The Mallorca Declaration (2016), Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Experts (RISE)

What is this about?

The Mallorca Declaration (2016), produced by Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Experts (RISE), is an international resource written in English and aimed at researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, and policymakers across Europe and beyond. It frames openness as the default, guided by the principle of being “as open as possible, as closed as necessary,” while balancing ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and security. The declaration links open science to improved research quality, reproducibility, faster translation, and equitable access, particularly for communities with limited subscription access. Core guidance covers open access to publications, Creative Commons licensing, persistent identifiers, repository deposition, FAIR data principles, and data management plans addressing stewardship, metadata, and repository choice. Responsibilities are outlined for authors (rights retention, funding acknowledgment), institutions (training, repository services), funders (supporting core infrastructure), and publishers (author rights, interoperability, metadata standards). Embargoes are discouraged but permitted with transparent justification, and secure governance mechanisms manage sensitive or commercial data. Infrastructure such as repositories, registries, and discovery services supports compliance and visibility, aligned with initiatives like Plan S and the European Open Science Cloud. Emphasizing equity, responsible openness, and inclusion, the declaration provides actionable steps, reduces ambiguity, and serves as a benchmark reference for institutional policies, training, and grant documentation.

For whom is this important?

All stakeholders in research

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