Building on the European Commission’s vision of Open Science, REINFORCING explores how open and responsible research and innovation (ORRI) can be embedded more systematically in Europe’s R&I landscape. While ORRI practices – such as openness, transparency, inclusiveness, and responsibility – are increasingly recognised as essential, their uptake remains fragmented and uneven across disciplines, institutions and countries.

REINFORCING responds to this challenge by establishing the first European central hub for Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (ORRI). The project builds a digital one-stop-shop that provides a single entry point to knowledge, training, mentoring and networking opportunities. It also channels financial support directly to organisations through a programme of 72 cascading grants, enabling institutions across Europe to test and scale inclusive approaches to R&I. By combining funding, digital infrastructure, capacity-building and community-building, REINFORCING delivers the 360° support system needed to make ORRI a reality.

Our role

Stickydot is a project partner in REINFORCING, with a central role in making sure that the project’s services are grounded in real community needs and participatory practices. We lead targeted community engagement activities, designing and facilitating workshops with diverse groups across Europe – from open innovation communities and Mission stakeholders to actors in the Balkans. These workshops directly shape the cascading grants, ensuring they address the most relevant gaps and opportunities identified by practitioners on the ground.

In parallel, Stickydot develops and delivers modular training programmes for the broad ORRI community, including crash courses and solution-oriented clinics. We also contribute to policy recommendations, impact assessment and communication efforts, drawing on our track record in other EU-funded projects and initiatives we run. Through this work, we help connect local engagement processes with European-level debates, strengthening REINFORCING’s ambition to become a truly pan-European hub for Open and Responsible Research and Innovation.

Expected outcomes

REINFORCING delivers a comprehensive support system to embed Open and Responsible Research and Innovation across Europe. At the heart of the project is a digital one-stop-shop that will serve as the central hub for knowledge, tools, training and networking. This platform brings together a vast community of actors, making ORRI resources more accessible and up to date, while also providing mentoring and matchmaking services. Alongside the platform, REINFORCING manages an ambitious cascading grant scheme, offering 72 grants that allow institutions and territories to experiment with new approaches and achieve lasting institutional changes.

Through these combined efforts, the project will reduce fragmentation in ORRI practices and empower organisations of different sizes and maturity levels to integrate openness and responsibility into their R&I processes. The training and capacity-building activities will ensure that solutions are not only theoretically sound but also directly relevant to practitioners. By the end of the project, REINFORCING will have created a pan-European hub that connects local initiatives with European strategies, providing tested methods, policy recommendations and a sustainable platform that helps make ORRI the new normal across disciplines, sectors and regions.