Belgium

Belgium

Belgium recognized in an early stage the importance of Open Access. Many Belgian research organisations subscribed to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2007. This ambition was affirmed by the Brussels Declaration on Open Access, signed in 2012 by the Belgian, Flemish and French Community ministers of research at a conference organised by OpenAIRE. The declaration makes Open Access the default in circulating the results of Belgian academic and scientific research.

Many universities and research institutions in Belgium run an institutional or subject-based Open Access repository. At present almost all universities and major university colleges have Open Access repositories. At present OpenDOAR list 36 Belgian repositories.

An Open Access provision has been adopted in the Belgian law in Sep. 2018. This law gives authors the right to make scholarly publications available in open access if the publication is a result of research funded by public funds for at least 50%, with a maximum embargo period of  6 months for STM and 12 months for SSH.

The ‘Open Access Decree’ of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation consolidates the deposit policy of the Universities, stipulating that all scientific articles subsidized by public funds must be deposited in an institutional directory.

The three main Belgian funders (BELSPO, FWO, F.N.R.S.) all have an Open Access Mandate. BELSPO also has an Open Data Mandate, FWO has research data management regulation in place.

The first Belgian EOSC event, called "Belgian Open Science EOSC Initiatives" was organized by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the Flemish and Federal Authorities and aimed to bring together all Belgian partners in EOSC projects.

EOSC in Belgium - an overview

The working groups of the Executive Board and nominated Belgian experts are:

EOSC related projects with Belgian partners