This case study explores alternative science metrics on grant-supported research publications. The study is based on plosOpenR, a software package for the statistical computing environment R. plosOpenR facilitates access to the application programming interfaces (API) provided by Open Access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS) and OpenAIRE – Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe.

We report 1,166 PLOS articles that acknowledge grant support from 624 different research projects funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme (FP7). plosOpenR allows the exploration of PLOS Article-Level Metrics (PLOS ALM), including citations, usage and social media events as well as collaboration patterns on these articles. Findings reveal the potential of reusing data, that are made openly and automatically available by publishers, funders and the repository community.