Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics is delighted to celebrate a group of “Opening Doors” graduates, led by PhD researchers Aswathi Surendran (University of Galway), Cassandra Murphy (Maynooth University) and Nina Trubanova (University College Dublin), who have won The Open Science Award 2023 from ENLIGHT for their AGAPE project  – an innovative, student-led open science resource and community that they developed for PhDs/Early Career Researchers.

As PhD researchers the group participated in the Insight led “Opening Doors” programme and were inspired to build a dynamic working group around this topic. They created AGAPE – a collaborative, online community and open science resource created by PhD researchers, for PhD researchers. The online resource agapeopenscience.com consists of key information on the practical elements of Open Science that is needed for the PhD journey, with associated learning activities.

Open Science is a movement to make scientific research more transparent and accessible to all levels of society, including efforts to ensure that there is sufficient science capital inbuilt so that research can be challenged, appreciated and used across society.

The Opening Doors project aimed to co-develop an interdisciplinary, intersectoral, & international educational offering for post-graduate researchers. Its goal was to shape more innovative, socially aware, integrative and employable research graduates, ready to meet the challenges of the future. The project brought together expertise in interdisciplinary doctoral education, open science, skills intelligence and online learning environments. It was funded under the H2020 “Science with and for Society” programme and was completed in 2022

We are delighted to celebrate the ongoing, autonomous work of these excellent course participants who continue to innovate and bring the open science message and know-how to their research communities.

Dr Denise McGrath, a funded investigator in the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics and previous academic Chair of the Centre’s Education and Public Engagement committee, is the project coordinator with partners organisations; Aarhus University, Denmark, Maynooth University, Ireland, National Training Fund, Czech Republic and the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan.