Skip to main content
Supporting EOSC
Co-funded by the European Union
Co-funded by UKRI

Open Science Communities Incubator Program

Fourteen new Open Science Communities launched through the OSC Incubator Program (and counting!)
Training and skills development are key to facilitate the transition to Open Science (OS). But training alone is not enough. Sustainable and wide-scale adoption of OS practices are first and foremost fueled by engagement of researchers. That is why Skills4EOSC supports Open Science Communities (OSCs), which are considered ‘engines of change’. OSCs are bottom-up initiatives to make OS practices more visible and accessible through peer-to-peer learning. The concept originated in the Netherlands, where OSCs are now active in all university cities and their importance is recognised in national policies. With the support of Skills4EOSC, OSCs are becoming more and more popular within and beyond Europe.
Setting-up and managing an OSC can be challenging, which is why a task force in Skills4EOSC, lead by experts from OSCs in the Netherlands, provides a free online training program to support participants from all over the world launching their own local OSC.
In the program, participants learn about and work on:
  1. Community identity
  2. Community engagement
  3. Communication strategy
  4. Stakeholder engagement
  5. Governance and Sustainability
  6. Connecting with other OSCs across the world
Each of these topics is covered in two weekly meetings and comes with an assignment participants need to work on. By the end of the course, these assignments combined form their ‘Community Masterplan’. It is an important document that OSC coordinators can use as a compass for their OSC and that can be updated over time as their OSC develops.
Within Skills4EOSC, the Incubator Program ran successfully two times already, a third iteration is ongoing, and a final round of the program is scheduled to start in January 2025. The first run started in March 2023 and resulted in six newly launched OSCs (Please note that the first run of the Incubator Program also included participants of already existing OSCs. The program helped them create a stronger foundation for their OSC). The second run (January 2024) resulted in eight new OSCs, and the current run (September 2024) is thought to result in no less than thirteen new OSCs. While we accept approximately ten participants per round, already 28 people from all over the world expressed interest to join the final run. With the support of Skills4EOSC, the International Network of Open Science and Scholarship Communities has grown to over 40 local OSCs, across over 20 countries, with more that 3000 members, ready to put OS to practice!
Overview of newly founded OSCs for each of the iterations of the OSC Incubator Program so far
Overview of newly founded OSCs for each of the iterations of the OSC Incubator Program so far.