V. Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute and its partners will start the H2020 Marie Curie Staff Exchange project (No. ORCA – 101182752 – GAP-101182752) entitled “Open(ing) Research in Central Asia: consolidating a culture of research ethics, data management, and open science, in Eurasia and beyond”. The total budget of the project amounts to EUR 1.6 million. The project consortium consists of Dublin City University, the University of Latvia, the University of Bremen, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) and other partners.

According to the project’s Lithuanian team leader, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė, this is one of the first projects of its kind at the VMU, which opens up avenues for researchers to collaborate in the lesser-known region of Central East Asia, discussing issues of science policy, methodology and the use of data: “We can say that over the past decades, our researchers have clearly strengthened their analytical skills, and the processes of transferring knowledge need to be more global, also reaching out to little known, but still prospective, regions”.

The new project, running from 2025 – 2029, will focus on research quality and results, open science, and science management, transferring knowledge and expertise to five Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It is a pilot programme for research, academic mobility, and knowledge transfer, with a particular focus on interdisciplinary issues in economics and social sciences.

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