BioExcel-2 Deliverable D4.3 – Progress report and update on training and dissemination plan

This document describes the dissemination activities that have been completed since June 2019 and the training activities completed since January 2020. It provides an estimate of the impact that has been achieved by these activities. The dissemination section presents information about the project website, social media channels, dissemination events and publications. We also present the future strategy for dissemination and updated plans for training activities in the second half of the project. Both dissemination and training activities have adapted to the pandemic situation the world faces at present. The rapid response from the BioExcel Centre of Excellence to disseminate their work on COVID-19 research and to convert the BioExcel Summer School on Biomolecular simulations into a virtual event resulted in an extremely positive response from the community. The tweet advertising our blog on BioExcel’s work on COVID-19 Research achieved 14,000 impressions, making it our most popular tweet so far, and the Summer School was the most viewed page on the website and received a record number of applications: 180. To highlight BioExcel’s work on COVID-19 research, a dedicated page has been created on our website. The newsletter has been revamped with a new banner and social media platforms have shown significant growth. In 2019, there have been 49 dissemination events and 46 publications. Since January 2020, there have been 13 dissemination and training events and 18 publications. We describe an overview of the training events completed in the first half of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on face-to-face events, but this effect has been limited thanks to the experience that we already had in running remote courses. After the success of our pilot courses in 2019, we added remote courses as part of the BioExcel training programme. We have run 6 courses and used the experience gained to convert the BioExcel Summer School on Biomolecular Simulations 2020 into an online event. For each course, we present the contents and setup, and discuss the feedback received through post-course surveys. Most respondents gave one of the two top ratings in a question regarding an overall rating of the course. BioExcel will continue to deliver training to the biomolecular research community through already planned events listed here and others yet to be confirmed. The last additions to the competency mapper tool move it into the area of career development. It enables us to create reference profiles reflecting different roles in the BioExcel community and rated against the BioExcel competency framework. Users can create their own profiles and compare competencies between two different profiles. The long-term impact of previous training activities is also described here. It shows that most respondents use the skills gained during the courses and many of them teach others, which broadens the impact that our training has in the community