Support offer #3: Recommendations for trustworthy and FAIR-enabling data repositories

Context

Do you want to leave your mark on the newest developments in repository trustworthiness and FAIR assessment? FAIR-IMPACT is developing guidelines to improve the transparency of, and trust in, repositories. Implementing these guidelines will help to expose relevant metadata at the organisational and object level to facilitate discovery, provide context, and support interoperability. Providing supporting information in a uniform and transparent way creates a sense of trust in the repositories and in the digital objects they care for. A focus is put on exposing information about repository characteristics (from identifiers, to contact information and business models), information that can help to inform a sense or status of trustworthiness (e.g. standards applied, preservation policies in place or certification received) and information relating to the FAIRness of the digital objects held (e.g. assessment results, tool(s) used). Both the guidelines, and the prototype to be developed to implement them, will be advanced through multiple iterations. Community engagement and input is essential to ensuring that the final outputs are relevant to all of the identified stakeholders. 

In this support action, participants have the opportunity to learn about these new guidelines in depth, and to critically evaluate them as they apply to their own repository and stakeholders. Participants will consider the current status of information exposure in their organisation and how this could be improved using the guidelines. Through this process, participants will be able to provide feedback on how useful, relevant, and realistic the guidelines are, directly shaping the future iterations of the guidelines. After completing this support action, participants have the opportunity to join the subsequent support action (launching in September 2024), where hands-on experience in exposing information using the prototype will be the focus. 

Successful applicants received 4000 € to support their participation which required about 8 days of effort from participants between May-September 2024.

During this support action, participants were able to: 

• analyse the FAIR-IMPACT guidelines and provide feedback
• receive guidance and support to make information about their repository service more transparent

Participants:

• gained a deeper insight into the kinds of information that can help end users to make informed decisions about whether a repository is FAIR-enabling and trustworthy
• understood how the implementation of the guidelines can help to facilitate discovery, provide context, and support interoperability
• played a key role in shaping the next iteration of the guidelines
• received credit for their contributions in the next iteration of the guidelines

Successful applicants to the Recommendations for trustworthy and FAIR-enabling data repositories support action:

• Dieuwertje Bloemen, LIBIS @ KU Leuven
• Carlos Luis Parra Calderón, Computational Health Informatics Group and Technological Innovation Section of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital, VRUH
• Philipp Conzett,  UiT The Arctic University of Norway
• Juan Corrales Correyero  | Consorcio Madroño
• Maureen Fonji, Atemkeng epse  Nkoumki, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
• Reyna Jenkyns, World Data System International Technology Office (observer)
• Amela Kurta, Centre for Development Evaluation and Social Science Research (CREDI)
• Didi Lamers, Data Steward and Product Owner of the Radboud Data Repository, affiliation Radboud University Nijmegen
• Klironomos Nicolas, National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), Social Data Network (SoDaNet)
• Ami Saji, PROGEDO / CNRS
• Tim Schäfer, Senckenberg Research Institute and Nature Museum
• Birgit Söser, Graz University of Technology
• Dorien Styven, Kazerne Dossin - Memorial, Museum and Research Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights; EHRI consortium; DARIAH Working Group on Sustainable Publishing of Metadata; Flemish Association of Libraries, Archives and Documentation centres (VVBAD)
• Socrates Varakliotis, Senior Research Data Steward at ARC (Advanced Research Computing department at UCL)
• Dr. Matija Zlatar, University of Belgrade-Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy (ICTM)

Who can apply? 

This call is open to individuals, groups or organisations from public and private research-performing organisations, including:

• Research-performing organisations and research infrastructures;  
• Repositories, data and metadata service providers; 
• Representatives of national and international level initiatives. 

Applicants must reside and/or work in an EU or Associated Country for the duration of the grant. A key aim for FAIR-IMPACT is to prioritise support for organisations, groups, and/or individuals based in countries or representing domains that are currently less advanced in terms of their FAIR enabling capacity².

The call is not open to individuals or groups based at any of the FAIR-IMPACT project partner organisations nor to individuals who hold the status of FAIR Champions under FAIR-IMPACT.