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Wikimedia and Academia/Cost Action 2024

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Duration:  2024- – ??

This page documents a planned research project.
Information may be incomplete and change before the project starts.


Wikimedia and Academia Cost Action is a cost action focusing on supporting with an international network the synergies between academia and the Wikimedia projects.

Cooperating in Science & Technology (COST) actions are European projects designed to support the establishment of a scientific network across Europe. Also participants from other countries can be associated or can contribute to discussions and exchanges. The cost action grant provides for support travel expenses for meetings but it doesn't provide financial support for the work implemented.

This cost action contributes to support the international network of researchers engaged in the Wikimedia projects. It involves a core team of partners - according to the cost action guidelines and requirements - but it implements open discussions accessible to anyone.

Timeline

Improve Wikimedia and Academia/Cost Action 2024/Timeline

  • August 2024: presentation of the initiative and discussions at Wikimania in Katowice
  • Deadline to submit the project proposal: 23 October 2024
  • Estimated answer to the proposal: May 2025
  • Duration of the cost action if approved 4 years
Stakeholders

The list of participants will be made available only after the submission is confirmed.

Improve Wikimedia and Academia/Stakeholder analysis

To support synergies between the Wikimedia projects and Academia, it is important to consider the relevant stakeholders.

Area Potential institutions and groups
Wikimedia ecosystem
  • Researchers engaged in contributing subkect knowledge to Wikimedia projects
  • Researchers implementing research about the Wikimedia projects
  • Academic librarians engaged in the Wikimedia projects
  • Chapters and affiliates implementing initiatives in universities and with universities (training, collaborations, academic conferences, research)
  • Thematic projects: Wiki Education, Wikimed
  • Wikimedia Foundation research team
Open science
Institutions and networks working on research metrics
GLAMs DARIAH-EU Digital research infrastructure for the arts and humanities https://www.dariah.eu (they have specific initiatives related to GLAMs, which could also include online open communities)
  • Libraries: IFLA International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
  • Museums: ICOM, specific museums already very active on the Wikimedia projects with a specific attention to research
Research infrastructures
  • Research repositories: Zenodo
Publishers
Grant-makers supporting research
  • Private foundations supporting research and dissemination of research
Documentation about the grant

Improve Wikimedia and Academia/Cost Action 2024/Documentation

Cost action programme https://www.cost.eu/

Scope

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Strengthening the scientific and technological bases of the European Research Area by promoting the European-based scientific and technological networking, encouraging all stakeholders to share, create and apply knowledge, thereby encouraging Europe to become more competitive.

In the call and documents Suggestions to link the call to our proposal
leading to new concepts, services and products Collaboration with the Wikipedia and Wikimedia ecosystem: taking advantage of this open wide and powerful ecosystem and collaborative tool
finding the best solutions to new challenges
networking opportunities in order to strengthen Europe’s capacity to address scientific, technological and societal challenges
  • Wikimedia and the Wikimedia ecosystem can not be ignored.
  • Visibility of science - addressing disinformation
  • Addressing key topics: medicine, climate change, sustainability, access to education, democracy
  • Increasing the resources of science thanks to open content/data/tools and the collaboration with open online communities (citizen science) . example of Europeana
  • The deeply interdisciplinary nature of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia ecosystem
  • Cross-linguistic nature of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia ecosystem
Relevance for Europe
  • Taking advantage of an existing resource in-line with democratic principles, open science, participatory processes
  • Supporting a real implementation of open science
  • Making sure European tools take advantage of the Wikimedia ecosystem
  • Facilitating collaboration among many European institutions and the European open movement
a network of proposers who see an opportunity for advancing scientific, technological or social knowledge and impact resulting from such advancements through the international coordination support offered by COST.
COST shall seek responsible partnerships that streamline, complement, and create synergies in research investment efforts in Europe and beyond
  • European open science cloud
  • AI
originality of findings and ideas
peaceful purposes of the addressed science and technology challenges
proposals with potential high impact or that indicate emerging issues or potentially
important future developments
  • broader open model
  • effective outreach of science
shall allow COST to initiate and participate in public and policy debates to share the input from COST Action communities with the appropriate stakeholders.
empowering and retaining young researchers and innovators
  • metrics which support the work of young researchers
  • open data for the production of new products and services (support to innovators): true accessibility of data, real engagement of users and communities
COST Actions aim at the valorisation of their results by facilitating their uptake by the European research and innovation community and the society at large.

Potential strengths of our proposal

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  • we need to highlight the collaborative capacity of the Wikimedia projects to overcome bottlenecks linked to geographic location, age and gender (sic), and at facilitating the collaboration with existing network and reinforcing their impact, reach and efficiency within the European research Area (ERA) and at a global level. Its cross-border nature
  • We don’t have gender balance in the online editors, but we have it with the offline activities, Wiki Loves Monuments, events and with the involvement of GLAMs
  • Wikimedia provides an open international multilingual infrastructure accessible at no cost to anyone (open to all researchers in many languages and on all topics)
  • Wikimedia facilitates interdisciplinary approaches. Open to content in all disciplines, preference for historiographical approach, allows reuse of all data for all purposes
  • Wikimedia provides great visibility to content and research
  • Wikimedia implements and contributes to open science, open education, open access… It makes findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse very easy and it facilitates to understand the value and reasons behind them. It applies open science in a very practical, concrete and visible way with a very large societal impact

Envisioned problems for the call

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Potential problem How to manage the problem
Wikimedia is US based with US servers. We need to stress the strong European nature of the Wikimedia movement: Wikimedia Europe, number of chapters, readers, all European languages… and the alignment between Wikimedia and Europe (democracy, collaboration, participation, languages…)
Non European-only The infrastructure is open to every country and all languages and communities
Perception of Wikipedia as a product

Evaluation criteria

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  • Science and technology excellence (15 points)
  • networking excellence (15 points)
  • impact (15 points)
  • implementation (5 points)
  • Compliance with inclusiveness and excellence policy
  • √ led in a targeted country
  • √ led a young researcher and innovator :)
  • led by a main proposer of the underrepresented gender

Check in the proposal to make sure to include:

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  • inclusiveness target countries
  • anonymity of the proposal

Expenses

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Covers the expenses of networking activities rather than research.

  • used to organise and fund events,
  • Training Schools,
  • communication activities
  • virtual networking tools.
  • Meetings (e.g., Management Committee meetings, Working Group meetings);
  • Mobility of Researchers and Innovators (Short-Term Scientific Missions – STSMs; Virtual Mobility - VM);
  • Presentations at conferences organised by third parties (ITC Conference presentation and Dissemination presentations).
  • Dissemination and communication products,
  • Expenses incurred for the benefit of the network. Grant awarding
  • MC1 (first meeting) directly paid by COST

Network

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  • at least 7 countries. minimum 50% or more inclusiveness target countries: also clear plan on how to properly include them and involve them
  • importance of stakeholders, including SMEs (i.e. ICT, publishers…): COST shall encourage participation from all actors, such as academics, non-academics, SMEs, international organisations and public authorities and civil society organisations.
  • young talents and next generation leaders, working opportunities for young researchers (< 40 years old): clear plan on how to properly include them and involve them
  • gender balance: clear plan on how to properly achieve gender balance during the project
  • Aggregated information on the network of proposers (breakdown, expertise, geographic, age and gender distribution);
  • Plans to involve relevant participants or targeted stakeholders; openness to additional participants.
  • Promoting interdisciplinarity: addressing Research Areas and/ or Science Sub-Fields that are less extensively covered among the existing COST Actions’ portfolio and those that are of a more interdisciplinary nature.
  • COST activities shall be an entry point to other European collaborative research networks,
  • Through COST Global Networking, COST shall encourage the participation of researchers and innovators affiliated in non-COST Members and Specific Organisations in COST activities. COST shall in particular support the participation of researchers and innovators affiliated in Near Neighbour Countries also by having them eligible for financial support and other non-financial benefit
    • Strengthening the cooperation with Near Neighbour Countries contributing to the creation of reliable networks, building mutual knowledge exchange and trust to increase the collaboration for the achievement of common goals,
    • Reinforcing the cooperation with Third States (also called International Partner Countries) to extend the scope and expertise of COST activities. This may involve in particular the negotiation of Partner Member status
    • Reinforcing the cooperation with Specific Organisations which may be part of the steering of the COST activities on the basis of ascertained mutual benefit.

Target countries:

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  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Cyprus
  • Czech Republic,
  • Estonia,
  • Greece,
  • Hungary
  • Latvia,
  • Lithuania
  • Malta - Enrique Tabone
  • Poland, - Brett, Darius, Katarzyna, Julia
  • Portugal
  • Romania,
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • French Guiana
  • Guadeloupe,
  • Martinique
  • Mayotte
  • Reunion Island
  • Saint-Martin (France)
  • Azores and Madeira (Portugal)
  • Canary Islands (Spain)
  • Albania
  • Armenia
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina,
  • Georgia,
  • Moldova,
  • Montenegro,
  • North Macedonia,
  • Serbia,
  • Türkiye,
  • Ukraine

41 COST Full Members are: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary*, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, The Republic of North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.

Activities

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  • focusing on progressing the state-of-the-art
  • development of breakthroughs
  • activities shall be defined following a bottom-up approach
  • contribute to tangible and intangible results and outcomes to guarantee progress and welfare.
  • listen actively, encourage continuous learning
  • encourage teamwork
  • decisions based on facts and data
  • risk management and mitigation plan
  • manage the project properly, support, guidance
  • making results easily available to end-users in cost members and beyond: (the scientific community, business enterprises, policy makers, citizens, public and other stakeholders).
  • communication, dissemination and valorisation strategy (during the entire cost action): informing all relevant stakeholders

Calendar

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Duration: 4 years

Deadline application:

CSO approval (CSO is the Committee of senior officials which approves cost actions):

Expected starting date - it starts with the First management meeting (MC1): : no earlier than 4 months and no later than 9 months after the CSO approval. Possibly October 2025 - end date September 2029

  • MC management committee have to meet at least once a year (in person, virtual or hybrid)
  • Action monitoring have to take place at month 12 and 24 or the action implementation with an action rapporteur
  • final assessment at month 48 with an action rapporteur

Roles (attention to geographical diversity, gender, and career level)

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  • Management Committee (MC)
    • MC Members
    • MC Observers
  • Core Group - voted by the MC. It includes chair, vice-chair and WG leaders. reports at < 3 months
  • Grant Holder Scientific Representative GH SR
  • Working group leaders: Coordination of the WGs
  • Grant Awarding Coordinator
  • Science Communication Coordinator: position related to dissemination and communication
  • Grant Awarding Coordinator if there is a grant awarding (definition of the criteria by MC)
  • Possibility to create other leadership positions

There are

  • main proposers
  • Secondary proposers

There are

  • COST members. States being Members of the COST Association. There are three 3 categories of members
    • COST Full Members,
    • COST Cooperating Members
    • COST Partner Members. partner members. A non-European State admitted to the COST Association as a COST Partner Member as per article 8 of the COST Association Statutes.
  • Specific organisations
  • NNC - near neighbour countries. Non-COST Countries as per Annex I of the present Rules.
  • IPC (international partner countries) and third states - States that are neither COST Members nor COST Near Neighbour Countries.

Previous Cost actions relevant to our topic

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Participate!

Improve Wikimedia and Academia/Cost Action 2024/Participate

Process to participate

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To participate in the submission

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  1. Register a e-COST profile on https://e-services.cost.eu
  2. In the e-COST profile you need to specify your scientific expertise and your professional email you provide us
  3. Brett sends through the cost action system an invitation to join the network (name, lastname and email). you need to accept the invitation (and to do so you need a e-COST profile
  4. Only for full member or cooperating members, you can express their intention to be considered by the COST National Coordinator (CNC) to be nominated to the Action’s Management Committee (MC).

To participate if the proposal is accepted

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If selected, the network of the cost action will be open to new participants also during the project.

Participating without joining the cost action

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If you would like to participate in the discussions, or being informed but you don't have an affiliation (you can also be affiliated as a volunteer of a Wikimedia chapter) of if you are from a third country or if you do not want to disclose your name, you can still contribute to the discussions online
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