The second OSCARS Open call closed on 14 May, with 746 proposals submitted for consideration, a 282% increase in proposals from the first Open Call.

To support the research communities to take up open science and foster the involvement of scientists in EOSC, OSCARS has launched two Open Calls (in total worth about 16 million Euro) to select third-parties for the development of new, innovative Open Science projects or services, that together will drive the uptake of FAIR-data-intensive research throughout the European Research Area (ERA).

The first Open Call was launched on 15 March 2024 and closed on 15 May 2024. The 2nd OSCARS Open Call opened on 14 March 2025, and closed on 14 May 2025, with 746 proposals submitted for 67 countries. While the majority came from with Europe, 25% of the coordinating organisations are based outside the European Union.  The total funding available for the second call amounts to approximately €3 million.

OSCARS project manager Friedricke Schmidt-Tremmel welcomed the high volume of responses to the second Open Call, expressing hope that the strong interest will help shape the future of scientific funding:

“The extremely high number of applications received in the 2nd OSCARS Open Call has clearly proved the need for funding to support scientists and organisations in the process of getting their data FAIR and Open. We believe this should be taken into account in the planning of the future EU's funding strategy and framework programme for research and innovation”

Because of the high volume of proposals, the evaluation process might take longer than the intended 60 days, and the final decision is expected by the end of August.
The budget for the second call is also lower than for the first, meaning the success rate for the proposals will be far lower than in the first Open Call.

Overview

Available funding in the 2nd OSCARS Open Call: ~€3 million EUR 
Funding per project: Between €100,000 to €250,000 (lump sum)
Potential maximum of funded projects in the 2nd OSCARS Open Call: Maximum of 30, if all projects ask for the minimum amount of funding. If projects ask for a similar amount of funding as in the 1st OSCARS Open Call, about ~13 projects will be funded.
Target user communities: Research Infrastructures, Universities, Institutes, SMEs and large companies, either consortia or individual researchers. 

Click here to read more about OSCARS and Open Science projects