First FIDELIS Open Call for Mentors and Peer-to-Peer Support Programme

Through two open calls, FIDELIS will allocate a total of €200,000 in financial support to enable around 40 successful applicants to participate as mentors in one of a series of defined support activities. Each of the defined support activities will focus on a particular theme related to Trustworthy Digital Repositories and will aim to share real-life experiences on tools, methods and/or approaches that have been taken. For the first open call, a total of up to 120,000 will be distributed.

Applicants are able to apply to become a mentor for one or more support activities using the TRUST-Grants platform which is available via the FIDELIS website.

Topics for the first calls are:

1. Support activity #1: Trustworthy at national and international levels
2. Support activity #2: Data curation, access and preservation policies
3. Support activity #3: Fostering engagement between repositories and end users
4. Support activity #4: Active Data Curation for technical repository staff
5. Support activity #5: Training approaches for repository staff and end users

Applicants are expected to clearly demonstrate the following:

1. Which support activity they are applying to join. For those wishing to apply to more than one support activities as a mentor, separate applications for each will need to be completed.
2. What experience they can bring to the given support activity (max 200 words)
3. How they think this experience might be useful to others (max 200 words)
4. What they are hoping to gain through participation (max 150 words)
5. Option to provide any other information they would like to provide (max 100 words)
6. Confirmation that they are in an eligible country 
7. Declaration that they are not a beneficiary of the FIDELIS project 
8. Confirmation that they will provide the 10 days of effort as outlined 

Eligibility:

1. This call is open to individuals. Applicants must reside and/or work in an EU or Associated Country for the duration of the grant. 
2. The call is not open to individuals affiliated with direct beneficiaries of the FIDELIS project.

Evaluation:

Applications will be reviewed by three members of the FIDELIS team. The evaluation will focus on bringing together a range of experiences and viewpoints. We aim to ensure a good representation of different viewpoints so we will aim to ensure a good balance from different geographic areas, different repository types and levels of maturity, and different disciplines.

Effort required from successful applicants and duration of the support activities:

1. The maximum number of days required to participate in any of the defined support activities will not exceed 10 days. A full breakdown of the effort required from successful applicants is listed on the project website. 
2. The effort will be be spent preparing for, delivering, and promoting the outcomes of the support activity (June-December 2026)
3. The actual delivery of the support activity will not exceed a period of 5 months (between June and October 2026). 

Compensation for mentor participation in support activities:

1. Successful applicants will receive a standard day rate of 500 EUR/day to support their active participation in a given support activity. 
2. The support activity will require 10 days of effort and a total of 5000 euros will be paid upon completion of the support activity. 
3. Financial support will be payable by invoice to the FIDELIS cascading grants coordinator (Trust-IT) upon successful completion of the support activity.

For further details, please see the Mentoring and peer-to-peer support programme section of the FIDELIS Training & Support webpage. Consult our FAQs on the same webpage for additional information. Queries can be sent to [email protected].