The project will set up a pan-European network of competence centres to speed up the training of European researchers and harmonise the training of new professional figures for scientific data management.
The European project Skills4EOSC (Skills for the European Open Science commons: creating a training ecosystem for Open and FAIR science), coordinated by GARR and funded under the Horizon Europe framework programme, kicked off in Pisa on 21-22 September 2022.
Over the next three years, it will work to provide Open Science Commons and create an EOSC-ready skilled European workforce, connecting existing centres of competence in open science and scientific data management. The aim is to develop methodologies, activities and training resources to unify the current training landscape into a collaborative and reliable ecosystem and to provide dedicated community-specific support to leverage the potential of EOSC for open and data-intensive research.
The project consortium brings together 44 partners, representing the most relevant experiences of national, regional, institutional and thematic competence centres for open science and scientific data management in 18 European countries (Italy, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, and Spain).
The project is structured around six key areas of activity:
- Minimum Viable Skillsets (MVS) – Building on previous work, Skills4EOSC will chart a comprehensive map of different career profiles and define for each one a MVS, i.e. a set of minimum requirements for competencies and proficiency levels tailored to a specific Open Science professional profile.
- Training-of-Trainers(ToT) – ToT allows for cost-effectively scaling up trainer numbers. Working via a network embracing 18 European countries, we will bring an extra dimension of rigour to this approach.
- FAIR-by-design methodology for learning materials – Skills4EOSC will define a methodology to ensure the full compliance of training courses and materials to the FAIR principles, making them reusable for humans and machines. This will be achieved by providing rich contextual information about the organisation, delivery and assessment of training
- Harmonised curricula and learning paths – Skills4EOSC will harmonise OS curricula and learning paths targeting researchers at different career stages, data professionals and policymakers and offering discipline-, thematic- and research infrastructure-oriented training. This action will allow for the creation of curricula for specific professional profiles that are recognised across Europe while addressing their different training needs. Based on the MVS defined for each target group, common underlying content will be adapted to cover topics and competencies for specific audiences.
- Lifelong learning through professional networks: OS is a quickly evolving domain and professionals need to refresh and update their competencies to work effectively. Skills4EOSC will harness professional and thematic networks of peers as vehicles for lifelong learning and for building and sustaining the EOSC-ready digitally skilled workforce.
- Skills4EOSC Competence Centre and support network – the creation of a broad network across Competence Centres are instrumental in aligning and sustaining the key outputs of the project (i.e. curricula, quality assurance and certification frameworks for skills and materials, professional networks, user support networks and ToT programmes) and to set up a user support network for the entire science workflow, ranging from FAIR data management tools, through data-intensive science and high-level techniques, including AI, up to the delivery of scientific results.
The Bulgarian partner in the project Skills4EOSC is the Institute for Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.