How to use this platform
Welcome to the ENGAGE.EU research community platform. On this page you will find guidelines on how to use the platform and create your own opportunities.
Complete your account
First, it is important to complete your account and profile. After you follow the registration steps, you are immediately asked to fill in your profile information. If you didn’t complete that yet you can go back to ‘Update Profile’, fill in the right information and save. Under the ‘Update Account’ setting you can change your name or profile picture. Under 'My notifications', you can set on which topics and how often you would like to receive updates. Now you can browse via People to see which of your colleagues have already joined and see who studies similar topics, you can filter your view by research theme.
Research themes
One way to search for colleauges is by Research Theme. For example, you can go to the research theme that you find most interesting, let’s say ‘digital transformation’. You can browse here and see all
collaboration opportunities, events and news items related to this research theme. If you want, you can create your own subtheme that will then be nested under the 8 core themes.
Events
Do you have an event coming up about a topic? Then click on theo ‘Create New Opportunity’ button (home page, the top right corner) and choose ‘Create An Event’. Fill in the information such as ‘title, date and location. Link your event to a research theme, or more than one. You can first save it as a draft in order to review what it looks like. Or you can make an archived version in order to let a colleague review or contribute to it. When you’re happy, you can set the status to Active, it is then published. When you now go to ‘Events’, you can see it’s in the event calendar. You can also go back to the research theme page, and you will see that it is also visible there.
Collaboration groups
On this platform you can also share collaboration opportunities and
collaborate in groups. Let’s say you work with 2 colleagues on a research project around digital solutions for the energy transition and you would like international colleagues to work with you on this topic. For this you go to the Dashboard and under you can create' select ‘a collaboration group’ . You can then fill in the information. In this example: it’s a group for a joint project, and the research themes are digital transformation and energy transition. You then fill in the group description, add information 'about' the group and 'group rules'. You can add links, like a google drive or zoom link that you often use and you can add files. Then you can publish it. You can share the link of your group with your colleagues and let them ‘join’ by clicking the orange button. You will receive an e-mail with a request to approve the colleague or let this person know that he/she cannot join the group. This makes collaboration groups safe spaces to work in and share unfinished documents with colleagues.
Collaboration opportunities
Another approach is to create a collaboration opportunity, and in this way recruit interested colleagues 
for your group or project. On the homepage you can go to the Create an opportunity button on the top right, or you can click on ‘a call for support’ on the left in the main panel. You can then complete the information on the ‘Post a new Collaboration Opportunity’ page.
My collaborations and My profile
After you made an event, opportunity or group, or after you joined a group, event or even when you show interest in an opportunity, this will be visible in your profile and personal overview. It will also show on all the overview pages, by tagging this information. In this way the platform helps you to filter and discover, and be discovered by your colleagues in the community. Finally, you have a personal page ‘My Collaborations’ where you can view, edit or remove your content. When you will start using your groups for discussions, you can also see your updates and notifications here.
...this is it for now! If you need help with creating opportunities or finding the right content, you can always contact the community manager for help. We wish you lots of inspiration on this platform and hope you find lots of opportunities to connect for international and interdisciplinary collaboration!