Two strands, one goal

Innovate for and with Open Science

OpenAIRE Innovation has two strands. One improves open science itself; the other turns open science into new products and services. Both share the same infrastructure, principles and open calls.

About

Innovate

On this page

Our aim

Turn Open Science into shared value, so that collaboration between research, public innovators and industry strengthens both the innovation economy and the commons.

Strand 1

Innovate for Open Science

New tools, indicators, services and practices that make open science work better, built with researchers, infrastructures and communities.

For researchers, infrastructures, civic tech and universities

Strand 2

Innovate with Open Science

Products, services and AI built on open research data, through trusted partnerships that also give back to the commons.

For industry, startups and data-driven innovators

Strand 1

Innovate for Open Science

Make open research data and services the starting point for better tools, indicators and public services that benefit science and society.

Who it is for

Researchers

Turn your research, data and methods into tools others can use.

Research Infrastructures

Build on shared OpenAIRE services instead of starting from scratch.

Citizen science and civic tech

Use open knowledge to address local and societal challenges.

Universities and public bodies

Prototype services that improve research assessment, monitoring and discovery.

What you can do

Innovation pilots and hackathons

Develop an idea that uses the OpenAIRE Graph for real-world impact, with support, coaching and mentoring.

Innovation Labs

Co-develop analytics, indicators and AI tools that turn open data into actionable insights.

Training and capacity

Joint bootcamps, OpenPlato courses and staff exchanges in open science, FAIR data and responsible AI. For specialists, data stewards, leaders.

Roundtables, innovation sprints and challenge calls with the wider OpenAIRE community.

How to start

Apply to a running call, such as Innovation Pilots & Hackathons of the year, or get in touch with an idea.

See open calls

Strand 2

Innovate with Open Science

Build trusted partnerships for open knowledge: create value from open research with legal clarity, and strengthen the commons in return.

The rise of AI, data-driven R&D and the digital single market is reshaping how scientific knowledge is produced and reused. Industry is now both a user and a contributor of that knowledge.

Through the Graph, services and policy expertise, OpenAIRE makes sure that data sharing, AI training and knowledge transfer happen transparently, responsibly and in line with Open Science and European values.

Who it is for

AI developers

Ground and train AI on trusted, lawfully reusable research data.

Analytics and intelligence firms

Build indicators and foresight on open research data.

Startups and sector innovators

From LegalTech to AgriTech: build products on open knowledge.

Publishers and data platforms

Enrich your services with links across the research ecosystem.

What you can do

Data partnerships

FAIR, lawful reuse of research data and metadata for AI and innovation, including corpus curation and cross-repository enrichment.

Co-developed services

Build new indicators, tools or services with our teams, with ownership and licensing agreed up front.

Compliance and policy sandbox

Test data licensing, reuse frameworks and responsible AI model clauses under EU law.

Contribute back

Share data, tools and evidence that strengthen open science, with attribution.

Challenges we want to tackle with you

Each challenge starts with a question we want to answer together. All of them build on OpenAIRE services already in use, so you start from working infrastructure, real data and real users.

AI to enrich the Graph

How can AI make the Graph richer without losing trust?

Use AI to extract entities, classify research by field and topic, discover links to software and datasets, and detect duplicates and errors, with human review and provenance on every change.

Builds on OpenAIRE Graph

Trusted AI agents on the Graph

Can AI agents answer research questions you can trust?

Build assistants and agents that answer questions from verified research data, cite their sources and show provenance, and connect to the Graph through open APIs.

Builds on OpenAIRE Graph APIs

Monitoring and observatories

How can decision makers see what is happening in research, as it happens?

Co-develop dashboards and observatories that track open science, research funding and AI in science, for institutions, funders and policy makers.

Builds on OpenAIRE Graph, OpenAIRE Monitor

Smarter discovery

How can people find the right work, expert or dataset across disciplines?

Semantic search, recommendations and research maps that connect people to relevant work, experts and data.

Builds on OpenAIRE Explore, OpenAIRE Connect, OpenAIRE Graph

Actionable data management plans

Can a data management plan write and keep itself up to date?

Take Argos further with AI: draft DMPs from a project proposal and the OpenAIRE Graph, suggest repositories, licences and metadata, connect to funders and grant systems, and track what a project actually produces. The plan becomes a living tool, not a one-off document.

Builds on Argos/OpenCDMP, OpenAIRE Graph