Building and connecting expert communities is one of the core activities of the EOSC CZ initiative. Alongside the development of infrastructure and services, strong emphasis is placed on the people who use these tools in practice and help move them forward. For this reason, a series of thematic networking events was organised throughout the past year, bringing together researchers, data stewards, institutional leadership and professionals engaged in Open Science and research data management.
In total, seven EOSC CZ networking events were held in 2025, hosted by major academic institutions, research organisations and public bodies. The meetings took place at the Czech Academy of Sciences, University of Pardubice, Mendel University in Brno, University of Hradec Králové, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, and the Czech Health Research Council (AZV). Altogether, approximately 370 experts from dozens of institutions across the Czech Republic participated. Participation reached nearly 370 experts from dozens of institutions across the Czech Republic. In several regions, particularly in Brno and Ostrava, it was possible to connect multiple institutions at the same time, creating space for sharing practical experience across similarly focused workplaces.
The main value of the networking meetings lay not only in presenting the EOSC CZ initiative, but above all in open dialogue focused on the real needs of research practice at participating institutions. Discussions repeatedly demonstrated that many organisations are dealing with comparable issues, from research data management and the implementation of repositories or electronic laboratory notebooks to the funding and institutional anchoring of data steward roles.
A recurring theme across the meetings was the realisation that many researchers are still not fully aware of the breadth of expert support, tools, services and computational resources already available to them. Face-to-face discussions helped place these opportunities into the concrete context of individual research projects and made it easier for participants to understand how such services can be used in practice.
“The networking events clearly showed that they function as an important tool for building trust, sharing experience and strengthening inter-institutional cooperation. At the same time, they reinforce the community dimension of the initiative in the long term. Personal meetings help connect people across disciplines and institutions and contribute to research data management and Open Science becoming a natural part of everyday research practice,” says Lenka Sedláčková, Secretary of the EOSC CZ Working Groups.
The first EOSC CZ Networking event of 2026 will take place on 30 March at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. This edition will feature an expanded format — alongside networking, it will include hands-on workshops and expert lectures focused on practical aspects of research data management, such as data anonymisation and data management in inter-university research environments. The so-called “Prague networking” will also involve Charles University, the University of Economics Prague, the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, and the Czech Technical University in Prague.
In early October, another EOSC CZ Networking meeting took place in Ostrava, where we spoke with Professor Jan Platoš, the new Vice-Rector for Science, Research and Doctoral Studies at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. In the interview, he explains why proper data management is key to quality research and how the university supports the development of data stewards and open science.
On 7 October 2025, the EOSC CZ initiative organised a regional networking meeting at the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava (VSB-TUO), bringing together representatives from three Silesian universities – the Silesian University in Opava (SU), the University of Ostrava (OU), and VSB-TUO.
