Open funding and participation in European COST action CA24106 BEACON

Final notice from this channel, on Short Term Scientific Missions, governance resources, and transition to safer open science communications, dissemination and exploitation democratic infrastructure.

Estimated reading time: 10–15 minutes.
Executive summary: This last notice announces open participation and funding opportunities within the European COST Action CA24106 BEACON on one health education, including Short Term Scientific Missions with funding of up to 4,000 euros per project. It also marks the permanent closure of this communication channel and the transition to safer, governed, and scalable open science infrastructures, including the Open Science Commons Cloud.

The message situates these changes within ongoing work on one health education, coercive practices, and democratic responsibility, and invites colleagues to join the action, consult the linked resources, provide feedback, and engage actively in governance, implementation, and dissemination.

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This notice communicates expanded opportunities for collaboration, funding, and implementation within my ongoing European and international work, together with a transition in how open science communication and coordination are organized. New venues, tools, and platforms are being developed to extend reach, strengthen protection of contributors, and increase practical impact where needs are greatest. In this context, the laboratory notebook publication previously used to notify colleagues of major developments in shared ongoing work is permanently foreclosed, as its function is being replaced by more robust, safer, and scalable infrastructures designed to achieve the same objectives under stronger governance conditions.

Colleagues are invited to join the European COST Action CA24106 BEACON, established in 2022 and originating within the then newly formed Spanish chapter of the Aerospace Medical Students and Residents Organization, which myself was also leading, and is no longer active, as most of my own work was destroyed by the continuous violence I endured. The initiative emerged from the aim of translating cutting edge open technologies and best practices from highly specialized domains into practical tools capable of improving health, education, and protection outcomes for populations most in need, globally, with a focus on one health education. The action is open and free to join. Membership is required to apply for funding instruments, but registration carries no cost and no obligation beyond good faith participation. The current call for Short Term Scientific Missions is open to all registered members and includes both virtual and face to face formats through mobility agreements. These missions support targeted research, training, curriculum development, methodological work, and implementation activities in one health education, with funding of up to 4,000 euros per mission depending on scope and duration. Colleagues whose work aligns with the action roadmap are encouraged to apply and to circulate this invitation within their professional networks. Funds are available to all members affiliated to EU COST area institutions. We will keep on setting the grounds for winning consortia, with global partners, through the establishment of an excellence network able to thrive and improve our careers.

Full details on registration, objectives, working groups, governance arrangements, and application procedures are available at https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA24106/ .

The action belongs to its members collectively. It operates under an ethical governance model formally adopted by the management committee and documented in the communication, dissemination, exploitation, and open governance plan. Leadership within the action is exercised through substantive contribution, responsible coordination, and documented delivery of results. Members are encouraged to take initiative within working groups, contribute to the development of a high functioning excellence network, and participate in the formation of competitive consortia capable of delivering high quality outputs and sustained impact. The shared objective is to meet and exceed the mandate of the action through best practices in research design, education, collaboration, and governance. Communication, both internal and external, is also the infrastructure that allows and facilitates connection. Technology sets and structures coordination of methods, improves the visibility and review of decisions, circulation of results, and accountability to participants and society. Disciplined communication practices support transparency, learning, reuse, and trust, and are necessary for collaboration at scale and for real world implementation of one health education outputs.

The communication, dissemination, exploitation, and open governance plan is publicly available and intended to be actively used and refined by members. Structured feedback is encouraged to ensure that governance mechanisms remain effective, accountable, and responsive to operational needs. The plan and related records are accessible via https://zenodo.org/communities/ca24106/ .

This communication constitutes the final notification shared through the laboratory notebook publication, which is now closed. The publication was created to address two operational requirements: it provided a continuous notification channel to inform colleagues of major developments related to shared work, reducing fragmentation and preserving continuity across institutions and countries, and; also supported sustained collaboration under conditions of isolation. Both functions were necessary at the time and were pursued at significant personal cost. These requirements remain central. The present transition focuses on delivering them through safer, collective, and institutionally durable means.

Experience across scientific and educational contexts demonstrates that openness, in the absence of governance and enforcement, does not ensure integrity or protection. Where accountability is weak, transparency can increase exposure for those who report problems, contribute evidence, or work in the public interest, while underlying systems remain unchanged. This dynamic undermines scientific quality and public trust. It also affects individuals and groups who collaborate in good faith, particularly where social position or dependency increases vulnerability. Establishing safe and accountable ground for collaboration is therefore a methodological requirement for responsible research and education.

Traditional academic environments have addressed these challenges through arrangements that have proven insufficient for preventing harm and ensuring accountability. Prioritization of institutional continuity over responsibility has enabled the persistence of coercive and abusive practices, particularly where reporting exposes individuals to risk without corresponding protection. These outcomes arise from structural configurations rather than isolated errors and therefore require systematic change in organization, governance, and operational practice. Participatory action research conducted under strict open science standards provides a methodologically robust and operationally necessary response to these conditions. Continuous reporting, transparent methods, shared data practices, and systematic return of results to society constitute core elements of rigorous research conducted in the public interest. Their effective implementation depends on adequate technical infrastructure, enforceable governance mechanisms, sustained institutional commitment, and explicit alignment with the rule of law.

In this context, the Open Science Commons Cloud (OSCC), a new shared international structure, is being developed, deployed, and iteratively refined as a shared technical and organizational infrastructure to support open science groups, action research networks, and research and education centers operating under conditions of risk, precarity, or institutional failure. The OSCC will soon provide secure, accountable environments for collaboration, documentation, communication, and dissemination, reducing individual exposure while preserving openness, reproducibility, and collective ownership of work. Its purpose is to enable high quality research and education without requiring personal vulnerability as the price of participation.

Effective protection also requires that law enforcement and related public systems are accurately informed, materially capable, and genuinely protective, so that reporting of harm does not generate further risk or retaliation, nor exposes us to further harm and betrayals of duty by deceitful and full criminals actors within the system. Preventing ineptitude, negligence, and corruption across academic, clinical, legal, and administrative domains is essential to closing pathways through which violence is normalized, authority is misused, and governance deteriorates into personal rule. Only under these conditions can scientific and educational institutions contribute reliably to prevention, lawful accountability, and durable public trust.

Democratic systems require active, informed participation by all members of society, and this depends on communication that is honest, open, and grounded in verifiable evidence. When access to information is limited, distorted, or mediated through fear, disinformation, or unaccountable authority, collective decision making weakens and responsibility becomes diffuse. Open science, applied with strict methodological standards, responds to this requirement by ensuring transparency of methods, accessibility of data, reproducibility of results, and continuous reporting back to society. The OSCC is being developed to operationalize these principles through shared, secure, and accountable infrastructure that supports collaboration while reducing individual exposure. In parallel, the work of the European COST Action CA24106 BEACON on one health education addresses these democratic foundations from early education onward, strengthening scientific literacy, ethical reasoning, and cross sectoral understanding across health, environment, and society.

Together, these efforts treat communication as civic infrastructure and education as a core democratic capacity, enabling societies to understand complex challenges, scrutinize power, and act collectively in the public interest.

The transition now underway is informed by direct experience of prolonged interpersonal violence and coercive deprivation, together with their well documented effects on human functioning. Extended exposure to repeated physical harm, chronic threat, and the enforced separation from one’s own children produces durable injury that reshapes perception of safety, capacity for trust, and ability to engage in social, professional, and institutional life. This experience provides empirical clarity regarding the conditions under which participation becomes possible or constrained. It establishes that safer ground, timely protection, and enforceable accountability are prerequisites for sustained collaboration and responsible knowledge production. Within a clinical framework, this pattern corresponds to complex post-traumatic stress disorder as defined in the ICD-11. In such cases, the condition develops following prolonged exposure to environments characterized by sustained threat, coercion, and deprivation, where escape or effective protection was structurally unavailable. The resulting injury affects autonomic regulation, chronic pain symptoms, emotional processing, and interpersonal functioning. Persistent hyperarousal, affective dysregulation, exhaustion, and somatic distress reduce cognitive availability and communicative capacity. Avoidance, shutdown, and blockage in response to interaction or administrative demands represent adaptive neurobiological responses to sustained threat, rather than voluntary choices or attitudinal dispositions.

These effects have direct implications for my academic and institutional work. At present, even routine administrative communication can trigger significant physiological distress, limiting functional capacity and sustained engagement. A period of medically indicated sabbatical leave is therefore being pursued, subject to clinical agreement, as a necessary measure to stabilize health, restore baseline functioning, and enable a full and effective return to professional responsibilities. This leave constitutes a justified interruption aimed at ensuring work can subsequently be carried out with the rigor, continuity, and responsibility it requires.

These constraints are relevant not as biographical detail, but as empirical evidence. They demonstrate how prolonged exposure to violence and subsequent institutional inaction impair the capacity of trained professionals to contribute to research, teaching, and collaboration. The resulting impact extends beyond the individual, affecting research continuity, institutional performance, and the broader communities and societies we serve, that depend on reliable, high quality scientific and educational work.

This position also highlights the responsibilities associated with academic work. Access to platforms, networks, and resources entails an obligation to report accurately, comprehensively, and with methodological rigor on the conditions that shape harm, protection, and accountability in contemporary societies. My work on coercive practices, including extrajudicial restraint, shackling, and related forms of domination framed as care, is grounded in this obligation. It documents how structural violence operates across domestic, clinical, and institutional domains, how procedural language normalizes harm, and how those most affected, including children and other dependent populations, bear disproportionate costs.

These efforts align with a long standing democratic imperative to improve institutions through truth, education, and shared responsibility. As John F. Kennedy stated in his 1963 Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights, we are confronted primarily with a moral issue, as old as the scriptures and as clear as our democratic constitutions. President Kennedy emphasized that change requires informed citizens, honest communication, and the willingness to act collectively to correct injustice rather than tolerate it. Those evils are nowadays as prevalent as before. More than six decades later, racism, structural exclusion, abuse of power, and normalized violence continue to undermine democratic life across our societies. The work now underway through stricter open science methods, shared infrastructure such as the OSCC, and sustained action on one health education from schools upward reflects this unfinished task. Democratic systems endure only when knowledge circulates openly, harms are named accurately, and education equips people to understand, question, and improve the conditions under which they live. These efforts are directed toward that ongoing betterment, grounded in evidence, accountability, and the shared obligation to confront injustices that still haunt us all.

The experiential and analytical grounding of this work is anchored in direct exposure to sustained aggression, severe marginalization, and social exclusion occurring in contexts marked by criminal conduct and institutional indifference. Such conditions obstruct academic work, undermine personal and professional stability, and permit harmful practices to persist without effective challenge. This grounding reinforces the necessity of participatory action research conducted under strict open science standards. Reporting must be continuous, transparent, and oriented toward the systematic return of knowledge to society, particularly to those most affected by violence, neglect, and institutional failure. Structural change depends on accurate documentation, enforceable accountability, and collective commitment to strengthening the systems that govern care, protection, and justice. From this perspective, the work now underway contributes to building societal capacity to prevent harm, protect vulnerable populations, and uphold the rule of law as a foundational condition for democratic life.

This understanding is inseparable from my research on coercive practices and from injuries sustained through direct exposure to such practices. Across contexts, harm is routinely reframed as care through medicalized and administrative narratives that relocate responsibility away from perpetrators and toward those subjected to violence. Within these frameworks, coercion is rendered acceptable as management, restraint is justified as protection, and deprivation is recast as treatment. This narrative transformation enables control to be exercised under professional authority while concealing the violent nature of the acts themselves.

Systems of care frequently operationalize these narratives through routine procedures. Coercive measures become embedded in standard practice, silence is interpreted as cooperation, and expressions of distress are pathologized as further evidence of disorder. Under such conditions, disclosure is discouraged, accountability is deferred, and harm is reproduced over time. For individuals subjected to prolonged coercion, these environments extend the original injury by reinforcing fear, helplessness, and loss of agency, while restricting access to meaningful protection and redress.

In these contexts, complex post-traumatic stress disorder constitutes an injury resulting from deliberate and sustained harm. Causality is external and cumulative. Responsibility resides with those who perpetrated the violence, with those who enabled it through omission or compliance, and with institutional systems that normalized and operationalized coercion. Recovery therefore depends on restoration of safety, agency, and enforceable legal protection against violence, coercive control, and extrajudicial punishment. Clinical care remains essential, yet it cannot substitute for prevention, effective law enforcement, accountability, and comprehensive victim support. Without these elements, therapeutic intervention risks being absorbed into the same structures that produced the injury.

The current transition responds directly to these findings. The development of structured communication, ethical governance, and durable infrastructure aims to reduce exposure, enable reporting without retaliation, and support participation under conditions of safety and accountability. These measures align scientific and educational practice with the rule of law and established human rights standards. This approach supports recovery at the individual level, accountability at the institutional level, and prevention at the societal level. It represents a collective responsibility and a methodological requirement for research and education conducted in the public interest.

Colleagues are invited to join the action, apply for the available funding instruments, and encourage participation from others whose expertise and commitment align with its objectives. Meaningful engagement in shaping priorities, governance arrangements, and implementation pathways remains essential to sustaining a high functioning and accountable network. In my current role, I remain available to welcome and support new members, particularly within the communication, dissemination, and exploitation group, where coordinated effort is critical to coherence, visibility, and societal uptake of results.

The work will continue, hopefully, unless criminals prevail or misfortune strikes, with a strengthened focus on methodological excellence, protection of contributors, reach across disciplines and contexts, and demonstrable impact in the public interest. Continued participation, critical input, and shared responsibility are central to achieving these aims.

Thank you for your engagement and contribution. I extend my best wishes for health, stability, and prosperity.