The Skill4EOSC project kicked off this autumn

The Skill4EOSC 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 project is coor­di­nat­ed by GARR and fund­ed under the Hori­zon Europe frame­work pro­gramme, kicked off in Pisa in 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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 role of 4TU.ResearchData in the project

4TU.ResearchData’s major con­tri­bu­tions will be:

• cre­at­ing a cur­ricu­lum for data stew­ards, by build­ing on the exist­ing work of Research Data Nether­lands on the Essentials4DataSupport course, which can be fur­thered intro­duced to oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries.
• build­ing Pro­fes­sion­al Net­works for Life­long Learn­ing – as work pack­age lead­ers, the work will focus on build­ing data stew­ards com­mu­ni­ties in Europe, start­ing dis­ci­pli­nary com­mu­ni­ties for FAIR Data and organ­is­ing a fel­low­ship pro­gramme for aspir­ing data pro­fes­sion­als.
• last but not least, col­lab­o­rate with 43 part­ners from all Euro­pean coun­tries, as well as con­nect­ing 4TU.ResearchData to the Euro­pean Open Sci­ence Cloud (EOSC).

More infor­ma­tion on the Skills4EOSC project.