One of STARS EU’s priorities is to promote open science through the extensive use of open data. In fact, these topics are part of one of the work packages of the European project that the alliance has been developing since July 2023, when it was designated European University.

For this reason, it has launched an online training programme on these topics, which will take place on 19, 22, 24 and 26 April, given by two renowned specialists in the field of open data: Eloy Rodrigues, form University of Minho (Portugal), and Ángel Delgado, from University Pablo de Olavide (Spain).

This training is specifically designed for STARS EU members responsible for Open Science and Open Data, although the sessions will be streamed, so they can also be followed by people from the allied universities interested in these topics. Details on how to follow the sessions are available on the STARS EU website.

Among other topics, the training will cover general aspects of open sciecne and open data; research data management; legal and ethical issues; models of publication and communication; and a practical session as a closure of this programme.

Speakers

Eloy Rodrigues is the Director of the University of Minho Libraries. Has been working on repositories, Open Access and Open Science for almost two decades, having established University of Minho institutional repository in 2003, and coordinating the UMinho team which works on RCAAP (Portugal Open Access Science Repositories) since 2008.

At international level, he has being working on several EU funded projects (like OpenAIRE and FOSTER) related with Open Access and Open Science and is member of the European University Association Expert Group on Open Science. Eloy was the Chair of the Executive Board of COAR, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories from 2015 to 2021, and in that role contributed actively to Next Generation Repositories initiative, the Pubfair conceptual model and the ongoing Notify Project, in which he is one of the Principal Investigators.

Eloy is currently member of the Executive Board of OpenAIRE and of the Advisory Committee ofSciELO Portugal.

Ángel Delgado holds a degree in Humanities from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide and a degree in Documentation from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. He holds a Master’s degree in Libraries and Digital Information Services from the Universidad Carlos III. He works as Head of Learning and Research Support Services at the Library/CRAI of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

He trains and provides support on issues related to digital research methods, open science, and scientific evaluation and publication, both to researchers, researchers and publishers of academic publications. He provides advice on scientific evaluation tasks to evaluators and decision makers. He has given numerous courses on these subjects to researchers and professionals of research support services in various institutions. He is an assistant professor in the Library and Information Science Department at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville, where he is also Coordinator of the Official Master’s Degree in Digital History and Humanities.

He also directs the University Expert Degree in Research Support Services: information, data, evaluation and scientific publication.

With the seventh seminar by the different Thematic Interest Groups (TIG’s) in the series by the STARS EU Alliance, all TIG’s have now presented themselves and their work. On background of the TIG, activities going on and what is being planned for the future.

As almost all our activities in society today are influenced by the Digital Transformation this TIG is broad in content and offers many possibilities on knowledge creation and collaborations. Regardless of the area of interest. The seminar put forward suggestions on studies to be made as different as AI-tools to improve detection of irregularities within medicine and how to in a structured way overcome the digital literacy.

Several of other TIG’s in the STARS EU alliance participated in the seminar and lively discussions on different collaborations and joint initiatives were held.

The recording of this seminar is now available online:

The alliance opens a call to all professors and teachers of partner universities of STARS EU to submit proposals for a course for a STARS EU – Lecture Series for the Winter semester 2023/2024 on multidisciplinary topics.

Participation is explicitly open to all disciplines, economics and social sciences, architecture, engineering and natural sciences, especially with regard to cooperation and projects with the respective regions of the universities.

Participants of the STARS EU TIGS (thematic interest groups) are particularly addressed.

The course should be part of your normal study offer of the respective higher education institutions, out of which a single course is offered to students, teachers, professors and researchers of all STARS EU partners.

It is important that all partner universities participate with a contribution and in order to achieve a high dissemination, an invitation from your network partners and policy makers is desirable.

The event format can be physical, hybrid or digital.

Applications are open from 1 July 2023 and the deadline for applications is 15 September 2023.

The sixth Thematic Interest Group (TIG) seminar within STARS EU Alliance series of seminars was held on June 20. This TIG as the newest of the seven TIG within STARS EU, was presented by TIG leader Thomas Raucher from Bremen University of Applied Science.

Even if newly started, the TIG has already begun working on a joint Blended Intensive Program (BIP) for the autumn of 2023 including partners from Bremen, Braganca and Cracow. And several issues on development including support needed and possibilities on integration with other TIG’s was discussed at the seminar.”

With this, there is now only one last edition of these seminars, which will take place on 12 September, on Digital Transformation.

The Thematic Interest Group (TIG) of Healthy Ageing within STARS EU Alliance presented their work at the fifth online seminar for TIG’s on April 4. Due to internal changes, this TIG had re-start in February 2023.

With already impressive results being made. Initiatives and activities are already conducted like the development on a joint Blended Intensive Program (BIP), formation of sub-groups and initiatives on projects for research. The results and future plans where presented at the seminar including an interesting discussion on the future development.

This seminar was introduced by the leaders of this TIG, Hans Hobbelen and Karin Sulmann, from the Hanze University of Applied Sciences.

The sixth TIG Seminar is scheduled on May 9, about Digital Transformation.

On Tuesday March 7 the fourth monthly seminar of Thematic Interest Groups (TIG’s) within STARS EU alliance toke place. The TIG’s are interdisciplinary knowledge creation teams for both research and education addressing large issues and problems.

This time out was TIG of Circular Economy, introduced by the leaders of this team: Filomena Barreiro and Elsa Ramalhosa, form the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal).

The recording of this seminar is now available online:

On Tuesday Feb 7 the third in the monthly series of seminars of Thematic Interest Groups (TIG’s) within STARS EU alliance toke place. The TIG’s are interdisciplinary knowledge creation teams for both research and education addressing large issues and problems. This time out was TIG of Energy Transition.

A presentation of this TIG and its progress was held by Professor Benjamín González Diaz from ULL as the Leader of this TIG. The activities and participants from all partner universities in the TIG was presented. Not least the jointly developed Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) with several modules and a lot of content that already has been developed. The planning of future initiatives and development was also addressed.

There were also discussed project initiatives and possibilities of interaction and collaboration with others TIG’s. With quite an intense engagement and a lot of interesting suggestions on the way forward.

The seminar attracted a good attendance from interested followers from different countries over a large part of Europe. Which we hope come back and attend more and other TIG seminars as well. The next seminar is to be held at March 7 at 3 PM (CET).

On December 6 the first of the series of seven (at least initially planned) seminars for the Thematic Interest Groups (TIG’s) in the STARS EU alliance started. Hosted by the Knowledge and Challenge Lab in the alliance in form of University West.

The seminars are planned as a one-hour seminar where each TIG can present itself and ongoing activities. But also what the TIG plan for the future in form of activities and different initiatives and projects. The seminars are open for all interested but not least for the other TIG’s and their participants to earn from each other and to be inspired. Each seminar has an Q&A in the end and also possibility for the TIG presenters to express needs or support to the TIG for their development.

 

First TIG out was Entreprenuership and Innovation presented by Dr Dalibor Simek (Assistant Professor at School of Business Administration in Karvina Department of Business Economics and Management, Silesian University in Opava, Czechia), lead for this TIG. The TIG has developed a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) on a business simulation game that are to be implemented to the partners in 2023. And are currently looking into possible joint research topics in the field as well.

One innovative part of the first seminar was to use the Vevox app to to polls on questions during the seminar. Which results are now help both to TIG and the Challenge Lab on future development.

Next seminar is planned for January 10^th, 2023 with link for the seminar and invitation through webpage and different forms of distribution within partners.