harmonization with global norms.

For whom is this important?

Funding institutionsPolicy makersResearch institutionsResearchers

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