Netherlands
The Netherlands has made notable contributions to open science infrastructure, through its role in the origin of the FAIR Principles and through the Donders Institute’s early adoption of institutional mandatory data sharing. Dutch research funders and institutions have adopted open access and FAIR data policies aligned with European mandates.
Open Science Policy
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has operated a national open access policy since 2015 and coordinates Open Science NL, the national open science programme launched in 2023 as a task force (regieorgaan) within NWO with a mandate to establish open science as the norm in the Netherlands within ten years. NWO requires data management plans for funded projects and mandates deposit of research data in a trusted repository. Dutch universities and research institutes collectively operate under the National Plan Open Science. Dutch funders and institutions participated in the development of cOAlition S and its Plan S framework.
Origin of the FAIR Principles
The FAIR Principles, published in 2016 and now widely adopted as a reference framework for research data management, originated at a Lorentz Center workshop in Leiden in January 2014, convened by a group of researchers, data scientists, and infrastructure providers working toward a common set of principles for data stewardship. The workshop and subsequent drafting process produced the Wilkinson et al. 2016 paper in Scientific Data that codified the 15 FAIR principles. This historical contribution reflects the longstanding Dutch investment in research data infrastructure and interoperability.
Research Data Infrastructure
DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services), a joint institute of NWO and KNAW (the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), is the national data archive for the humanities and social sciences and a certified trusted digital repository. For the life sciences, ELIXIR-NL (the Dutch node of ELIXIR, operated by DTL, the Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences) provides bioinformatics computing services, training, and FAIR data support. The Netherlands also participates in BBMRI-ERIC through BBMRI-NL, the national biobank network coordinating access to Dutch biobank collections.
Neuroscience Institutes
The Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University (Nijmegen) is a dedicated cognitive neuroscience institute, with approximately 800 researchers across four centres. It operates a mandatory data sharing policy, contributes to EBRAINS and ENIGMA Consortium, and develops FieldTrip, an open-source MEG, EEG, and iEEG analysis toolbox. The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN), a KNAW institute in Amsterdam, focuses on sensory systems, neurodegeneration, and sleep research, and participates in international open dataset initiatives. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam operates a formal university-wide Open Science Programme (since 2022) structured around five pillars covering policy, recognition and rewards, community engagement, support and training, and infrastructure, and co-governs Amsterdam UMC with the University of Amsterdam.
International Engagement
Donders Institute contributes to EBRAINS and has been an early institutional adopter of BIDS for neuroimaging and electrophysiology datasets. Dutch institutions participate in multiple ENIGMA Consortium working groups. ELIXIR-NL contributes to pan-European FAIR data services through ELIXIR and its RDMkit resources.