Open Science

The following links and documents are available in Croatian only. Participants may use free AI-powered translation tools to access the provided materials.

Open Science is a set of principles and practices aimed at making scientific research from all disciplines and in all languages openly accessible, reusable, and shareable for everyone, for the benefit of both the scientific community and society as a whole.

It promotes a comprehensive open process of knowledge creation that includes open scientific communication, the popularisation of science, open dialogue, transparent peer review, and open evaluation. In addition, open science advocates the use of open formats, open data and tools, open standards, open scientific infrastructures, and open-source software. In its broader understanding, open science also encompasses open education and the active involvement of the public through citizen science initiatives.

The Higher Education and Scientific Activity Act of 2022 establishes open science as a fundamental principle of scientific, artistic, and higher education activities in Croatia. The Act emphasises the public availability of scientific research results and artistic outputs, as well as the general openness of higher education institutions towards the public, citizens, and local communities.

In May 2025, the Croatian Open Science Plan was also adopted. An overview of open science in the Republic of Croatia is an integral part of the Croatian Open Science Plan, which was developed by a working group formed within the framework of the Croatian Open Science Cloud Initiative (HR-OOZ).

Open science is recognized as a key priority in European and national scientific policies, which is also confirmed by the Research Infrastructure Development Plan in the Republic of Croatia 2023–2027. This plan emphasises that research infrastructures should be guided by FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and should implement open research data management practices.

Further support for the implementation of open science principles in the Croatian research landscape is provided by the National Croatian Research Information System (CroRIS) and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), as well as its Croatian counterpart, the Croatian Open Science Cloud (HR-OOZ).

In January 2021, Croatia became a member of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC Association). The Ministry appointed the University Computing Centre (SRCE) as the mandated organization, enabling Croatia to join the European community actively engaged in the development of open science and in improving access to research data and services through the EOSC platform.

Consequently, in July 2021, SRCE launched the Initiative for the Croatian Cloud for Open Science (HR-OOZ). The Croatian Open Science Cloud represents an organisational and technological environment designed to promote and support open science. It provides Croatian researchers, innovators, institutions, and citizens with a reliable, integrated, and open multidisciplinary environment for publishing, discovering, and reusing services and resources related to research, innovation, and education. The aim of HR-OOZ is to build a modern, high-quality, internationally relevant, and competitive scientific system in Croatia, grounded in open science principles and aligned with the European Research Area and relevant European initiatives.

Figure 1: Generated by the Gemini AI Tool

Open science emphasizes transparency and knowledge sharing, while learning analytics provides the data foundation for making educational decisions. In this way, analytics can be understood as part of a broader movement of openness, where data becomes a shared resource for improving practice. You can learn about learning analytics in the course Learning Analytics.