The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), through its OpenScienceLab research group, plays a key role in the European project Skills4EOSC (Skills for the European Open Science Commons) — an initiative under Horizon Europe that aims to build a robust skills ecosystem for Open Science, supporting researchers, data professionals, and research support staff across Europe. As Work Package 4 (WP4) leader in Skills4EOSC, UC3M is responsible for designing and piloting innovative training programmes tailored to diverse research profiles and national contexts. WP4 focuses specifically on developing modular, scalable, and transferable curricula that support both self-paced learning and collaborative, peer-led training. By leading this work package, UC3M contributes directly to building a European Network of Competence Centres and fostering a community of practice that empowers researchers — especially PhD candidates and early career scientists — to become champions of Open Science in their institutions and disciplines.
Shaping a new generation of researchers equipped with the values that will define the future of science. At the OpenScienceLab, we firmly believe that early career researchers (ECR) and young scientists are the true drivers of change towards a more transparent and inclusive scientific system. Their engagement is essential to embedding Open Science practices across disciplines and institutions, but they need to have the right skills to manage their research in the Open and FAIR data world.
Shaping Open Science Champions: a TtT focused on the future of research
OpenScienceLab contributes to the development of targeted Train-the-Trainers (TtT) programmes, designed to scale up and sustainably embed Open Science practices across the scientific system. UC3M’s TtT initiative is unique in its focus: educators and trainers of PhD candidates. The course titled “Shaping Open Science Champions: A Train-the-Trainers Course for Educators of PhD Candidates” aims to equip those who mentor and teach doctoral students with the tools and knowledge needed to incorporate Open Science principles and practices into PhD education.
This focus responds to a critical need: to embed Open Science at the earliest stages of the research career, in line with recommendations from UNESCO, CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment), and the broader movement for more transparent, reproducible, and socially responsible science.
A commitment to cultural change in academia
With this TtT programme, OpenScienceLab contributes to a key challenge of Open Science: transforming not just individual practices, but also institutional and educational structures. Empowering those who train PhD students means multiplying the impact of Open Science and creating real agents of change within academia and research.
The course combines self-paced modules with interactive live sessions, and employs an engaging metaphor — the “ticket to Open Science” — turning the learning experience into a journey to activate the transformative potential of future researchers.
Towards a European network of open science competence centres: the spanish CC
Skills4EOSC ultimately aims to build a European network of Open Science Competence Centres. In this context, the work developed by UC3M’s OpenScienceLab represents a scalable and adaptable model that can be implemented in other institutional, national, or disciplinary contexts. Open Science Lab, in partnership with FECYT and BSC-SSH we are creating the Spanish Open Science Training Competence Centre.
Other key contributions from OpenScienceLab in the Skills4EOSC project
At OpenScienceLab, we believe that high-quality training is key to building a stronger and more inclusive European Open Science ecosystem. That’s why we are also leading the development of a Quality Assurance (QA) and Certification Framework for learning materials, as part of Task 2.4 of the Skills4EOSC project. This framework aims to ensure that training resources are effective, up-to-date, and aligned with European standards for Open Science skills, contributing to more consistent and impactful training across the research community.