Call for Collaborative Lesson Development Training

Appli­ca­tions are now open for the next call of the Build­ing dig­i­tal skills train­ing and les­son devel­op­ment capac­i­ty in the Nether­lands NES domain (DC4NES) project. The DC4NES project is fund­ed by TDCC-NES and led by 4TU.ResearchData. This ini­tia­tive aims to strength­en dig­i­tal skills train­ing capac­i­ty across the Nat­ur­al and Engi­neer­ing Sci­ences (NES) domain in the Nether­lands. One of the objec­tives of the project is to fund three teams of 2–3 peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the Car­pen­tries’ Col­lab­o­ra­tive Les­son Devel­op­ment Train­ing (CLDT) which teach­es essen­tial skills and good prac­tices for design­ing and devel­op­ing a les­son as an open source project. The call is open from 1 May – 31 July 2026, with train­ing tak­ing place in Novem­ber 2026 in per­son in the Nether­lands.

What is the Collaborative Lesson Development Training?

The CLDT equips par­tic­i­pants with the skills to devel­op ped­a­gog­i­cal­ly sound, reusable, and open­ly licensed les­son mate­ri­als in a col­lab­o­ra­tive man­ner. Com­plet­ed lessons are pub­lished in the Car­pen­tries Incu­ba­tor, where they are freely avail­able to instruc­tors world­wide. The two-day train­ing is con­duct­ed in Eng­lish by Car­pen­tries Train­ers Johan Hid­ding and Toby Hodges. Each team seat is val­ued at approx­i­mate­ly EUR 5,000–6,000. The time invest­ment of the train­ing is 16 hours exclud­ing prepa­ra­tion time.

Why apply for the CLDT?

There is a recog­nised need for NES domain-spe­cif­ic train­ing mate­ri­als in the Nether­lands. While some dis­ci­pline-spe­cif­ic lessons already exist in the Car­pen­tries Incu­ba­tor, cov­er­age of top­ics such as chem­istry, physics, and advanced com­pu­ta­tion­al meth­ods remains lim­it­ed. The CLDT pro­vides teams with the ped­a­gog­i­cal frame­work and struc­tured sup­port to turn exist­ing teach­ing mate­ri­als, or entire­ly new les­son ideas, into open­ly avail­able, com­mu­ni­ty-main­tained lessons.

Beyond les­son devel­op­ment, teams par­tic­i­pat­ing in this project will be con­nect­ed to a grow­ing nation­al net­work of instruc­tors and train­ing coor­di­na­tors through Research Soft­ware Train­ing NL (RST-NL) and the Local Train­ing Hubs that will be estab­lished in 2027 through the DC4NES project. Devel­oped lessons will be pilot­ed through this net­work, help­ing teams gath­er feed­back and refine their mate­ri­als.

How this call was developed

The eli­gi­bil­i­ty and selec­tion cri­te­ria for this call were devel­oped through a trans­par­ent, com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven process. In late 2025, a sur­vey dis­trib­uted via the Car­pen­tries Coor­di­na­tors Net­work NL reached 69 respon­dents, pre­dom­i­nant­ly data stew­ards, research soft­ware engi­neers, and research sup­port staff from insti­tu­tions across the Nether­lands, most­ly affil­i­at­ed with the NES domain. The results informed the design of this call. Draft cri­te­ria were reviewed and refined by the Car­pen­tries Coor­di­na­tors Net­work NL. All cri­te­ria doc­u­ments are pub­licly avail­able.

How to apply

This call is open to teams of 2–3 peo­ple affil­i­at­ed with NES-domain research-per­form­ing organ­i­sa­tions in the Nether­lands. At least one team mem­ber must be a cer­ti­fied Car­pen­tries Instruc­tor at the time of appli­ca­tion. Teams from dif­fer­ent insti­tu­tions are encour­aged to apply togeth­er.

Please read the doc­u­ments below care­ful­ly before apply­ing:

• Eli­gi­bil­i­ty Cri­te­ria: CLDT Call
• Selec­tion Cri­te­ria: CLDT Call
• Selec­tion Process: CLDT Call

A match­mak­ing ses­sion will be held on 18 June 2026 in Utrecht, organ­ised by RST-NL. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with poten­tial team mem­bers from oth­er insti­tu­tions before sub­mit­ting an appli­ca­tion. Atten­dance is not required to apply.

Which pathway applies to you?

I already have a les­son idea and a team: Sub­mit your appli­ca­tion via the appli­ca­tion form before 31 July 2026.

I have a les­son idea but no team yet: Join the match­mak­ing ses­sion on 18 June 2026 in Utrecht to con­nect with poten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tors.

I am inter­est­ed but not sure if I qual­i­fy: Con­tact Iri­na Motoc (see below) or check the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria doc­u­ment.

Questions?

For any ques­tions about the project or the appli­ca­tion process, please con­tact Iri­na Motoc (Project Coor­di­na­tor, 4TU.ResearchData) at i.motoc@tudelft.nl.