swissuniversities and the ETH Domain collaborated to develop the funding programme  «Swiss Open Research Data Grants» (CHORD). This collaboration fosters a coherent, broad-based and bottom-up support for ORD practices in Switzerland across disciplines and higher education institutions, thus promoting synergies and complementarities. The collaboration also ensured the efficient use of public funds.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: This call aims to support projects and research communities in the early exploratory phases of implementing ORD practices. The call is addressed to projects that aim to explore ORD practices in disciplines that are not yet active in this field and to develop sustainable ORD practices and foster exchange between research communities.
• Application guidelines: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: The aim of Measure B3 of the ORD Action Plan is to allocate cost-effective, long-term funding for ORD services and infrastructures of national significance. The call B3.2 welcomes project proposals that aim to promote ORD either by introducing a new ORD element or by further developing an ORD component in existing research infrastructures (see Application Guidelines for information on specific conditions). If possible, and to avoid duplication, synergies with other existing infrastructures should be sought.
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Supported extensions 2026: see here.
• Focus: Action Line B5.2 of the ORD Action Plan aims to promote ORD specialists and data stewardship at all higher education and research institutions. In the first implementation step up to 2024, the focus was on data stewards. Action line B5.2 is continued in 2025 and in this second implementation step will take into account not only data stewards, but also other experts and roles in the area of ORD / data stewardship.
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Project Partner: Swiss Research Data Support Network (SRDSN).
• Lead Institution: University of Bern.
• Focus: Action line B5.3 aims to establish and professionalise a network for ORD professionals that promotes inter-institutional exchange, initiates cooperation and responds to the needs of different institutions. The network should also serve as a point of contact for questions relating to data stewardship and ORD and ensure international connectivity.
• Project Assignment: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: The ORD Strategy Council is currently working on developing landscape analyses and strategic blueprints of the ORD infrastructure landscape for the Health and Life Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, and in the future, Data Sciences. The Delegation Open Science has decided to issue a call in the programme Open Science II, addressed to the eligible higher education institutions, to support this ongoing work.
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Project title: Swiss Portal for Academic Data and Research Infrastructures (SPADRI)
   
• Lead Institution: University of Zurich.
   
• Content: Action Area B of the ORD Action Plan aims to create a comprehensive and effective offer of basic infrastructures and services that are made available to all researchers in Switzerland, enabling them to conduct their research efficiently. This requires infrastructure to be visible to researchers and institutions, as well as efficient and pragmatic coordination among higher education institutions in the creation and operation of research infrastructures and research data infrastructures. To this end, the SPADRI project will create an inventory of all relevant major Swiss research infrastructures and data infrastructures in the form of a platform.
   
• Overall objectives of the project: The SPADRI project aims to implement a national digital platform for strategically relevant Swiss research infrastructures and data infrastructures. The overarching project objectives are:
  • to increase the visibility of research infrastructures and data infrastructures and facilitate access to them;
  • to highlight open data resources generated and provided by research infrastructures and data infrastructures;
  • to provide a ‘performance illustration’ (in the sense of ‘lean reporting’) that describes the successes of research infrastructures and data infrastructures;  
  • to take into account developments in the field of open infrastructures;
  • to improve Switzerland-wide coordination in the field of research infrastructures and data infrastructures. 
     
• Project Assignment: For a detailed description of the project's tasks and objectives, see here [coming soon].
   
• Further informationen: see communications.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: In order to implement pathways B and D of the National Open Access Strategy, this action line supports projects that develop solutions for how Open Access (OA) can be further established for scholarly publication formats that are not traditional articles (e.g. monographs, reference works, specialised publications). The projects identify the most important challenges, record the needs of the research communities, analyse the positions of stakeholders and outline strategies and solutions for promoting OA practice in these formats. The results provide important conceptual work to make OA a viable option for different types of publications.
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: In order to implement Pathways A and C of the National Open Access Strategy this action line supports projects that pursue one or both of the following two main objectives:
  1. Ensure continuous coordination at national level to further strengthen the green open access model and ensure interoperability.
  2. Increase awareness and knowledge of researchers' copyright and usage rights (Rights Retention Strategy) and support researchers in safeguarding their rights.
• Application Guidelines: see here.
   

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: To implement Pathway A of the National Open Access Strategy, the aim of this action line is to form a Swiss Diamond OA consortium that supports Diamond OA service providers and publication outlets (e.g. journals) in order to strengthen Diamond OA as a financially viable and scientifically robust publication option for researchers at Swiss higher education institutions.
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Lead Institution: University of Bern
• Focus: A consortium of experts is to develop an orientation as well as accessible and solution-oriented assistance for higher education institutions and researchers for dealing with the challenges and requirements relating to the compatibility of knowledge security and open science practices. In the form of a report, the regulatory framework, expected future developments, current practices at higher education institutions, existing challenges, and international good practices will be synthesised and the resulting recommendations for action identified in order to provide higher education institutions with helpful options for action in the form of a toolbox.
• Project Assignment: see here.

• Supported Projects: see here.
• Focus: This call supports projects and research communities in early exploratory phases of implementing ORD practices. It is aimed at projects that aim to demonstrate whether and how collaboration between science and international organisations can be fostered through open science principles and practices.
• Application guidelines: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: In order to support the implementation of the National Strategie for Open Research Data and the National Open Access Strategy, this call for proposals funds projects that contribute to the visibility of Open Science and support and strengthen Open Science activities through communication
• Application Guidelines: see here.

• Funded Projects: see here.
• Focus: International cooperation is of the utmost importance for maintaining excellence in the Swiss ERI sector. Interaction with and connection to relevant international policies and initiatives in the field of Open Science is crucial for the success of the National Strategy for Open Research Data and the National Open Access Strategy. This action line supports projects that participate in relevant European and international initiatives in the field of Open Science or implement such initiatives in the Swiss higher education area.
• Application Guidelines: see here. 
• The supported project SENPro was submitted as part of the call for action line B3.2.

• Lead Institution: Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP)
• Content: The lead institution and the project partners are developing a practical basis for decision-making regarding national institutional publishing in Switzerland, with a view to achieving the objective set out in Path A of the National Open Access Strategy: ‘Development, coordination and networking of infrastructures and services’. To this end, they will produce an overview of the current status of the various institutional publishing services already in place at Swiss higher education institutions; analyse where synergies and potential for cooperation exist amongst the established services; identify gaps and opportunities relating to institutional publishing; and develop suitable and feasible solutions for university management teams on how the identified potential could be utilised effectively and efficiently and expanded into a solution available throughout Switzerland.
• Mandate: see here.

• Lead Institution: Università della Svizzera italiana
• Content: To achieve the vision and objectives set out in the National Open Access Strategy, the lead institution and the project partners are developing model guidelines for the management of Swiss higher education institutions on how their researchers can and should implement the Rights Retention Strategy. These model guidelines are intended to support both researchers in implementing the Rights Retention Strategy and higher education institutions in ensuring that secondary publications are deposited in institutional repositories.
• Mandate: see here.

• Lead Institution: Universität Zürich
• Content: The lead institution, together with the project partners and other relevant stakeholders, identifies the needs of research communities in the humanities and social sciences with regard to research data. It organises these communities in such a way as to strengthen the coordination and collaboration between existing research data services, thereby enabling the creation of an agile, robust, efficient, user-centred and technically and operationally sustainable service landscape that meets the needs of researchers. As a result of this community engagement, the relevant stakeholders are to develop a collective vision for the future of research data services. Building on this capacity-building within the communities, the lead institution will formulate a broadly supported and implementable overall concept for how the distribution of tasks and responsibilities, as well as the governance framework for research data services in the humanities and social sciences in Switzerland, can be organised in the medium term.
• Mandate: see here.

• Lead Institution: Universität Zürich
• Content: The lead institution will draw up a legal opinion and, based on this, a guidance document for university management, setting out how researchers, university libraries and other members of the academic community: 
  1. can analyse third-party content (particularly from academic publishers) licensed by university libraries using artificial intelligence, and
  2. to what extent they can develop their own artificial intelligence systems, models, applications and processes based on this licensed content. 
• Mandate: see here.

• Lead Institution: ZHAW
• Content: In light of the recent report by the Swiss Science Council on “Research Libraries as ‘Data Hubs’”, the Swiss Library Network for Education and Research (SLiNER), under the leadership of its President, is developing a shared vision regarding the strategic development of research libraries as data and research infrastructures, or ‘Data Hubs’. This shared vision will be used to derive clear strategic priorities for SLiNER, which will serve as the basis for future coordination and joint action. This will also ensure greater alignment between the SLiNER member libraries and swissuniversities.
• Mandate: see here.