About FOSTER

About the FOSTER portal

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The Portal

The FOSTER portal is an e-learning platform that brings together the best training resources addressed to those who need to know more about Open Science, or need to develop strategies and skills for implementing Open Science practices in their daily workflows. Here you will find a growing collection of training materials. Many different users - from early-career researchers, to data managers, librarians, research administrators, and graduate schools - can benefit from the portal. In order to meet their needs, the existing materials will be extended from basic to more advanced-level resources. In addition, discipline-specific resources will be created.

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The Project


FOSTER Plus (Fostering the practical implementation of Open Science in Horizon 2020 and beyond) is a 2-year, EU-funded project, carried out by 11 partners across 6 countries. The primary aim is to contribute to a real and lasting shift in the behaviour of European researchers to ensure that Open Science (OS) becomes the norm.

Research communities, research performing institutions, and research funders have each recognised that OS skills are increasingly essential for researchers to undertake responsible research and innovation. While there is increasing agreement around the need to improve OS skills amongst all stakeholders, the adoption of OS approaches has been quite limited to date. Indeed general awareness of OS approaches has improved among EU researchers. However, there is still a lack of practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment. For this reason, FOSTER Plus places specific emphasis on creating discipline-specific guidance and is partnering with expert organisations representing the scientific areas of life science, social science and humanities.

FOSTER Plus will enhance existing materials and co-produce new training content. The resources will be discipline-specific and their practical and tangible outcomes can directly be applied into researchers’ daily practices. The training activities will be addressed to all relevant stakeholders in the European Research Area, with a focus on young scientists, academic staff and policy makers. A strong train-the-trainer approach and network of open science trainers to act as ambassadors will help to reach a wide audience.

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Key stakeholders addressed by FOSTER Plus:

Key stakeholders addressed by FOSTER Plus

Our Objectives

  • Support a culture change,whereby the practical aspects of Open Science are fully implemented and ultimately rewarded, by providing an advanced-level, outcome-oriented training programme based on courses and activities for which participants can attain digital badges.

  • Consolidate and sustain a training support network comprised of Open Science ambassadors from a range of research performing organisations and research infrastructures.

  • Strengthen the training capacity  by addressing the current skills and content gaps, both at community/discipline and institutional levels, on the practical implementation of Open Science.

Main Activities

The objectives will be pursued through the combination of the following main activities:

  • Delivery of  face-to-face training events, blended and e-learning courses  that will focus on providing practical, outcome-oriented lessons;
  • Creation of  high quality and advanced-level training resources  including a multi-module Open Science toolkit and an  Open Science training handbook
  • Consolidation of an  Open Science trainers network involving the disciplinary communities of  humanities, social sciences and life sciences 

FOSTER Plus workpackages:

Workplan of FOSTER Plus

Read more about what to get out of the next phase of FOSTER.

Quick Facts

  • Project Name: FOSTERING THE PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF OPEN SCIENCE IN HORIZON 2020 AND BEYOND
  • Project Acronym: FOSTER Plus
  • Project number: 741839
  • Start Date: 01/05/2017
  • Duration: 24 months
  • Funding from the EC: 925.846,26€
  • Website: www.fosteropenscience.eu

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Project Partners

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Advisory Board Members

Photo of Gareth O'NeillGareth O'Neill - European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers
Photo of Lidia Borell-DamianLidia Borrell-Damian - European Universities Association
Photo of Stephan KusterStephan Kuster - Science Europe
Photo of Marcel SwartMarcel Swart - Chair Young Academy of Europe

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The previous funding project: FOSTER

Objectives, activities, results

FOSTER was a coordination initiative that supported different stakeholders, especially young researchers, in adopting open access in the context of the European Research Area (ERA) and in complying with the open access policies and rules of participation set out for Horizon 2020 (H2020). FOSTER promoted the integration of open access principles and practice in the current research workflow by targeting the young researcher training environment. In addition, FOSTER strengthened the institutional training capacity to maintain compliance with the open access policies in the ERA and H2020, and facilitated the adoption, reinforcement and implementation of open access policies from other European funders, in line with the European Commission’s recommendation.

FOSTER established, conducted and supported a European-wide training programme, with more than 100 training events, in 28 countries, with more than 6000 participants, on open access, open data and open science, consolidating training activities at downstream level and reaching different stakeholders, diverse disciplinary communities and countries in the ERA. Each type of stakeholder was provided with a range of relevant training programmes, practical advice, support and help. The training programme included different approaches and delivery options: eLearning, blended learning, self-learning, dissemination of training materials, helpdesk, face-to-face training, especial training-the-trainers, seminars, etc.

Through the FOSTER Portal, established during the first year of the project, more than 1800 training items were collected, categorized and made available for reuse, as standalone objects or organized into courses, and 11 different elearning courses were created and offered, as self-learning or moderated courses, resulting in 25 elearning initiatives.

Through the training content collected, categorized and made available, the intense and wide-reaching training programme, and the availability of the FOSTER Portal to store and provide access to Open Science training content and to organize and run elearning courses, FOSTER has really greatly contributed to augmenting European researchers’ understanding of open access, open data and open science requirements, and to the adoption of open access by the participants of the European Research Area (ERA), and on the compliance with the open access policies and rules of participation set out for Horizon 2020 (H2020).

Quick facts

  • Project Name:  FACILITATE OPEN SCIENCE TRAINING FOR EUROPEAN RESEARCH
  • Project Acronym: FOSTER
  • Project number: 612425
  • Start Date: 01/02/2014
  • Duration: 30 months
  • Funding from the EC:  1,946,905.30€
  • Website: www.fosteropenscience.eu

Infographic of events 2014-2016

Project partners

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Resources

Project Materials

You can access all materials and public deliverables of the last and the current project phase at Zenodo.

The logo is available in different resolutions: Standard JPG, 270x128 JPG, 200x107 JPG, high resolution PNG

Advocacy stickers

But first cupI live open science stickerThe future of science is open sticker

FOSTER Button

Become a supporter of our project! Here is a button you can use to link your website to FOSTER.

FOSTER Button

To add the FOSTER button to your page add the html snippet below to your web page.

 <!-- FOSTER Button -->
  <a href="http://www.fosteropenscience.eu/">
  <img alt="Link to FOSTER Project" border="0"
   src="http://www.fosteropenscience.eu/images/logos/FOSTER_logo_200.jpg" /></a>
 <!-- /FOSTER Button -->

Download Taxonomies

If you wish to propose a new taxonomy term relating to Open Science please fill in this form.

Creative Commons badge Unless otherwise stated, all materials created by the FOSTER consortium are licensed under a CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE.



EU flag This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 612425.
This project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon2020 programme for research, technological development and demonstration under agreement no 741839.