Skills4EOSC Competence Centres Network is a coordinated network of competence centres and other entities performing this function from across Europe that provides and supports key competencies that enable the practice of open science.
The competence centres are reference points in their respective countries, regions, or subject areas. They provide training programs, materials, best practices, and tools for managing, reusing, sharing, and analysing FAIR data and other digital research objects.
The network was established as part of Skills4EOSC – Skills for the European Open Science commons: creating a training ecosystem for Open and FAIR science, a Horizon Europe-funded project that aimed at a broad plan to coordinate and standardize open science initiatives, resources and training. These activities were intended to effectively support European researchers in the requirements to align their research with open science and policymakers in developing evidence-based national and institutional policies.
Thanks to a consortium whose experience and practices cover all aspects of the open science data lifecycle, the project helped move the focus from basic FAIR and OS skills to the next generation of research data management, enhancing real machine actionability at all levels of European research. This will enable researchers to change the way they conduct research and improve its quality, as well as influence the reuse of their results.
Through its commitment to promoting the European Open Science Cloud, the project provides each competence centre with the opportunity to participate in training programs targeting a variety of stakeholders, from policymakers, data managers and researchers to professionals and legal and ethical advisors, on a variety of topics and areas such as ethical, legal and social aspects, workflows in research data management across disciplines, and more.
The Gdańsk University of Technology Open Science Competence Center joined the Skills4EOSC Competence Centres Network in March 2025.
The network also includes institutions from Italy, Greece, Germany, Sweden and Finland, among others.