Open Science holds great promise for making research more inclusive, transparent, and impactful. Yet while many funders, research organisations, and national and international authorities have adopted Open Science policies, implementing effective strategies remains challenging. Policymakers need a solid evidence base to guide their decisions — and that evidence is often lacking.

GRIOS was established to address this gap. Its objectives are to synthesise existing knowledge on Open Science worldwide, formulate evidence-based policy recommendations, and propose a research agenda to fill current knowledge gaps.

This call will fund evidence synthesis on two priority topics identified by GRIOS funders and its Academic Advisory Board:

• Incentives and research assessment — Which incentive schemes and assessment reforms increase the uptake of Open Science practices?
• Research data sharing — What factors influence the effectiveness of research data sharing policies?

The call is open to individual researchers, research teams, organisations, consultancies, and consortia from all countries. GRIOS seeks proposals grounded in rigorous, transparent methods and Open Science practices. One review will be funded per topic, with a maximum budget of €80,000 per project. Projects are expected to run for 12 months.

Submissions are open from 23 April until 20 July 2026 (16:00h CEST).

Proposals must be submitted via the SmartSimple platform: https://esf.smartsimple.ie

The full guidelines for applicants, the application template and instructions for the SmartSimple Platform are available for downloading below: