Effective training of transferable skills related to open science and innovation for PhD candidates and early-stage researchers

Informations projet

DISCOVERY LEARNING

N° de convention de subvention: 101006452

DOI

10.3030/101006452

Projet clôturé

Date de signature de la CE 1 Novembre 2020

Date de début 1 Decembre 2020

Date de fin 31 Mai 2022

Financé au titre de

• Make scientific and technological careers attractive to young students, and forster sustainable interaction between schools, research institutions, industry and civil society organisations

Coût total

€ 346 812,50

Contribution de l’UE

€ 346 812,50

Coordonné par

Research, Technology Development and Innovation, S.L.
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DISCOVERY LEARNING (Effective training of transferable skills related to open science and innovation for PhD candidates and early-stage researchers)

Période du rapport: 2020-12-01 au 2022-05-31

Résumé du contexte et des objectifs généraux du projet

Discovery Learning’s key purpose was to create a new knowledge by experimenting towards Proof of Concept of a new model to implement a participatory, empowered, and evolutionary work-based learning in PhD programmes for effectively training transferable skills related to open science and innovation. Also, the project put all the effort to build actionable knowledge for future scalability and sustainability of results and traceable lifelong learning.

In overall, Discovery Learning aimed to:
o Build evidence about what works in higher education for training transferable skills related to open science and innovation.
o Start to create a community of trainers (professors and practitioners), trainees, educational institutions, hiring companies and other organizations, regional hubs and technologists with the aim of facilitate adaptation to evolving skill demands and scaling potential for future sustainability of project´s results.

Discovery Learning Consortium worked on testing and validating paradigms and methodologies, with a particular focus in measuring impact over specific skills and trainees’ responses to contents and tasks. In that sense, it allowed to acquire a deeper understanding about what is really working while we gained insights on how measure effectiveness at training. The results obtained have been compiled to inform the stakeholders about the findings and the best practices of the project for future co-creation, use and scale and sustainability, maximising the expected impact in the design of learning curricula.

Travail effectué depuis le début du projet jusqu’à la fin de la période considérée dans le rapport et principaux résultats atteints jusqu’à présent

Several impactful results have been delivered by the project:

1. Building an ontology of transferable skills for an open science and innovation to support discovering of training gaps and opportunities, leaded by SAIA, and translate it into a set of career cards describing each of the skills included and an overview of the levels of competence for each skill and suggest how the skill can be developed through doctoral training and beyond. Starting from a review on existing researchers’ skills frameworks and how they address open science and innovation, Discovery Learning skills ontology was created through collaboration within the project consortium and consultations with external experts. As main conclusion, the skills were organised around the concept of innovation as reaching impact from science and technology; this is a good added value to already existing frameworks.

2. A programme of webinars in different topics related to open science and innovation, which covered all categories of transferable skills included in Discovery Learning ontology. Nineteen webinars were organised by all partners implementing enriched activities with practitioners, from October 2021 to May 2022, open to any PhD candidate and early-stage researcher (ESR) at international and multidisciplinary levels. 812 people registered to these webinars, and 539 participated in them from several countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. Satisfaction from participants was very high, and some discoveries were achieved towards the future training of transferable skills for people with highest academic qualification.
We also experimented with what we called real-work-based learning miniprojects: learning which not only belongs to real projects or cases but also, they are happening in real-time (they are alive as the PhD candidates and ESRs work in them). This activity was not so relevant in terms of numbers (23 people registered, and just 6 went through all steps); but it was the most disruptive educational activity tested.
Finally, 3 seminars were organised at UIO (2) and La Salle Campus in Madrid (1). Experience and outcomes from all these training activities was leveraged via surveys and in-depth interviews to participants and in-depth reflections by the educators and practitioners.

All lessons learnt have been published as a pedagogic research leaded by RTDI, and data has been made open. Additionally, they have been compiled into one of the main results from Discovery Learning towards sustainability of its impact: an open platform of what we have called Open Educational Experiences (OEEs). OEEs are personal and specific strategies from educators working with different learners in different contexts, shared openly via Internet in such a way that they can be easily found, understood, assessed and reused / recycled by other educators. This has been the baseline for a continuation proposal, Dived Learning, which is pending evaluation.

3. As a result of this compilation of work, a White Paper has been edited by FECYT to provide guidelines for improving doctoral education and its effectiveness in terms of innovated methodologies and the implementation of an agenda of transferable skills related to Open Science and Innovation.

Progrès au-delà de l’état des connaissances et impact potentiel prévu (y compris l’impact socio-économique et les conséquences sociétales plus larges du projet jusqu’à présent)

As a conclusion, going back to the specific impacts sought by the call in which Discovery learning was selected:

- DISCOVERY LEARNING reinforced PhD candidates and early-stage researchers’ employability thanks to being effectively trained in transferable skills most valued in labour markets today and towards the future, and having formalization of both the knowledge generated and the experience gained.

- DISCOVERY LEARNING has created a unique cooperation in terms of jointly defining a portfolio or programme of synergetic webinars amongst the different stakeholders represented by the partners and some collaborators engaged, co-designing the idea of mini-projects, and sharing OEEs. Also, it was important the collaboration of UIO, a reference academia player in modernizing their PhD programme, in terms of the skills addressed and training instruments and methods.

- Reinforcing actions in relation to Career development and counselling have been performed, and outcomes documented into a format which facilitates usability by multiple stakeholders in diverse contexts, even the PhD candidates and ESRs themselves, who can use the career development cards towards lifelong learning.
Additionally, some webinars were devoted to horizontal training on Career and professional development planning within Open Science and innovation society.
Finally, collaboration between UIO (academia) and SAIA and FECYT (national hubs in two countries representing different geospatial areas in Europe) improved synergies among with territorial nodes, expanded to all other European countries as well as countries from Latin America, North Africa and Asia. This was highly valuated by PhD candidates and ESRs.

- DISCOVERY LEARNING has started to build a community of trainers (professors and practitioners), trainees (PhD candidates and early-stage researchers) and experts (from the universities, institutions and the private sector). Grow and sustainability of this community in the long-term will be the focus of the OEEs Platform. This will also allow enriching training about future skills needs (e.g. contents to evolve horizontally – across transferable skills, and vertically – in various interdisciplinary/intersectoral fields).

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