After 42 months of collaboration, PATTERN – Empowering Open and Responsible Research and Innovation has reached completion, leaving behind a substantial and reusable training ecosystem for researchers, research support professionals and institutions across Europe.

OpenAIRE proudly led WP3 – Piloting and Evaluating the Training Modules, working with PATTERN partners to move the project’s curriculum from design into institutional practice. Fourteen personalised training plans were refined and implemented across the pilot organisations, adapting the learning offer to different institutional settings, target groups and researcher career stages. During the final reporting period alone, 136 training activities reached more than 1,000 researchers, through webinars, face-to-face workshops, blended learning, bootcamps, summer and winter schools and Train-the-Trainer formats.

From curriculum to a comprehensive Open RRI training offer

PATTERN developed a rich curriculum organised around eight Open and Responsible Research and Innovation areas:

• Open Access
• FAIR Research Data Management
• Citizen Science
• Research Integrity
• Gender, Non-discrimination and Inclusion
• Science Communication
• Mental Health and Leadership
• Dissemination and Exploitation.

Across these areas, the project produced 44 lessons/courses representing 90.6 hours of training content, complemented by learning objectives, learning pathways and competency frameworks. The training offer was deliberately designed for different modes of learning and reuse, combining self-paced resources with synchronous training, blended formats, interactive activities, assessments and practical case- and project-based learning.

WP3 then provided the environment for testing, adapting and validating these resources in practice. The 14 personalised plans increasingly integrated blended, self-paced, case-based and project-based learning, while systematically using OpenPlato and the projects platform to create adaptable institutional learning pathways. The final WP3 portfolio includes 24 unique OpenPlato course spaces, 37 thematic learning modules and 27 Project-Based Learning study cases.

OpenPlato: the PATTERN training catalogue continues

A major part of PATTERN’s legacy is now available through OpenPlato, OpenAIRE’s Moodle-based e-learning platform.

The 24 PATTERN course spaces on OpenPlato bring together multilingual and reusable resources covering all eight thematic areas. They include self-paced courses, Trainer’s Guides, interactive and SCORM-based resources, exercises and materials that can support both individual learners and trainers wishing to reuse or adapt PATTERN content in their own organisations.

Together with the projects platform and Zenodo, OpenPlato formed part of an interconnected learning environment: learners could move from structured training and skills validation in OpenPlato to resources and case-based activities in Projects, while key pedagogical resources are preserved in Zenodo with versioning and attribution.

The digital reach demonstrates the value of this approach. By project completion, the projects platform recorded 74,950 visits from 4,202 unique users, while the final WP2 reporting records 35,000+ OpenPlato visits and 1,300+ course enrolments. Zenodo added another 14,300 views and 13,300 downloads of project resources.

A training legacy designed to continue

PATTERN was not designed to end with its final training event. Sustainability was embedded into the project through open and accessible course materials, opportunities to rerun and adapt courses, Train-the-Trainer approaches and continued pedagogical development. OpenAIRE has committed to providing OpenPlato for at least five years free of charge, while PATTERN resources can continue to connect with OpenAIRE’s training activities, Communities of Practice and pan-European network.

The reuse has already started. PATTERN partners are adapting Citizen Science materials, delivering Science Communication training externally, exploring further exploitation of Dissemination and Exploitation training, and integrating Research Integrity content into established professional training offers.

For OpenAIRE, the completion of PATTERN therefore marks more than the end of a project. It represents the transition of three years of co-creation, piloting, evaluation and institutional adaptation into a sustainable Open RRI training catalogue that researchers, trainers and organisations can continue to discover, use, adapt and build upon across the European Research Area.