Photo: All smiles at the end for the UM reSEArch-EU team members (left to right): Dr Ritienne Gauci (OSA), Prof. Aldo Drago (WP5 Project Specialist), Prof. Godfrey Baldacchino (WP5 Principal Investigator), Ms Raelene Church (OSA), Ms Audrey Zammit (OSA) and Mr Kevin J.Ellul (ORDO, Director of UM Library ¸£ÀûÔÚÏßÃâ·Ñ)
A Project Team from the University of Malta, led by , recently participated in the concluding event organised by the University of Cadiz, Spain.
The 3-year project was a Horizon 2020 funded programme, known as ‘The Science with and for Society’ (SwafS), aiming at building effective cooperation between science and society and pairing scientific excellence with social awareness and responsibility.
reSEArch-EU was successfully delivered by the alliance partners of the , to bolster research infrastructure and innovation within SEA-EU.
This final event, held on Thursday 14 December 2023, marked the culmination of the project's efforts and achievements for the entire reSEArch-EU team, and served as a collective space for the SEA-EU partners to both reflect on the outcomes of their work but also explore the sustainability and future directions of the project.
The University of Malta team steered Work Package 5 ‘Building an Open Future,’ under the direction of Prof. Godfrey Baldacchino as Principal Investigator and as Project Specialist.
The two key components of WP5 were:
- the setting up of a Research Data Management (RDM) policy framework managed by UM Main Library delegates, Director and Deputy Director ; and
- a programme of Outreach and training events on Open Science led by a multidisciplinary team of Open Science Ambassadors (OSA), consisting of , , , and .
Prof. Drago and Mr Ellul presented the achievements of WP5 during the core meetings that were held for the Technical Working Group Meeting and the Extended Executive Committee of the SEA-EU Alliance. A presentation of the RDM Policy Framework by Mr Ellul for Tasks 5.2/5.3 highlighted the policy guiding principles, terms of reference, toolkit and the open research data system to achieve a common platform of data sharing, retrieval and good research practice visibility.
The results for the OSA Programme were presented by Professor Drago for Tasks 5.4/5.5. 25 OSAs of mixed expertise were involved in cross-university efforts to deliver outreach and training across the alliance. The ) with ‘Train the Trainers’ Session formed the key encounter between OSAs to design the schedule of targeted activities by the OSAs. An impressive total of 32 training activities were subsequently delivered by the OSAs of the Alliance. The UM OSA team shared insights and reflections of their varied experiences in promoting and training on Open Science to academic students and society at large.
Two roundtable discussions followed as part of the closing event. Prof. Baldacchino participated in the first panel, led by Prof. Laura MartÃn (UCA), the Project Coordinator and included work package representatives such as Prof. Igor Jerkovic (Vice-Rector for Research and Quality-University of Split, Croatia), Prof. Sylwia Mrozowska (Vice-Rector for Cooperation and Development-University of Gdansk, Poland), and Prof. Tristan Montier (Vice President for Research-University of Western Brittany, France). Together they discussed how to maintain project continuity within the sustainable research agenda at European level.
A dedicated portal on reSEArch-EU and its achievements can be viewed . Any UM staff members interested to learn more about the SEA-EU alliance work, are kindly invited to get in touch with the .
