The Call focuses on Citizen Science (CS), understanding it in a comprehensive way and inviting projects to deepen and broaden our knowledge on CS activities and their impact. Indeed, overcoming present hurdles on the way to reach that knowledge will enable the potential benefits of CS – on individual citizens, organizations, and society at large – to be realized more effectively and frequently. This is the aim of our proposed project, CS-Track, which will seek this increased knowledge by “observing” a large and diverse set of CS activities, gathering data from the web, interviews of involved players, etc., and from a more direct inspection of running activities. Vast amounts of data will thus be studied, relying for this on (1) web-based analytics, i.e. the use of computational analyses to study CS activities based on their manifestations and traces on the web and social media, and (2) deepening and combining these analyses with approaches known from social studies through multi-perspective analysis and triangulation. Our data analytics and analysis will target both “own” aspects and developments of the CS activities (organizational/operational characteristics, scientific outcomes, good practices, individual/group learning, other success or failure indicators, etc.), and societal aspects, related to the impact of those activities on society, such as gender, age, geographical and socio-economic differences; science as a discipline and its role in society, changing attitudes to science, women in science, etc. This will enable us to understand complex processes, disseminate good practices and formulate knowledge-based policy recommendations intended to optimize CS to make it a major, positive factor for EU’s society and economy. The project will last 36 months, involving 9 partners from 7 countries.

Alarming numbers of beginning teachers (BTs) leave the profession within 1-3 years, while many remain in the system but become demotivated. The transition from education studies into teaching is often difficult, largely due to mismatched expectations. In Israel, despite the importance assigned to teacher training and induction programs, high teacher dropout rates persist. PROTEACH aims at capitalizing on the recommendations of the EU’s “Handbook for policymakers on developing coherent induction programs” (2010), the experience of the European members of the consortium, and the lessons learned from the Israeli “incubators” induction model implemented by some of the partners in previous years, to create a more effective model of teacher induction: MIT – Multi-player Induction Teams. This model will take into account all areas to be considered when developing coherent and system-wide induction programs, will support BTs’ diverse needs and will empower them to become active players in their own induction process and in their schools, while increasing their retention rates.6 Israeli HEIs and 1 educational institute take part in the project and are responsible for conducting the actions in schools from which our understanding of the role of BTs and the importance of “amplifying their voices” will emanate. 4 European partners –Romania, UK Estonia & Austria – represent knowledge and experience in fields that are needed for the achievement of PROTEACH objectives. Throughout 3 iterations, the model and related curriculum will be fine-tuned. MIT groups will be created at 12 Israeli schools, with 180 BTs and 450 participants in total.Outcomes expected: (1) Establishment of Intra- and inter-HEI frameworks for mutual learning; (2) BT will be empowered to serve as key actors in their induction and school; (3) BT retention rates at participating schools will increase; 4) MIT-principles will be included in HEI training programs and accreditation and adopted by policy makers.

The proposed project is built on a previous KA2/CBHE project – the Proteach project No.573877. In the previous project we developed the MIT (Multiplayer Induction Teams) model for amplifying beginning teachers’ voice during induction in order to sustain teachers’ retention. The model is based on a partnership between the academia, the school and related policy makers that meet once a month in the school to discuss pedagogical and managerial issues that arise from the beginning teachers' work. Although the role of the Mentors is evident in the MIT context, results show that they weren't involved enough with the induction process. In the PROMENTORS projects we will advance the MIT model for a new model of mentors training in Israel. The new model will combine innovative mentors training from EU that emphasis on peer group mentoring and other process that stem from groups' learning and collaborative meaning making. 9 Israeli HEIs and 4 EU partners supported by the Israeli MOE will develop and pilot 18 mentors training MITs to structure a new mentor training course that will be accredited, and will be certificated. The novelty of our approach from the Israeli HEIs perspective is that it brings faculty staff back to school to be part, lead and accompany day-to-day processes in schools through the MIT community. This make HEIs more relevant both for supporting BTs' work and for facilitating teachers’ professional development. The outputs of the project will be a the structured mentor training MITs model ready to be implemented in the israeli educational system. As the project fit both the Israeli MEO and the HEIs polices its impact is evident.