Helping digital repositories in improving their trustworthiness
Through a combination of financial support and expert guidance, FIDELIS Support for the Adoption of Solutions will introduce the participants to best practices, tools, services, and other relevant solutions, and supported in implementing them within their own repositories.
The solutions offered are curated to match with identified community needs, such as those indicated by the landscape survey. In addition, the support aligns with ongoing developments and projects in order to establish meaningful, bidirectional feedback loops that both help repositories advance and enable solution developers to further improve their work.
For each solution offered, a clear description of the support is provided. This includes information on the expertise that will be shared (and by whom), the effort expected from participants, any required prior skills or knowledge, and the concrete outcomes repositories can expect to achieve through participation. Each support offer aligns with one or more elements of the Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (TTRAM).
Apply for the first open call for the Support for the Adoption of Solutions
The first call for Support for the Adoption of Solutions includes four distinct support options. Training will be offered on Exposing your repository in the EDEN registry for long term preservation services, Tools for privacy-preserving data release and trustworthy publication, Advancing repository capabilities with Core Preservation Processes, and Managing repositories from a service perspective.
Consult the support offer descriptions below to decide which offer(s) you wish to apply for. The application period opens on April 30 and closes on June 30, 2026.
Apply for Support for the Adoption of Solutions
Applications will be reviewed by three members of the FIDELIS project team and successful applicants will be notified after the evaluation period has been completed in July.
For further information about logistics and the application process, please carefully consult the Frequently Asked Questions. Information about our provisions for inclusivity is available on the dedicated webpage. For any remaining questions, or to suggest solutions to be included in future open calls, please contact us at training-fidelis@postit.csc.fi
What you need to know before submission
- These support offers will be delivered between September and November 2026. Please note that this is a general timeframe, and each offer follows its own specific schedule.
- Successful participation requires dedicated days of staff time, as described in each support offer.
- Participation in a support offer will result in the publication of an Implementation Story, co-authored by the FIDELIS team and the support offer participants. Participants will also have the opportunity to share lessons learnt in a FIDELIS-organised webinar.
- The call is open to individuals or individuals representing a team within a single organisation. Applicants must reside and/or work in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country for the duration of the grant. The call is not open to individuals affiliated with direct beneficiaries of the FIDELIS project. However, a support-offer-specific number of attendees from these organisations may be accepted as observers. Eligibility for participating as an observer is checked post-selection.
Support Offer Descriptions
The EDEN registry (eden.labs.dansdemo.nl, currently under development) will aggregate and harmonise metadata from research data repositories across Europe, making them discoverable and comparable. This support offer helps repository managers and developers audit, improve and enrich how their repository’s metadata is exposed, ensuring accurate representation in the EDEN registry and improving visibility across the broader EOSC ecosystem.
Participants will discover how the EDEN harvester gathers metadata from self-hosted resources, including embedded JSON-LD (schema.org) and HTML meta tags, and explore discovery mechanisms like Signposting, which provides machine-readable navigation links to help automated clients locate and interact with scholarly resources, and FAIRiCat, which offers a structured catalogue of a repository's content and access patterns to support FAIR data discovery.
External resources, including re3data and FAIRsharing, are also taken into account. Participants will be able to evaluate the harvester’s results against their own repository to identify gaps and implement improvements. They will also have the opportunity to evaluate related EDEN services for licence normalisation and file format identification. Beyond enhancing their own repository, participants will be able to provide feedback to help shape what the registry indexes and how this is done.
Details about the support offer
| TTRAM Relation | Primarily: Discovery & Identification Depending on each participant’s focus area, the support may also touch on related TTRAM activities and functions such as rights management (licensing metadata), data quality assurance (file format identification), and compliance (policy metadata exposure). |
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| Maximum number of participants | Up to 6 individuals or teams will be supported. |
| Observers | Maximum number of observers: 10 Observers will:
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| Who should apply | This support offer is open to managers and technical staff of research data repositories of any discipline. We encourage participants to apply as a team combining repository management and technical development knowledge, as the support covers both policy/content and technical aspects. No specific discipline or repository type is required. As the support offer focuses on the creation and/or improvement of the record within the service, participants must be able to modify the web-facing metadata of their data repository, either directly or indirectly. |
| Skills needed to participate | Participants should have a basic understanding of how their repository exposes metadata to external systems (e.g. embedded in their landing pages, OAI-PMH). Familiarity with concepts such as DCAT, Dublin Core, or Schema.org is helpful but not required. The support offer includes opportunities for technical work (e.g. implementing a FAIRiCat linkset, exposing Signposting headers, embedding JSON-LD metadata, or configuring service endpoints). Participants can also focus on the content, policy and management aspects of metadata exposure. |
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer will take place between September and November 2026. We anticipate that successful applicants will need to allocate 12 days to undertake this support offer. The 12 days will be spent on participation in three workshops, independent work on auditing and improving repository metadata exposure, and contributing to the FIDELIS wrap-up and Implementation Story. |
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This training offers a comprehensive practical introduction to data privacy tools and methods, which enable privacy-preserving data sharing and reliable publication. It is aimed at repository managers, researchers, and data professionals who work with sensitive data and whose goal is to facilitate the secure exchange of data in accordance with FAIR principles. Throughout the sessions, various tools developed within the EOSC SIESTA framework will also be presented, with a special focus on data privacy protection, including data anonymization, privacy risk assessment, synthetic data generation, and text anonymization.
Participants will learn how these tools can be integrated into data workflows and repository services to facilitate compliance with privacy requirements without compromising the utility of the data. Furthermore, the training will explore the relationship between privacy-preserving techniques and the FAIR principles, offering guidance on how to balance openness and data protection in real-world scenarios, as well as demonstrating how to integrate FAIR compliance verification tools into existing workflows.
Finally, an interactive session will be held in which participants will develop a user case based on the concepts learned during the theoretical sessions.
Details about the support offer
| TTRAM relation | Primary: Secondary: |
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| Maximum number of participants | Up to 12 individuals or teams will be supported. |
| Observers | Maximum number of observers: 10 Observers will:
While observers will be able to attend the technical and theoretical sessions, they will not be able to participate in the Q&A and wrap-up sessions. Access to training materials is under the license and terms fixed by the organisers. |
| Who should apply | Repository managers and technical staff wanting to introduce new services to check and facilitate data anonymization, researchers interested in publishing open data with safeguards for data privacy, and data scientists working with sensitive data who are looking to explore techniques and tools that enable its secure management. |
| Skills needed to participate | Although prior knowledge of privacy-preserving techniques or anonymization methods is not required, a basic understanding of Python is recommended in order to benefit fully from the training. Familiarity with the FAIR principles and data repositories is recommended, although these topics will be covered during the course. |
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer will take place between September and October 2026. We anticipate that successful applicants will need to allocate 15 days to undertake this support offer. The 15 days will be spent on participation in five workshops, the necessary pre-support preparation, independent work and assignments, post-support evaluation, and contributing to the FIDELIS wrap-up and Implementation Story. |
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This support offer introduces the Core Preservation Processes (CPPs) as well as the Transparent Trustworthy Attribute Matrix (TTRAM) and a crosswalk between the two frameworks to support repositories in extending their capacity towards digital preservation.
Through guided individual course work, participants will gain hands-on experience with Core Preservation Process descriptions, identify preservation gaps in their own digital repositories and employ the CPP descriptions to formulate a plan towards closing this gap. In break-out sessions, participants will have the opportunity to share experiences, discuss implementation strategies, and co-create approaches to overcome common roadblocks. Dedicated feedback sessions will offer expert input on the course work to support participants in refining their plans and defining next steps.
Details about the support offer
| TTRAM Relation | TTRAM in general (Workshops 1, 2, 4) Self-selected sections (Workshops 2 and 3) |
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| Maximum number of participants | Up to 10 individuals or teams will be supported. |
| Observers | Maximum number of observers: 10 Observers will:
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| Who should apply | Repository managers from data repositories of all disciplines who are interested in advancing their repository towards digital preservation processes. Participants should have a basic understanding of digital preservation and should be familiar with CoreTrustSeal requirements. CoreTrustSeal familiarity can range between reading familiarity to self-assessment of the requirements against the repository to actual certification. Participants should be very familiar with their repository's respective workflows, policies and infrastructure. |
| Skills needed to participate | The workshop requires a solid understanding of the practical challenges associated with the long-term preservation of digital objects.
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer will take place between September and mid-November 2026. We anticipate that successful applicants will need to allocate 15 days to undertake this support offer. The 15 days will be spent on participation in four workshops and one open discussion. |
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This support offer combines webinars and hands-on workshops for IT professionals working in repository development as well as user support and training personnel. It responds to a common challenge across repository services: small, often understaffed teams and the risks posed by staff turnover.
This training focuses on practices that strengthen the continuity and trustworthiness of repository services, including software management, documentation, and knowledge sharing. These practices help preserve institutional knowledge and ensure service continuity. It will also address coordination required to manage multiple repositories and maintain additional applications. Participants will develop skills to improve workflow efficiency, strengthen operational reliability, foster knowledge sharing within the organisation, and contribute to greater accountability.
In addition, the role of effective user support for repository managers is highlighted. Participants explore how well-organised ticketing systems and efficient triage processes enable timely responses while protecting developer time for infrastructure maintenance and service development.
Training and capacity building are addressed: internal training within the IT team and external training for repository managers delivered by the user support team. Internal training focuses on onboarding new staff and continuous upskilling, often through project-based learning. External training includes standardised guidance and user manuals developed jointly by the user support team, the IT team, and repository managers.
The activities within this support offer provide structured guidance to:
- Manage software code, track changes, and maintain version control effectively
- Apply software testing and quality assurance processes for repository
- Manage multiple repository services and supporting additional applications within a coherent operational framework
- Operate ticketing systems and deliver high-quality user support
- Establish documentation and knowledge-transfer practices supporting service continuity
Details about the support effort
| TTRAM Relation | Continuity of Service Training Technical Infrastructure Security |
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| Maximum number of participants | Up to 12 teams or individuals will be supported. |
| Observers | Maximum number of observers: 10 Observers will:
If observers choose to complete the same assignments as participants, feedback will be provided. |
| Who should apply | This offer is aimed at repository service providers, including technical and IT support teams (developers, system administrators, DevOps) and professionals responsible for repository user support and training. |
| Skills needed to participate | Basic familiarity with research infrastructure services, repository systems, or IT service operations is required. Applicants are typically technical or IT specialists with experience in software development practices such as version control (for example Git), container technologies like Docker, and software quality assurance, or user support and training specialists who are experienced in working with repository platforms, providing user support, and developing and delivering training. |
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| Duration & expected effort | The support offer will take place from October to November 2026. We anticipate that successful applicants will need to allocate 12 days to undertake this support offer. This includes four workshops, the necessary pre-support preparation, independent work, post-support evaluation, and contributing to the FIDELIS wrap-up and Implementation Story. |
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