Pavlína comes from Ostrava and studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. She spent ten years in Prague, most of them at the National Technical Library (NTK), with which she still collaborates even after moving back to Ostrava. She was working at the Moravian-Silesian Research Library in Ostrava (MSVK) when she came across a job advertisement seeking an education specialist for the EOSC-CZ (European Open Science Cloud) project. Thanks to her previous experience at NTK and MSVK, where she developed educational programs, she succeeded in the selection process and became part of the EOSC CZ initiative team.
The Training Centre EOSC CZ was established as part of a broader effort to support the implementation of EOSC in the Czech Republic, while education remains within the competence of individual institutions. Its main goal is to create a framework for coordinating educational activities across the academic and research sectors, enabling a systematic approach, reducing duplication, and ensuring a consistent quality of content. Centralization allows for a better response to the needs of the entire research community and more efficient resource use, as individual institutions do not need to develop their own training programs. However, one possible drawback is the reduced space for highly specialized training tailored to specific institutions, which underscores the importance of local educational initiatives managed by individual institutions.
Our agenda is divided into two main activities: we provide training events and organize conferences. Our training sessions typically cover topics related to the data lifecycle and the activities that researchers or, for example, data stewards perform during these phases.
We primarily base our selection on past events and participant feedback. When a specific topic emerges as a recurring need within the community, we respond accordingly. Additionally, we take input from EOSC CZ working groups and their secretaries into account. We can provide full organizational support—from securing lecturers and venues to handling catering and participant registration.
Hands-on training sessions receive the best feedback, as participants appreciate the opportunity to actively try out specific tasks. For example, a training session on electronic lab notebooks, led by Marek Cebecauer, was very successful.
“When a specific topic emerges as a recurring need within the community, we respond accordingly.”
Since COVID, many people have remained in the online space, and one of our biggest challenges is attracting enough participants for in-person events. We aim to reach the scientific community across the entire Czech Republic, not just in Prague, where interest is naturally the highest.
In-person training is crucial primarily because it allows for more intensive interaction between participants and trainers, contributing to better acquisition of practical skills. Face-to-face meetings provide space for natural discussions, immediate questions, and deeper understanding of the topics covered. On the other hand, online training offers greater flexibility, enabling participants from different regions to join without the need for travel, saving both time and financial costs. It also allows us as organizers to access experts who might not be able to attend in person.
The choice between in-person and online formats depends on several factors, including the training topic, its interactive nature, participants' time availability, and personal preferences. That’s why we aim for a balanced approach—combining the advantages of both formats to make training accessible to the widest possible group of professionals in the most effective way.
In December, we held a very interesting webinar on Citizen Science and the use of data collected through citizen science initiatives. The recording is available on our YouTube channel.
Looking ahead, we have already scheduled a Research Data Management Basics training session for March 4. Additionally, we are preparing a session introducing ways to access supercomputing capacity through the Lexis platform.
“Face-to-face meetings provide space for natural discussions, immediate questions, and deeper understanding of the topics covered.”
The feedback was very positive, and at the same time, there was a clear need and interest in more intensive training, such as a summer school, which we are now discussing. Data stewards form a relatively cohesive group of professionals facing similar challenges, so we can offer them highly specialized, tailored training sessions.
Anyone who works with scientific data or provides support to those who do can register for our training. This includes researchers, doctoral students who have their own data and want to learn how to manage them, librarians, and data stewards—primarily individuals from the academic sector. Most of our training is conducted in Czech, but we also receive requests from specific institutions for bilingual training sessions. Topics will include open science, open licenses, open data, lab notebooks, open peer review, open repositories, etc.
In November 2024, the EOSC CZ National ConferWe didn’t receive enough feedback from conference participants to make general conclusions, but personally, I was satisfied with the organization. I am fortunate to have experienced event managers on our team, and we can also rely on support from colleagues across the EOSC CZ initiative. I am glad that we didn’t face any major technical issues, and we were able to handle minor adjustments to the program on the go. However, from an organizer’s perspective, that’s secondary. I believe the conference was beneficial for participants and provided them with current insights into the development of EOSC implementation in the Czech Republic. nce 2024 took place. How satisfied were you with the event's organization?
So far, I’d mention the EOSC Tripartite Event in May 2025 and the summer school for data stewards in June 2025. By the end of 2025, we want to respond more to the needs arising from complementary projects, such as the National Repository Platform (NRP) or the Open Science II project. These projects will likely create new training needs, such as for specific types of repositories. We are already preparing for these demands and collecting suggestions.
Since the launch of the EOSC CZ Training Center in 2023, we have conducted 23 training sessions, with 1,908 participants, and organized 3 conferences with a total of 356 attendees. In 2023, we held 7 training sessions for 420 participants and 2 conferences with 242 participants. In 2024, we significantly expanded our training offerings, with 16 sessions and 1,448 participants, plus one conference with 114 participants.
We continuously monitor feedback and strive to make our training as relevant as possible to the needs of the scientific community. We respond to suggestions for additional topics that are seen as desirable and useful within the research community. The interest in our events and active engagement from the community suggest that our training has a real impact and is seen as valuable. This is further confirmed by the increasing demand for specialized training (e.g., for data stewards).
“Data stewards form a relatively cohesive group of professionals facing similar challenges, so we can offer them highly specialized, tailored training sessions.”
is the head of the EOSC CZ Training Centre, where she organises training activities and conferences. She graduated in Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. She has experience in academic support and education, which she now applies in preparing educational materials and methodologies. At EOSC CZ, she focuses on developing competencies in open science and FAIR data.
The European project TEHDAS2 has launched a public consultation on the first four draft guidelines and technical specifications, focusing on harmonizing and processing health data for secondary used processing health data for so-called secondary use.
The Czech data steward community met online on February 4 to discuss key updates, including the release of the Beginner’s Guide for Data Stewards, an ongoing campaign, and an open survey on the use of AI tools in practice.
