The COESO project

The COESO project (Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues) kicked-off at the beginning of 2021. The 3-year participatory research project, funded by the European Commission through a Science with and for Society grant, aims to develop and sustain citizen science research in the social sciences and humanities. COESO’s mission is to enable strong growth of citizen science projects in the social sciences and humanities and to support participatory research through a service-first approach. The COESO project is an endeavour to bridge collaboration between the European social sciences and humanities community, the citizen science community, as well as the open scholarly communication community.

OPERAS currently supports 3 projects: COESO, TRIPLE, and OPERAS-P. COESO works in close collaboration with OPERAS and the integration of COESO’s online platform, a “collaboratory” for knowledge production and sharing, into its infrastructure, to ensure COESO’s efforts remain sustainable beyond the project’s end date. 

COESO gathers 15 partners from six European countries and ist coordinated from France by École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). It is organized into 8 work packages and includes 10 Citizen Science pilot projects: 5 have been preselected and 5 are to be selected after the Open Call (Advisory Board members will act as jury members for the pilot selection).

COEOS’s main project goals are:

• Identify and document researchers’ needs and challenges regarding Citizen Science projects in the Social Science & Humanities 
• Enable researchers and stakeholders to collaborate and communicate –  through the creation of an online platform
• Enhance financial support to Citizen Science projects in Social Science & Humanities

Call to join the COESO Advisory Board

Project: COESO (Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues)

Funded by the European Commission EC-H2020-SWAFS Program (Science with and for Society) https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101006325

Project duration: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2023

Application deadline: 20 June 2021

Duration of appointment: 1 July 2021 -31 December 2023 (30 months)

Download the call as pdf here: https://coeso.hypotheses.org/files/2021/06/COESO_call_advisory_board_2021.pdf

1. Join the COESO project!

We are looking for Advisory Board members who can bring a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds to the COESO project, completing the current board and helping us promote collaborations between the social sciences and humanities researchers and citizens at large.

COESO is a research project led by the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) and its research unit OpenEdition.

COESO is committed to the development of Citizen Science in the fields of social sciences and the humanities. The project gathers 15 partners from 6 different European countries (France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Germany), including academic research centres, public and private foundations, and small to medium-sized enterprises and associations.

COESO will implement 10 collaborations (“Pilot projects”) involving researchers from different disciplines within the social sciences and humanities (History, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology) together with artists, journalists, NGOs and local communities. These collaborations will be observed and analysed to inform the development of a digital platform supporting the implementation of many future small team collaborations of the same kind.

Being part of the COESO Advisory Board will be an opportunity for sharing knowledge, expertise and practices on the current developments and occasions for collaborations between research in the social sciences and the humanities and your field of expertise/profession. The selected candidates will join an international panel of experts already composed of 8 members (researchers, professors, librarians and a not-for-profit organisation director from Austria, the Netherlands and France), and will contribute in advancing the knowledge and practices of the research and society collaborations.

The Advisory Board will be composed of a maximum of 15 experts and its members will be appointed for a term of 30 months, starting 1 July 2021 until the end of the project (December 2023).

 2. Candidates Profile

The COESO Advisory Board will be multidisciplinary and interprofessional, with members who have a diversity of technical knowledge, skills and experiences. It will be composed by a maximum of 15 members.

The COESO Consortium welcomes expressions of interest from experts with:

• a broad knowledge of their field of expertise, trends and expectations
• interest in developing opportunities of collaboration of its fields with academic research in the fields of Social Sciences and the Humanities
• interest in societal challenges
• proven experience of operating in the public, private or other sectors;
• interpersonal and communication skills to support effective discussion with a diversity of stakeholders. English will be the working language of the Advisory Board and project meetings

The experts may be, among others:

• Independent professionals (such as journalists and artists)
• Small and medium-sized enterprise professionals
• Non-governmental organizations and Civil Society organizations members
• Policy makers (e.g. representants of local government institutions)

Experts coming from countries which are not already represented in the COESO consortium are welcome.

Advisory Board members should provide the COESO project with knowledge, understanding and strategic thinking for the good of the project implementation and future evolution. The development of close working ties with other members of the Advisory Board and COESO project participants will be an opportunity to establish valuable professional connections, sharing challenges and solutions in collaborating with social sciences and humanities research, discovering best practices and trends that can be implemented in your field.

3. Advisory Board Roles and Responsibilities

The Advisory Board members will be asked to act as:

1. Jury members by selecting  5 new projects to be funded, in accordance with an evaluation grid established in collaboration with the COESO project team, ensuring the diversity of representation in terms of countries, disciplines, types of stakeholders involved as well as socio-economic and gender balance.
2. High level advisors by providing scientific advice and recommendations on the evolution of the project and by participating in the Board meetings to discuss approaches and best practices.
3. Project representatives for advocacy and communication initiatives by sharing the project’s activities and outcomes, multiplying the project’s dissemination efforts.

The responsibilities of the Advisory Board members are as follows:

1. Advice on the preparation of the Open Call criteria and procedures;
2. Participation in the selection of the applications received under the Open Call, which will be launched in the final trimester of 2021;
3. Monitoring and meetings with the Pilot Projects for periodic feedback and recommendations on the evolution of the projects in order to enhance participation and guarantee quality;
4. Advice and assess recommendations that will help the project to discuss approaches and best practices;
5. Attendance of Advisory Board meetings (twice a year).

4. Application procedure

The deadline for the submission of the expression of interest is 20 June 2021. All applicants must document their professional experience and expertise by means of a CV and a cover letter indicating their motivation to apply and how they satisfy the selection criteria (not more than 2 pages). Please note that, if selected, membership will be in a personal capacity.

Applications shall be submitted before the deadline by email to the COESO Project Manager: alessia.smaniotto[at]openedition.org.

Any questions about the project, the application process or the Advisory Board can be submitted to alessia.smaniotto[at]openedition.org.

5. Selection and appointment procedure

Upon submission of applications, a dedicated COESO team including the project coordinator, together with the current members of the Advisory Board, will select a list of a maximum of 7 candidates to be nominated as new members. Upon completion of the selection, candidates will be informed about the outcome of the selection process by 9 July 2021.

6. Conditions of appointment

Candidates must be free of any real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest.

All COESO Advisory Board members will serve in their individual expert capacity and shall not participate on behalf of any governments, any commercial industries or entities, any research, academic or civil society organizations, or any other bodies, entities, institutions or organizations.

The names and a short biography of the selected individuals will be published on the COESO project website.

Advisory Board members will not be remunerated for their services in relation to the Advisory Board.

The Advisory Board meetings can be held online or in face-to-face. Travel costs for in-person meetings and COESO Final Conference will be guaranteed by the COESO project in accordance with the applicable policies, rules and procedures.

7. Data protection

With regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data, COESO will ensure that candidates’ personal data will be used only for legitimate purposes of this procedure, as required by European Parliament and Council Directive 95/46/EC.

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COESO website: coeso.hypotheses.org

COESO blog: @COESOU

For further information on COESO, please don’t hesitate to contact Alessia Smaniotto (alessia.smaniotto[a]openedition.org) and Pierre Mounier (pierre.mounier[a]openedition.org).

To follow all COESO project news, subscribe to the OPERAS newsletter: https://www.operas-eu.org/operas-newsletter.

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This project receives funding from the European Union‘s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101006325.

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