Daniel Spichtinger

Independent Senior Expert on EU research policy & projects

Daniel obtained a joint "Magister" (Mag.phil) degree from the University of Vienna (Austria) in English, Communication Science and History (2000), writing his thesis about the global spread of English. He also obtained a Master of Arts in Contemporary European Studies from the University of Bath (UK, 2002), where he first encountered European research policy and tackled the issue of involving civil society in the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research (FP6).

After several internships in European umbrella NGOs and a stint as online editor for two Austrian newspapers he has been working on EU funded projects since 2004, in the areas of eHealth, ICT, SME support and the knowledge based bio-economy, in particular the MoniQA Network of Excellence on EU cooperation in food safety (FP6). In his capacity as EU project consultant for scientists, he has been involved "hands on" in the preparation of EU grants as well as project management and communication.

Within these projects he has developed policy related actions and communication activities with the aim of ensuring the concrete applicability of scientific results in the policy sphere and enabling the interaction with all stakeholders, including the citizens. He has also been involved in the preparation of a significant number of EU grant proposals, where he has contributed his expertise of clear and concise writing and in developing the potential impact of projects beyond their scientific results.

From January 2012 to January 2018 Daniel Spichtinger was employed by the European Commission as a senior policy officer for open access to scientific peer-reviewed publications and research data. In this capacity he contributed to the development of open access and open data policies in Horizon 2020 and the EU. In this context he interacted with the Member States and relevant external stakeholders, providing presentations and trainings as well as managing projects in this area.

As of September 2018 Daniel is registered as an independent expert for EU research policy, open science and open/FAIR data as well as having started a part time position with the Ludwig Boltzman Gesellschaftt in Vienna, Austria.

Publications (selection)

Horizon Europe needs you! Research Europe 2019
2019 will be crunch time for Horizon Europe’s budget. Research Europe 2019
Alive and well? The new Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation as a test case for the EU’s ability to act. ÖGFE Policy Brief 2018.
The Development of Research Data Management Policies in Horizon 2020 (co-author) Research Data Management - A European Perspective, De Gruyter SAUR, Berlin/Boston, pp. 11-23 (9783110365634). 2017.
Dealing with Data – Legislative Challenges and Opportunities for the Digital Single Market from the Perspective of Research (co-author) In: European Legal Thinking - Essays in Honour of Albrecht Weber. Springer. 2015.
Sticks and carrots: encouraging open science at its source (co-author) In: Geo Volume2, Issue1 January-June 2015 Pages 12-16