National Program "Stimulation of the Publication Activity in Authoritative International Scientific Journals and Open Access to Scientific Information"

Abstract

The program allocates funds to universities and research organizations, which are used to provide additional remuneration, awards, or other financial incentives to researchers for publishing in reputable scientific journals, including those that offer open access.

Beneficiary institutions are required to be registered as content providers with the Bulgarian Portal for Open Science (BPOS), ensuring that open access publications are integrated into the national repository system.

The program targets researchers from universities and research organisations, authors of scientific publications in journals, referenced or indexed in the global databases Web of Science or Scopus, tied to sharing scientific results in the Bulgarian portal for open science, in institutional or international repositories. They will be provided with additional remuneration, prizes or other financial incentives. The universities and research organisations are committed to implementing internal mechanisms to stimulate the publication activity of their research teams, as well as open access to scientific information.

Overview

Country	Bulgaria
Start date	2022
Annual Budget	€3.5M
Responsible organisation(s)	Ministry
Target group(s)	Established researchers
Policy instrument type	Science and innovation challenges, prizes and awards

Background

The program is part of Bulgaria's National Strategy for the Development of Scientific Research (2017–2030), which outlines goals for enhancing research productivity, international collaboration, and open access dissemination.

Bulgarian researchers faced challenges in achieving greater visibility and impact for their work internationally. By incentivizing publications in high-impact, authoritative journals, the program seeks to raise the profile of Bulgarian research on the global stage. Prior to this program, Bulgarian researchers often lacked financial support to publish in open access journals, which sometimes require article processing charges (APCs). The program provides targeted funding to cover these costs, ensuring more equitable access to open publishing opportunities. The establishment of the Bulgarian Portal for Open Science (BPOS) created a need to incentivize researchers to contribute their work to the national open science repository, ensuring broad access and compliance with FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

The National Program "Stimulation of Publication Activity in Authoritative International Scientific Journals and Open Access to Scientific Information" was approved by the Bulgarian Council of Ministers on October 21, 2021, under Decree No. 733.

Objective(s)

to stimulate the publication activity of the scientific research staff and to increase the number of scientific publications in authoritative scientific journals, referenced or indexed in the global databases Web of Science or Scopus, as well as to promote the culture of sharing scientific information with open access and the adoption it as standard practice by the research community.

Public access URL

https://strategy.bg/StrategicDocuments/View.aspx?Id=1582

https://strategy.bg/FileHandler.ashx?fileId=31393

All tags

• Incentives & Rewards
• Bulgaria
• 2022
• Ministry
• Established researchers
• Fellowships and postgraduate loans and scholarships
• Measures for recognition and reward

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