diff --git a/dhp-workflows/dhp-dedup-openaire/src/main/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/oa/dedup/SparkPropagateRelation.java b/dhp-workflows/dhp-dedup-openaire/src/main/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/oa/dedup/SparkPropagateRelation.java
index c7efce4d74..b0bc314e2b 100644
--- a/dhp-workflows/dhp-dedup-openaire/src/main/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/oa/dedup/SparkPropagateRelation.java
+++ b/dhp-workflows/dhp-dedup-openaire/src/main/java/eu/dnetlib/dhp/oa/dedup/SparkPropagateRelation.java
@@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ public class SparkPropagateRelation extends AbstractSparkAction {
 
 		Dataset<Relation> mergeRels = spark
 			.read()
+			.schema(REL_BEAN_ENC.schema())
 			.load(DedupUtility.createMergeRelPath(workingPath, "*", "*"))
 			.as(REL_BEAN_ENC);