Accelerating Higher Education Management

OERDPI supports universities and research institutions in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, in improving how to manage and share research data. The focus is on making research more open, accessible, and responsible—conducted in an ethical and transparent manner, respecting privacy and cultural differences.

By promoting open and responsible research, OERDPI contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring equal access to quality education, encouraging innovation, and enhancing global cooperation.

A transcontinental partnership co-creates a VLIRUOS policy for open and responsible research, policy frameworks for higher education institutions, practical policy implementation guidelines and open educational resources.

Through policy development, capacity building, global collaboration, and resource development, OERDPI will deliver:

• A VLIRUOS policy on open and responsible research implemented in future programme calls, with guidelines, FAQs and training materials.
• A policy framework of building blocks and implementation guidelines for higher education institutions to develop policies for open and responsible research and research data management, in line with the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
• Multilingual open educational resources to support researchers in responsible and open research practices, ensuring their research is in line with ethical standards, trustworthy, accessible, and reusable.
• Cultural-ethical toolkit for policy development and implementation to ensure practices respect diverse cultural contexts. 
• Sustainability and transition plan based on stakeholder readiness survey.

OERDPI has three core work packages, three transversal work packages and an overarching project governance work package, responsible for the following activities. 

Core WPs

• Policy co-creation: co-creation of VLIRUOS policy and HEI policy frameworks based on the analysis of existing regional and institutional policies, overarching international policy principles, cultural-ethical considerations and a capacity and needs assessment on open science and research data management amongst VLIRUOS partner institutions.
• Policy implementation: developing guidelines to embed the VLIRUOS policy in program calls, and for HEIs to apply the policy framework in their institutions. A stakeholder survey will assess institutional readiness.
• Training and open education: inventorizing existing OERS on Research data management and open science; and developing multilingual FAIR training packages where gaps exist, available via a sustainable open learning platform.

Transversal WPs

• Stakeholder engagement managing the stakeholder community of academics, policy actors and citizen liaisons that provide key expertise and a sounding board for co-creation of policies, guidelines and OERs; facilitate regional uptake, outreach, and sustainability.
• Monitoring and evaluation: tracking progress and capacity changes, and supporting learning. 
• Cultural-ethical inclusion: integrate cultural and ethical differences that exist between and within regions relevant to open & responsible research through all activities.

OERDPI Online stakeholder workshops, 21 april 2026, 10.00 CEST & 15.00 CEST

The OERDPI core team will present the policy framework for open & responsible research that has been developed, and seek stakeholder advice and input to optimize it. 

If you want to join, please contact Veerle Van den Eynden

OERDPI Regional Workshops on (Open) Education in Research Data Management will bring together researchers, research support staff, and policy makers to explore policies, implementation, and training that support open and responsible science. The workshops focus on practical experiences, capacity building, and regional perspectives to strengthen RDM skills and promote FAIR research data practices.

• Africa: Ethiopia, Mekelle,  23-25 September 2026: apply to participate by 31 May 2026 (link to apply)
• Latin-America: Bolivia, Cochabamba,  5-7 November 2026: apply to participate by 10 July 2026 (link to apply) 
• Asia: Vietnam, Quy Nhon, May 2027 (tbc)

Check the preliminary programme: Preliminary Agenda  

Scholarships are available.

For further information or to become involved, contact the OERDPI coordinator or your regional core group member. OERDPI team | vliruos