It was a bright and warm springy afternoon in the village of Castelo Rodrigo, Portugal, when we met with Ana Faustino, project manager of Open Science Hub - Portugal, Ana Cristina Perpétuo, teacher, and Paulo Langrouva, Mayor of the Municipality of Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo.
Why did a small county in the interior of Portugal, close to the border with Spain, decide to make an investment on science, education and innovation, and to create an Open Science Hub in 2017? And which impact does it have on community development?
The Open Science Hub Network (OSHub.Network) supports schools and local stakeholders to use research and innovation as a tool for tackling local challenges and contributing to sustainable community development.
Local OSHubs work as mediators in each local community, positioning schools as active agents for collaboration between families, universities, research institutes, industry, enterprises, media, local governments, civil society organizations, and wider society, by engaging in real-life projects that meet societal needs.
Across the different OSHub locations, schools and their communities identify local relevant challenges, linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, which are then combined in shared global Open Schooling Missions, enabling real collaboration across communities.
In each OSHub location, Open Schooling Missions are transformed into relevant research and innovation projects, led by students and teachers,in collaboration with local stakeholders.
By supporting local schools and communities with the tools and network to tackle relevant challenges, OSHub.Network aims to create local impact while simultaneously promoting an active global citizenship attitude, thus contributing to community development, innovation and well-being.
The OSHub.Network is establishing an European network of collaboration hubs - OSHubs -,in communities that traditionally do not engage with research and innovation due to various barriers - geographical location, socio-economic status, or ethnic minority group background, aiming to overcome barriers and building bridges across Europe.
The OSHub Blueprint allows the full development and implementation of the OSHub.Network model through local OSHubs spaces.
It includes facilitation guidelines for community building, diversity and equity recommendations, open schooling best-practices, guides for the physical implementation of the hubs and business plan templates. The OSHub Blueprint is fully based on Open Standards.
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The OSHub Advisory Board is composed of representatives from different society sectors, such as Education, Industry, Academia and Local/Regional Governments.
TRACES and Espace des Sciences
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes,
ESPCI Paris - PSL University
Are you a student, teacher, school head,
and you would like your school to be part of the OSHub Network, contributing to the development, innovation and well-being of your community?
and you would like to join your local OSHub and help co-creating this project with your local community?
and you would like to join us in this venture to co-develop school-led projects to tackle local relevant challenges?
and you would like to work together with us to co-create a strategy to support schools to become agents of transformation in your community?
Please send an email to
Maria Vicente
Project Manager OSHub.Network, Leiden University
