Open Science Policies
CERN’s commitment to Open Science is grounded in a clear and evolving policy framework that reflects the Organisation’s mission to advance knowledge openly for the benefit of humanity. CERN’s Open Science policies provide the foundation for making research outputs—publications, data, software, and other digital assets—accessible and reusable, while ensuring that openness is implemented responsibly, sustainably, and in alignment with the needs of the scientific community.
These policies define CERN’s institutional principles and expectations across key Open Science domains, and are supported by dedicated governance structures and implementation services. The core policy documents are listed below
Open Science Policy (2022)
CERN’s overarching Open Science Policy sets out the Organisation’s commitment to openness across publications, data, software, hardware, and related practices, providing a holistic framework for Open Science at CERN.
Open Data Policy for the LHC Experiments (2020)
This policy defines the principles and conditions for the responsible release and reuse of research data produced by the LHC experiments, supporting transparency, education, and long-term scientific value.
Open Access Policy (2014)
CERN’s Open Access Policy establishes the Organisation’s approach to ensuring that scientific publications are made openly available, enabling broad dissemination and reuse of CERN’s research results.
CERN authors are required to publish all of their peer-reviewed primary research articles open access (by default under a Creative Commons attribution license, i.e. CC-BY-4.0)