FIDELIS organised a Network member exclusive pilot round of the Support for the Adoption of Solutions. This type of support will be offered throughout the FIDELIS project to support repositories to implement and adopt good practices, tools, services, and other solutions to increase their trustworthiness. The pilot round aimed to prepare and develop the necessary logistics, materials, and processes for this type of support. Aside from the support delivery, participants were asked to share their feedback to help shape the open calls to make them as effective as possible.
The pilot round included three different support offers: Enhancing Repository Transparency and Trustworthiness with TTRAM, an Explorer track & Pathfinder track for CoreTrustSeal support, and the opportunity to Develop your own FAIR EVA (Evaluator, Validator & Advisor) plugin.
The pilot round ran in October and November of 2025 and resulted in the first Implementation Stories of the project.
All information about the pilot round and the support offers can still be seen here. This also shows how open calls will be communicated during the FIDELIS project so interested applicants can prepare in advance.
Interested in joining the future support offers? Sign up and become a provisional TDR Network member.
Support offer #1 - Enhancing Repository Transparency and Trustworthiness with TTRAM
The TTRAM (Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix) is a flexible, evolving tool to support mutual understanding and alignment within and beyond the FIDELIS Network. Developed as part of the FIDELIS project, TTRAM helps to better understand digital repositories and how transparency of their activities contributes to trustworthiness. This support offer highlighted the benefits TTRAM brings organisations, particularly in assisting Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs) with managing digital objects, strengthening organisational infrastructure, and technology and security management.
During the workshops, the participants had the opportunity to engage directly with the TTRAM developers and other participating organisations, fostering dialogue and collaboration. A contact opportunity was provided between workshops too. The approach encourages active participation in building professional understanding of TTRAM and its benefits.
The outcomes of the training are helpful for digital repositories because a deeper understanding of TTRAM enables coherent and reusable information collection, offers understanding of different repository types and curation practices, and facilitates structured, easily shareable information for further use. It also supports the creation of a functional network of mutual support and aligned practices among repositories. Furthermore, the training broadened the understanding on how to deploy, populate and expand TTRAM, enhancing an organisation’s capacity as a TDR and helps to recognise strengths or areas for improvement.
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| TTRAM relation | TTRAM in general (Workshops 1 and 4). Self-selected sections (Workshops 2 and 3) |
| Lead Participants Who Joined the Support Offer |
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| Implementation Story | Kaartinen, H., Alaterä, T. J., Bloemen, D., Cortea, I. M., Dražić, M., Glavica, M., Guillou, E., Hansen, J. S., Holmstrand, K. F., Kurta, A., Pawlik, M., Ricceri, R., Sans, D., Termansen, K. C.& Zhang, F. (2025). Strengthening Repository Practices: Experiences and Outcomes from the FIDELIS TTRAM workshops. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17949199 |
| Who was the Support Offer aimed at? | Representatives from organisations interested in creating structured and easily shareable information of their organisational infrastructure, digital object management and technology services |
| Skills needed to participate | No specific level of maturity or particular characteristics are required from participants other than good understanding of their repository’s processes and practices. |
| Contact points |
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer took place from October 6 to November 19, 2025. We anticipated that successful applicants needed to allocate 2 days to undertake this support offer. These days were spent on participation in 4 workshops and the necessary pre-support preparation and post-support evaluation. The pilot support included more extensive evaluation and feedback to help us shape the future open calls. |
| Who will be involved in providing the support? | Experts:
And other TTRAM work package members. Support facilitator:
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| What FIDELIS will provide to enable participation? |
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| What we expect from participants |
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Support offer #2 - CoreTrustSeal support: Explorer track & Pathfinder track
CoreTrustSeal offers a core level certification based on the Core Trustworthy Data Repositories Requirements, which outline the essential characteristics of trustworthy data repositories. This support offer provides participants with an opportunity to explore the CoreTrustSeal requirements and assess their relevance and benefits for their own organisation.
On the Explorer track, it was examined whether your repository falls within the scope of the CoreTrustSeal certification. This track was aimed at organisations interested in applying to CoreTrustSeal in the future or performing a self-evaluation without certification. After the completion of the training, participants had an increased understanding of how the certification process works and how to best prepare for the self-evaluation.
On the Pathfinder track, participants received expert feedback on their self-assessments. This track was designed for organisations that were already working on their self-assessment or otherwise ready to begin the process. The support offer included one-on-one sessions with CoreTrustSeal specialists, who provided targeted feedback on selected sections of participants’ self-assessments. The support offer helped them become closer to completing their assessment and more confident in their understanding of what reviewers look for when evaluating an application. To join this track, participants had a solid draft in place at minimum for Requirements R0, R8, R9, and R13 by the time the training began.
| Details | |
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| TTRAM relation | Criteria, Assessment, Improvement |
| Lead Participants who joined the support offer |
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| Implementation Story | Ševkušić, M., Bassili, A., Egyed-Gergely, J., Horváth, A., Jahn, D., Jouneau, T., Liseron-Monfils, M., Meiszterics, E., Morkevičius, V.& Oskalns, K. (2025). Explorer and Pathfinder Tracks for CoreTrustSeal: Assessing the essential characteristics of a Trustworthy Digital Repository. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17949562 |
| Who was the Support Offer aimed at? | Repositories planning to apply for CoreTrustSeal or carry out a self-assessment using the CoreTrustSeal requirements. Ideally, the lead participant should be able to engage with various organisational units to coordinate information collection during the support initiative and a potential CoreTrustSeal application. |
| Skills needed to participate | Explorer track: No specific level of knowledge required from the participants. Pathfinder track: A clear understanding that your repository falls within the scope of CoreTrustSeal certification, and a solid draft in place at minimum for Requirements R0, R8, R9, and R13 by the time the training begins. |
| Contact points | Explorer track
Pathfinder track
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer took place from September 30th to the end of November 2025. We anticipated that successful applicants needed to allocate 2 days to undertake this support offer on the Explorer track and up to 4 days on the Pathfinder track. This effort was spent on participation in 4 workshops and the necessary pre-support preparation and post-support evaluation. The pilot support included more extensive evaluation and feedback to help us shape the future open calls. |
| Who was involved in providing the support? | Experts:
Support facilitator:
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| What FIDELIS provided to enable participation? |
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| What we expected from participants |
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Support offer #3 - Develop your own FAIR EVA (Evaluator, Validator & Advisor) plugin
This series combined webinars and hands-on workshops specifically designed for repository managers and administrators, as well as technical staff and data stewards. The aim was for participants to become familiar with the FAIR EVA (Evaluator, Validator and Advisor) tool, understanding how it works and its potential for assessing the level of compliance with the FAIR principles. FAIR EVA is oriented to evaluate and validate the FAIRness level of digital objects from repositories or data portals, while advising data producers on how they can improve the data and metadata.
Throughout the sessions, the potential of FAIR EVA was presented — from its basic use for quick diagnostics to advanced configurations and the development of custom plugins. Advanced configurations allow selecting which information fields and metadata to evaluate in order to determine the FAIRness level, while plugin development provides maximum flexibility to obtain all the necessary information for the evaluation. In addition, feedback messages are configurable to guide users and data producers, helping to improve the quality of digital objects. The sessions demonstrated how these capabilities can be integrated into repository workflows to:
- Systematically assess the FAIRness level of digital objects and their metadata.
- Generate reports and metrics useful for continuous improvement.
- Provide clear and actionable feedback to data producers and depositors.
- Tailor the evaluation to the community’s standards and practices or to the repository’s thematic domain.
The webinars provided the conceptual framework, use cases, and demonstrations. The hands-on workshops guided participants step-by-step through the installation, configuration, and customization of FAIR EVA, as well as the development of their own plugins, ensuring they acquire the skills needed to apply it in their own context.
| Details | |
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| TTRAM relation |
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| Lead Participants who joined the support offer |
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| Implementation Story | Polimeno, A., Schimmel, D., Žibert, G., Krajewski, P., Otasevic, V.& Ristic, M. (2025). Customising FAIR EVA: Lessons learned on building a FAIR assessment plugin tailored to your repository. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17949734 |
| Who was the Support Offer aimed at? | This support offer is aimed at repository managers, administrators, data stewards, and technical staff across all scientific disciplines. Whether you are looking to evaluate your repository’s FAIRness, embed FAIR assessment services, or customize evaluation criteria for your community, this training is for you. |
| Skills needed to participate | A basic understanding of FAIR principles. For the plugin development, participants should have basic programming knowledge in Python and be familiar with metadata formats (JSON, XML) and HTTP requests. The training is incremental, so all levels of expertise are welcome. |
| Contact points |
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer took place from October to November 2025. We anticipated that successful applicants needed to allocate 5 days to undertake this support offer. The 5 days were spent participating in 3 workshops and the development of the plugin (2-3 days). Finally, there was a dedicated wrap-up session, where we showcased our plugin and how it worked with our system. The pilot support included more extensive evaluation and feedback to help us shape the future open calls. |
| Who was involved in providing the support? | Expert:
Support Facilitator:
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| What FIDELIS provided to enable participation? |
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| What we expected from participants |
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