EIFL is to co-ordinate training activities in the European Commission (EC) funded FOSTER Plus project, which focuses on the practical implementation of Open Science in the EC’s Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation, and beyond.

FOSTER Plus is the new phase of the FOSTER (Facilitating Open Science Training for European Research) project. The FOSTER project supported various stakeholders in Europe, especially young researchers, to adopt open access (OA) and to comply with OA policies and rules for implementation of Horizon 2020, the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme.

Over the next two years, 11 FOSTER Plus project partners from all over Europe will collaborate on the creation of training and e-learning activities on OA, Open Data and Open Science.

FOSTER Plus targets academic staff, young scientists and policy-makers.

Training activities and outputs

EIFL will coordinate Open Science training and work with partners to develop domain-specific training materials on life sciences, social sciences and humanities, and to embed Open Science in the practices of each domain.

EIFL will also coordinate the creation of 20 e-learning courses, and organize at least 50 face-to-face training events to train trainers and others who can take forward Open Science practices.  

Training activities and outputs will include:

• A multi-module Open Science toolkit with training materials and e-learning courses covering all angles of Open Science;
• An Open Science Trainer Bootcamp which will build capacity of trainers from all over Europe to deliver FOSTER Plus training modules.
• A handbook on Open Science training to support FOSTER Plus Open Science trainers and others who promote Open Science.

FOSTER Plus PROJECT PARTNERS

FOSTER Plus was launched at a meeting in Guimarães, Portugal, from 22-23 May. EIFL Open Access Programme Manager Iryna Kuchma and EIFL Open Access Coordinator Gwen Franck participated in the meeting. 

The FOSTER Plus project partners are:

• The University of Minho
• Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• The Open University
• Stichting eIFL.net (EIFL)
• Digital Curation Centre, University of Edinburgh
• Digital Curation Centre, University of Glasgow
• Danmarks Tekniske Universitet
• Stichting LIBER
• Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas
• GESIS – Leibniz –Institute for the Social Sciences
• Fundacio Centre de Regulacio Genomica

BACKGROUND

EIFL played a major role in FOSTER project (2014-2016), leading and coordinating training; facilitating development of e-learning courses, and developing training materials.

Read more about EIFL’s involvement FOSTER and the project’s achievements.