On July 16, the Open Science Steering Committee approved the evolution of the financial contribution made by the French scientific institutions with a HAL portal as well as a new governance scheme for the Center for Direct Scientific Communication (CCSD), the service unit that created and still develops HAL.
HAL is a major part in the French national policy for Open Science: it enables the diffusion of more than 750,000 scientific documents and hosts 124 institutional open archives (portals). Its development requires a sustainable increase of financial resources. The current recurring revenues of 1 million € are brought by CNRS, Inria and INRAE. In addition, an annual financial contribution has been requested since 2018 from the institutions with a portal. The amount and terms of this contribution are evolving: the steering committee for Open Science has approved the principle of a contribution based on the number of researchers of the institution.
| Researchers headcount | Amount of the contribution |
| < 199 |
2,000 € |
| Between 200 and 499 |
4,000 € |
| Between 500 and 999 |
8,000 € |
| Between 1,000 and 1,999 |
13,000 € |
| ≥ 2,000 |
18,000 € |
This contribution will be implemented in 2022.
A new governance for the CCSD
The objective of this new governance is to better involve users in the development of the platforms and to strengthen the scientific council by giving it an international dimension.
It will be implemented in 2021 and is organized in 4 bodies:
- the steering committee gathers the 4 supervising bodies of the CCSD (CNRS, Inria, INRAE and University of Lyon) ; the Ministry of higher education, research and innovation ; the Conference of University Presidents (CPU) ; and the director of the CCSD. It decides on budgetary aspects, human resources, arbitrates among the proposals of the orientation committee and responds to those given by the Steering Committee for Open Science;
- the orientation committee is composed of the same members as the steering committee, plus the President of the International Scientific Council and 6 representatives of the Partners Council and other CCSD platforms. Its role is to propose orientations to the Steering Committee on the basis of the needs identified by the users and the recommendations of the International Scientific Council; ;
- the international scientific council (12 or 13 persons appointed by the steering committee). Its role is to ensure a scientific and technological watch and to advise on partnerships.
- the partners assembly gathers the representative of the contributing establishments having a HAL portal (more than one hundred members)
These new elements will allow the technical consolidation of HAL, the development of new services to users and institutions, and they will promote a better insertion in the ecosystem of European open science infrastructures.
See the Ministry’s press release