The mission of the ICDI Competence Centre (ICDI-CC) is to create a network of experts, initiatives and research infrastructures with various functional competencies to support the Italian national community dedicated to the Open Science, the FAIR principles for research results and for the Italian participation in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative.

The ICDI-CC is part of a broader context of European initiatives to foster Open Science, the diffusion of FAIR principles and the participation in EOSC, which include research infrastructures, e-infrastructures and projects that have led to the creation of specific competences and national nodes in Italy. The ESFRI research infrastructures, OpenAIRE, the Research Data Alliance, GOFAIR, the projects of the INFRAEOSC-05 call, are examples of initiatives developed through a European network of national nodes. The EOSC Association itself is a legal entity with representatives from member states and associated countries.

Following the launch of EOSC in 2018, during the two-year period of provisional governance, the need for competence centres has emerged with the aim to consolidate and build on the expertise that had been developed. These competence centres could be national-based, like ICDI, or they could be discipline or thematic-based, i.e. for Open Science practices applied to a specific research community or to a specific topic such as making data FAIR.

By pooling the competences available within research institutions, universities and thematic and cross-disciplines research infrastructures, the Competence Centre intends to act as a single national reference point for:

• Training and support: providing support, consultancy and training activities on Open Science, FAIR principles and EOSC.
• Empowerment: fostering the integration of Open Science in the daily practice of the different stakeholders, through the acquisition of skills and the awareness of the positive effects.
• Professionalisation: designing and promoting structured training and the introduction of the new professional figure of the data steward into research institutions.
• Good practices: promoting the development and dissemination of good practices by making accessible guides, guidelines, standards, training and information resources - also produced by others - on Open Science, FAIR principles and EOSC.
• Tools and services: providing access to tools and services to apply Open Science good practices and to enable the FAIR-by-design both by taking into account the peculiarities of the different research communities and by fostering the exchange of experiences between sectors.

The ICDI-CC activity addresses a variety of stakeholders, such as those responsible for the governance of research institutions, public and private funding bodies, individual researchers and support staff, including the network of data stewards. The action targets all components of society that can contribute to and benefit from Open Science, the application of FAIR principles and the building of EOSC, such as public administrations, innovative enterprises and citizens.

The ICDI-CC network of experts will have a dedicated web portal for interaction with the different stakeholders, to:

• get in touch with experts for peer support and discussion
• access a showcase and customised channels based on specific interests to learn and communicate training initiatives
• access a national catalogue of training resources, tools and services
• browse information sections with specific content for different types of players.

The Competence Center organises a series of webinars called 'Open Science Café' to discuss Open Science topics with acknowledged experts in an informal way.

If you want to know more about the ICDI-CC, read the document ICDI Competence Centre for Open Science, FAIR and EOSC - Mission, Strategy and Action Plan. Zenodo (2021)