Research policy

  • Research Integrity and Ethics
    • FZU endorses excellence in research in all its aspects. In science, our researchers are guided by honesty, respect, transparency, accountability in research practices set out in the Code of Ethics for Employees of FZU, Ethical Codex of CAS and the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.
    • FZU ensures that the scientists are mindful of conflicts of interest both in peer review and evaluations; of presenting their research in such a way that it ensures Open Access wherever possible; of sharing their results with the public and promoting science. FZU has an Ethics Committee as well as mechanisms in place of evaluating ethical issues and established processes to deal with research misconduct should any such occur. 

 

  • Open Science
    • FZU supports open science in all aspects of research, its management, sharing, dissemination, publishing and evaluation. It is a concept that facilitates collaborative, reproducible and exploitable research and ensures open access to texts, data, software, and other, and increases the quality and impact of scientific results. Facilitation of results sharing, easier data verification and minimising duplicity in research makes science more effective and flexible to react to societal needs.

 

  • Open Access
    • FZU endorses Open Access mode of publishing that provides immediate, free, permanent and unrestricted access to scientific results. In 2020, a new information unit with a dedicated staff has been created in the FZU library to assist researchers with Open Access publishing. The team follows the latest developments in the topic and ensures that results of FZU researchers are published according to the funders' requirements. Together with experts from other local science institutions, the team organises regular training on Open Access and Copyright for researchers.
    • The new unit has prepared a dedicated website with Guidelines that clearly and in an accessible way describe Open Access publishing of scientific results as well as internal procedures. To support the effort, an Open Access internal directive is now in place. Regarding Open Access publishing, FZU continues cooperating with the ASEP repository of the Czech Academy of Sciences that fulfils all requirements of an Open Access repository.

 

  • Research Data Management
    • With the increased demand for Open Data management by policy makers and funders, the approach to managing and sharing data with as little restrictions as possible is changing.
    • Since 2017, EC has been running an Open Research Data Pilot in the H2020 programme with the possibility of an opt-out. In Horizon Europe, however, Research Data Management Plan will be an obligatory part of any funded project. The data will have to be stored in an Open Data repository. 
    • FZU is committed to ensuring that data from research are publicly available provided that their character allows it. Research related data should be deposited in line with the FAIR principle – that is

                  (i) easily findable in a publicly available depository,

                  (ii) clearly presented and,

                  (iii) verifiable so that they may

                  (iv) be used by others in their research.

FZU is aware that different data require a different form of presentation and therefore does not prescribe the format of the data presentation. In facilitating open access to research data FZU relies on the support of the Czech Academy of Sciences.