Raising awareness on Open Science, EOSC and FAIR in Cyprus: the experience of our Cypriot EOSC Promoters

Addressing the challenge of raising awareness on Open Science, EOSC and FAIRness in the NI4OS-Europe communities has been among the project top priorities, implemented by NI4OS-Europe group of EOSC Promoters. The EOSC promoters have an important role in ensuring the demonstration of services integrated into EOSC, as well as the ensuring understanding of the EOSC policies, FAIR best practices, access and usage policies among their user communities.

In this respect, communication with the user communities on the national level has been established through the organisation of a series of seminars and webinars and the distribution of specified related information and guidelines. Even though the COVID19 pandemic changed the initial plans for face to face meetings and approach, all the promoters found alternative ways to reach their communities.

In Cyprus, a number of actions were taken during the period of 2019-2021. Just before the pandemic the Cyprus team was able to organise and participate in three face to face events[1] and disseminate information about the NI4OS-Europe, Open Science policies, EOSC and FAIR.

Facing the pandemic all the events were transformed virtual and an array of dissemination events took place aiming at reaching various types of stakeholders. Three webinars were organized in collaboration with OpenAIRE NOADS of both Cyprus and Greece, to raise awareness with regard to EOSC and its actions/contributions and provide training on specific open science tools:

  • “Interoperability in EOSC: OpenAIRE Guidelines for repositories” (11/6/2020)
  •  “OpenAIRE and EOSC: interaction & contribution” (18/2/2021)
  •  ORE (11/4/2021)
  • Amnesia (30/5/2021)

Furthermore, presentations were given to events/conferences relating to open science:

The first National Capacity Building event for Cyprus took place online on October 29 and 30 October, 2020. The event aimed to inform stakeholders, researchers, and government officials about the concepts of Open Science and FAIR principles, as well as the current status of EOSC and NI4OS-Europe, along with a description of their mission and principles. 

Furthermore, on April 23, 2021 the University of Cyprus Library organized a National Dissemination event with the aim to provide updates about the European efforts regarding the Open Science ecosystem. The event, which took place again online due to the pandemic, addressed academics, researchers, policy makers, funders, librarians and Open Science enthusiasts alike.

Meetings and discussions started again in 2020-2021, mainly with government officials for Open Science, EOSC and about the establishment of a NOSCI. During these meetings the discussions focused on the current situation across the different levels, and on the various actions that need to be taken to further involve Cyprus in EOSC and the Open Science developments.

The outcome of these meetings were specific actions mainly for revising the national open science policy, and consequently about establishing the Cyprus NOSCI, through setting a national roadmap and creating task forces to that end. Specifically, 2 sub-groups were created, one dealing with policy revision and the other with CyOSC creation.

Undoubtedly the EOSC promoters/ambassadors still have a lot to demonstrate the efforts and actions will be continuously provided and knowledge will be transmitted.

Stay tuned for more updates!


[1] Open Science: From Theory to practice (24/10/2019). Presentation of NI4OS Europe in Greek by A. Athenodorou entitled: “Απογειώνοντας την (ανοικτή) επιστήμη στο Ευρωπαϊκό Νέφος

Cybersecurity Helix Event (5-6/2/2020). Reference to EOSC vision in presentation given by S. Koukounidou entitled: “Open Science: Policies, Services & tools”.

Open Data Day: Transparency, Innovation, Development (5/3/2020). Presentation of NI4OS Europe in Greek by S. Koukounidou entitled: “Ανοικτή Επιστήμη: Πολιτικές και εξελίξεις”.