Synchronisation Force workshop series - 2024 edition

Topic Session 1: Thursday, September 26, 10.00-11.30 CET
Metrics and assessing FAIRness

Chair: Mike Priddy, DANS
Rapporteur: Maaike Verburg, DANS

In previous sessions we have covered metrics, associated tests and tools available for the FAIRness assessment of digital objects: data, research software and semantic artefacts. In this last workshop of the series we wish to discuss the future of FAIR metrics and assessment tools. How far can discipline-specific metrics improve the FAIRness of digital objects and how can we harmonise metrics and tests to ensure comparability for cross-discipline research? How could a catalogue of metrics and tests aid discipline-specific assessments? Could the FAIRness of digital objects be improved with dedicated local support?

Recommendations assessed during the session
(Recommendations from Second Synchronisation Force report, based on outcomes from 2023 edition)

• A broader community must be engaged and solicited for collaboration in developing a comprehensive catalogue of methods.
• The development, sharing, discoverability, and reuse of FAIR Implementation Profiles (FIPs) necessitate enhanced community cooperation. This collaborative effort is crucial for supporting the creation of domain-specific assessments, ensuring that the principles of FAIR are effectively implemented and tailored to specific research needs.
• Conducting pre-assessment could facilitate the gradual enhancement of the FAIRness of research outputs throughout the research data lifecycle.
• Researchers require access to dedicated local support to assist the general and discipline-specific FAIRification processes of data, research software, and semantic artefacts.

Expected outcomes

The expected outcome is an assessment of the status of the advancement in FAIR evaluation practices with respect to discipline-specificity and researcher support, plus to gather opinions on this and governance, in order to conclude the Synchronisation Force recommendations on FAIR metrics and assessment.

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Topic Session 2: Monday, September 30, 13.00-14.30 CET
Sustainability of project outputs

Chair: Ingrid Dillo, DANS
Rapporteur: Maaike Verburg (DANS-KNAW)

Planning for the long-term sustainability of project outcomes in an ever-changing landscape is a challenge many projects are faced with. The exploitation of outputs after the end of a project is partly dependent on their uptake and adoption by the various stakeholders of a project, yet there is currently no consensus on how to best approach this. In this session, together with various stakeholders, including the EOSC-A and EC, we would like to discuss potential pathways to the sustainability of project outcomes with the aim to ensure the long-term usability of such outputs.

Expected outcomes
The expected outcome is to assess the status of implementation of FAIR practices with respect to the sustainability of project outcomes. For this topic, we aim to develop different scenarios for the exploitation of such outputs, with input from various stakeholders, including the EOSC-A and the EC.

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Topic Session 3: Tuesday, October 1, 10.00-11.30 CET
Persistent identifiers

Chair: Josefine Nordling, CSC
Rapporteur: Liisa Marjamaa-Mankinen, CSC

The aim of this session is to discuss collaboration opportunities on Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) within EOSC and beyond. Following the end of the EOSC Task Force PID Policy & Implementation, alternative ways must be considered to jointly continue the discussions on critical matters related to PIDs.

Currently, discussions on PIDs in relation to SRIA objectives and MAR recommendations are to be managed via a labelled Opportunity Area through ongoing relevant EOSC projects during 2024-2025. This collaboration proposition is based on loose terms and requires a coordinated orchestration to ensure all relevant stakeholders are involved and issues are brought forward consistently, also in a global context. In this session, we will discuss and analyse how to manage the risks that an insufficient coordination mechanism for PIDs may cause, as well as the enablers that are likely to arise from having one in place.

Recommendations assessed during the session

• Promote and sustain the use of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) that are already common practice.
• Support activities where PID usage is not yet a common practice. Integrate widely used and adopted PIDs into institutional services and incentivise usage of PID technologies being developed in EOSC (like PID Meta Resolver, Data Type Registry, PID graph, PID Policy Compliance Assessment Toolkit). 

Expected outcomes 2024 

The expected outcome of this session is to get a more comprehensive understanding of the collaboration opportunities involved in ensuring sustainability of PIDs and their coherent management. The discussions will feed into a report including concrete suggestions on how to move forward with a joint approach on furthering the implementation and use of PIDs within EOSC.

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Topic Session 4: Thursday, October 3, 10.00-11.30 CET
Legal & organisational interoperability

Chair: Anne Sofie Fink, DeiC
Rapporteur: Olivier Rouchon, CNRS

Legal interoperability is of almost importance for realising the EOSC as a web of FAIR data and related services. The EOSC Interoperability Framework introduced legal interoperability with the objective that data and services relating to organisations operating under different legal and/or organisational frameworks, policies and strategies may be seamlessly exchanged and accessed. This requires that legislation does not block the establishment of European public services within and between Member States and that there are clear agreements about how to deal with differences in legislation across borders, including the option of putting in place new legislation. In this second workshop session on legal Interoperability we will pick on the issues of legal interoperability from different perspectives setting off by a presentation of the report D6.2 - Core metadata schema for legal interoperability.

Recommendations assessed during the session

The first session of the Synchronization Force Workshop on Legal Interoperability yielded these actionable recommendations (See Second Synchronisation Force report):

• EOSC and other relevant entities should advocate for Creative Commons (CC) licenses unless another license or license family is predominant within a specific research domain or community. This aligns with the EOSC Interoperability Framework's support for permissive licenses. “A list of EOSC-recommended licences and their compatibility with Member States’ recommended licences should be provided.”
• Data creators and users should be shielded from the complexities of license impacts, necessitating both harmonisation and comprehensive guidance potentially provided by local or domain-specific data stewards. EOSC is encouraged to take an active role in this harmonisation effort.
• An integrated support programme for managing, protecting and licensing data is recommended for research-performing organisations.

Expected outcomes

The expected outcome is to assess the status of implementation of FAIR practices with respect to legal interoperability. For this topic,we intend to be able to point to areas for actions by projects/initiatives to support legal interoperability /the implementation of core metadata schema for legal interoperability.   

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Topic Session 5: Thursday, October 3, 14.00-15.30 CET
Trustworthy and FAIR-enabling repositories

Chair: Laurence Horton, DCC
Rapporteurs: Maaike Verburg, DANS and Daniel Turner, DCC

Trustworthy and FAIR-enabling repositories are crucial components for the EOSC. In previous Synchronisation Force sessions, we discussed ways to improve aspects of transparency and trustworthiness of data repositories and the need for incremental and sustainable support. In this session, we will share details of ongoing and emerging support initiatives and hear from a few of the repositories that have taken steps to improve the transparency of their trustworthy and FAIR-enabling services. A key aim for this session is to highlight some of the potential benefits from taking action collaboratively and to identify areas which require further support. 

Recommendations assessed during the session
(Recommendations from Second Synchronisation Force report, based on outcomes from 2023 edition)

• Increasing process transparency is vital to effectively assess repository trustworthiness, as encapsulated in the principle of "Trust through transparency."
• Repository support should include generic solutions for widespread applicability and detailed, customised support for specific local or individual needs.
• Due to their evident advantages, support networks for repositories at all levels (thematic, national, and international) should be established.

Conversation starters

• Mari Kleemola, Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD)
• Kathleen Shearer, COAR - Confederation of Open Access Repositories 
• Socrates Varakliotis, Advanced Research Computing Centre, UCL 

Expected outcomes 

Better understanding of current efforts to improve the transparency and trustworthiness of repository services and efforts to implement FAIR-enabling practices. In addition to discussing recent and forthcoming support activities and developments, a focus is put on collaboration and the potential value of repository networks.

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Topic Session 6 Tuesday, October 8, 14.00-15.30 CET
Metadata, semantics and interoperability

Chair: Esteban Gonzalez, UPM
Rapporteur: Nina Grau, INRAE and Anne Sofie Fink, DeiC

The EOSC Interoperability Framework is an effort to define the strategy to integrate services in the EOSC Ecosystem, favoring their interoperability. For each layer of the framework, a collection of recommendations have been identified. But, the framework faces many challenges, one of the biggest is how to adopt these recommendations, it means, the definition of real actions to put it in practice. In this workshop, we want to explore how we can measure and adopt these recommendations based on real examples.

Recommendations assessed during the project

• The EOSC-IF framework is already a solid theoretical foundation concrete pointers need to be articulated. The use of indicators and metrics can support the assessment of the framework’s implantation.
• Extend the set of semantic objects described in the EOSC-IF to include artefacts such as mappings and crosswalk
• Recognise the semantic artefact catalogue as a critical part of the long-term viability of any research data infrastructure.

Expected outcomes

• Metrics to measure the level of implementation of the EOSC IF
• Identification of actions to help EOSC components developers to implement some of the recommendations of the EOSC IF. 

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Thursday, November 7, 10.00-11.30 CET
Plenary discussion session