Monday, March 10, 2025 From rOpenSci (https://ropensci.org/blog/2025/03/10/champeons-latin-america/). Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the CC-BY license.
We have great news: The call for applications to be part of the new cohort of our 2025 Program is now open! And for the first time it will be in Spanish!
Our program seeks to identify, recognize and reward people who are leaders in an open science community, research software engineering and the R programming community.
This year’s program is focused on people from Latin America and for the first time will be conducted entirely in Spanish. The main goal is to foster sustainable research software as a pillar of Open Science in Latin America through capacity and community building.
This program is an amazing platform for developing your open source project with the support of experts, interacting, sharing, and strengthening a network with other people also developing open and reproducible science in your part of the world.
We are looking for people who work in STEAM, who are from Latin America, who have a good oral and written command of the Spanish language and who already have knowledge and experience developing with R.
For those who want to be mentors, we are looking for people who have previous experience developing, maintaining, or contributing to R packages (at rOpenSci is even better), or have participated in the rOpenSci review process or another peer code review project. It is also important that they are willing to guide and teach other people and work collaboratively.
You can see more details about the requirements to participate in each role on our specific program website (in Spanish).
Over the course of 12 months, Champions receive training, individual mentoring in the development of an open source project, an annual stipend, and the opportunity to participate in various community building and strengthening activities.
During this program, Champions will develop a project, such as the creation of a new R package or participating in the rOpenSci peer review process. This offers opportunities to learn best practices for developing and sharing research software and an invitation to become part of an international community.
At the end of the program, participants can choose how they want to give back to their own communities and institutions. That could be through outreach, mentoring, or promoting open science and open source research practices.
When they finish, Champions are fully integrated into the rOpenSci community, which provides them with ongoing support and growth opportunities.
Mentors play a key role in the rOpenSci program, helping to select, mentor, and inspire those who participate as Champions. Mentors will connect their Champions with people, programs, and organizations; will recommend resources, readings, training, and experiences; and will provide feedback on the project they develop.
Mentors will receive mentoring training, and have opportunities to gain experience and skills to perform their tasks. They will receive an annual stipend, be recognized on the rOpenSci website and social media channels, and make new connections through the networks of others who participate.
By mentoring our selected Champions and helping to shape this program, mentors will also be giving back to the rOpenSci community in a great and meaningful way 🙏🏼 .
The application form must be completed **in Spanish by Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
If you would like to know more about the information needed to complete the form you can see it on the program’s website.
If you have any questions you can participate in the Community Call to be held on March 12, 2025 where mentors and Champions from previous cohorts will participate and share their experiences in the program.
In addition, we will have an application clinic on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. At this clinic, the program coordinator will be available to answer questions and help applicants complete the application form.
And if you still have any questions or concerns, you can email us at [email protected].
We look forward to receiving your application!
