Training & Competencies Working Group

This working group will strengthen the operational capacity of the EOSC Federation by establishing a coordinated, interoperable, and sustainable framework for skills development, training delivery, and competency recognition across EOSC Nodes, end users, and the wider EOSC community.

The WG will collect and lay the foundations for interoperable training resources across EOSC by defining and preparing a minimal, extensible metadata approach for EOSC training ecosystem objects, acknowledging that the precise forms of those objects (e.g., courses, materials, events, learning pathways, or other formats) will evolve over time.

Scope

Training Ecosystem Objects

Collect requirements from EOSC Nodes on training ecosystem objects.
Define a minimal metadata set to describe training materials.
Develop a prototype to collect training metadata and exchange it with third-party systems.

Policies and Concepts

Bring together stakeholders from EOSC Nodes and external partners.
Adapting the mandate based on developments in the EOSC build-up group Nodes and relevant EOSC structures and initiatives
Develop shared concepts and policy recommendations to support interoperability, reuse, and sustainability of EOSC training resources.

Composition of the WG

Training and capacity-building leads from EOSC Nodes
Representatives of emerging candidate Nodes supported through EOSC Gravity
Liaisons from relevant EOSC structures and initiatives, including:
- EOSC Academy
- OAEG representatives
- Competence Centres
- EOSC Federation User Forum
- EOSC Gravity Pillar 2 partners
- Other relevant EOSC and Horizon Europe projects

Objectives

Q2 2026

EOSC Training Metadata Profile (v1.0): A minimal, interoperable metadata schema applicable to EOSC training objects, explicitly designed to accommodate diverse and evolving training formats (in collaboration with the OSCARS project mTeSS-X). We will systematically assess, align, and reuse metadata elements from established standards, including Dublin Core, DataCite, Schema.org (Course and Learning Resource extensions), LRMI, and relevant recommendations of the Research Data Alliance. Reused elements will be formally mapped, profiled, and constrained to ensure semantic consistency, interoperability, and machine-actionability across EOSC services. Compliance with FAIR principles and technical alignment with EOSC interoperability frameworks will constitute mandatory design requirements for the metadata profile.

Q3 2026

Pilot integration with EOSC Federation Services: A demonstrator showcasing metadata harvesting for existing materials based on the EOSC Training Metadata Profile and the metadata exchange between Node-level training sources and the
EOSC catalogue.
Competency and Training Requirements for EOSC Nodes and service providers: A defined set of expectations outlined in the EOSC Federation Handbook on how Nodes and services should support and deliver training to users.

Q4 2026

A model of the structure and integration of competences and skills in EOSC Nodes and Federation
Alignment with EOSC Academy, CCs, and the User Forum

The WG will also provide guidance for the EOSC Academy, Competence Centres, and the EOSC Federation User Forum to create synergies, avoid redundancy, and maximize the impact of training initiatives.

The WG will ensure that training resources are consolidated into a coherent and scalable capacity-building programme supporting Phase 2 of the Federation’s build-up.