Building Digital Skills Training Capacity in the Netherlands NES Domain — A Call to action

Across the nat­ur­al and engi­neer­ing sci­ences (NES), researchers increas­ing­ly rely on dig­i­tal meth­ods — from data analy­sis and visu­al­iza­tion to code-based mod­el­ling and repro­ducible work­flows. Yet, while the demand for dig­i­tal research skills keeps grow­ing, many insti­tu­tions still face a lack of train­ing capac­i­ty and reusable les­son mate­ri­als that address domain-spe­cif­ic needs.

To tack­le this chal­lenge, the project Build­ing dig­i­tal skills train­ing and les­son devel­op­ment capac­i­ty in the Nether­lands NES domain was launched. Fund­ed by the The­mat­ic Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Cen­tre (TDCC) for the NES domain, the project aims to strength­en the nation­al infra­struc­ture for dig­i­tal skills train­ing by invest­ing in instruc­tor devel­op­ment, les­son cre­ation, and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing.

Why this project mat­ters

Researchers in NES dis­ci­plines often work with com­plex data and com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­els that require spe­cif­ic exper­tise to han­dle respon­si­bly and repro­ducibly. How­ev­er, oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn these skills — or to teach them effec­tive­ly — are uneven­ly dis­trib­uted. Many uni­ver­si­ties and insti­tutes depend on a small num­ber of train­ers, while suit­able les­son mate­ri­als are often devel­oped in iso­la­tion and remain dif­fi­cult to find or reuse.

This project address­es that gap by focus­ing on three key areas: train­ing new instruc­tors, sup­port­ing les­son devel­op­ment tai­lored to NES needs, and fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion across insti­tu­tions to strength­en train­ing net­works. In doing so, it aligns with nation­al ambi­tions to pro­mote open sci­ence, FAIR data, and repro­ducible research.

What the project will deliv­er

Over the com­ing two years, the project will cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for dig­i­tal skills train­ing through­out the NES com­mu­ni­ty in the Nether­lands. The main deliv­er­ables include:

• Train­ing 50 new Car­pen­tries instruc­tors who will be equipped to deliv­er high-qual­i­ty, hands-on work­shops across insti­tu­tions.
• Sup­port­ing three teams to devel­op new NES-rel­e­vant lessons, fol­low­ing the Car­pen­tries Col­lab­o­ra­tive Les­son Devel­op­ment mod­el to ensure open, reusable, and peer-reviewed learn­ing mate­ri­als.
• Estab­lish­ing region­al and cross-insti­tu­tion­al train­ing hubs, with guid­ance and fund­ing to orga­nize the first four work­shops that will help kick-start sus­tain­able col­lab­o­ra­tion.
• Ensur­ing open access to all lessons devel­oped, so that mate­ri­als can be freely reused and adapt­ed by oth­ers with­in the NES domain and beyond.

By com­bin­ing these efforts, the project aims to build a sus­tain­able, dis­trib­uted net­work of skilled instruc­tors and high-qual­i­ty, domain-rel­e­vant les­son mate­ri­als that can serve the entire research com­mu­ni­ty.

Help shape how oppor­tu­ni­ties are dis­trib­uted

To make the selec­tion of instruc­tors and les­son devel­op­ment teams trans­par­ent and inclu­sive, TDCC–NES is invit­ing mem­bers of the NES research com­mu­ni­ty to share their input through a short sur­vey. The feed­back col­lect­ed will inform the eli­gi­bil­i­ty and selec­tion cri­te­ria for par­tic­i­pa­tion and fund­ing, which will be made pub­licly avail­able on the 4TU.ResearchData web­site.

This is a unique chance to help define how dig­i­tal skills capac­i­ty is built across the Nether­lands. The sur­vey takes only a few min­utes to com­plete and con­tributes direct­ly to ensur­ing that the process reflects the diver­si­ty and needs of the NES com­mu­ni­ty.

By shar­ing your per­spec­tive, you help ensure that oppor­tu­ni­ties for train­ing, les­son cre­ation, and col­lab­o­ra­tion are dis­trib­uted fair­ly and effec­tive­ly — sup­port­ing a stronger, more con­nect­ed net­work of dig­i­tal skills prac­ti­tion­ers.

Look­ing ahead

As the project pro­gress­es, we can expect to see a grow­ing nation­al net­work of instruc­tors and train­ing hubs, along­side an expand­ing set of open, domain-spe­cif­ic lessons. These efforts will make it eas­i­er for researchers to access rel­e­vant train­ing, for insti­tu­tions to host work­shops, and for com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice to flour­ish around shared teach­ing mate­ri­als.

For researchers and data sup­port­ers, this means more oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, teach, and col­lab­o­rate. For insti­tu­tions, it rep­re­sents a con­crete step toward build­ing sus­tain­able dig­i­tal skills infra­struc­ture that sup­ports open and repro­ducible sci­ence.