Support offer #4: Improving the availability and machine readability of data policies with FAIRsharing

Context

In recent years policymakers at the national, funding body, publisher, and organisational levels have been working to ensure that their policies support the creation and reuse of data that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). Monitoring progress across the changing policy landscape is labour intensive and largely achieved through the completion of annual surveys and/or desk research. In addition, monitoring tends to focus on the existence of such policies rather than on their content and often looks only at what is happening at the national and funding body levels meaning that organisational level policies are often not taken into account. 

The FAIRsFAIR project released their FAIR-enabling data policy checklist in 2022 to help policy makers self-assess whether elements of existing data policies are FAIR-enabling as well as providing recommendations on what should be addressed when developing new data policies. The checklist was also intended to help harmonise the description of policy content to improve its comparability and, to this end, a structured policy description template was created based on the content of the checklist. FAIRsharing - a curated, informative and educational resource on data and metadata standards, databases and policies - updated their own policy metadata in 2023 to reflect the fields covered by the FAIRsFAIR policy checklist and template. As a result, policies registered with FAIRsharing can now make the content of their policies more explicit and comparable by both humans and machines which could make monitoring the policy landscape more straightforward and efficient in the years to come.

This support action worked with up to individuals/small teams to support them to coordinate the registration of data policies from stakeholders in their country/region/domain with the FAIRsharing registry and consider how we can leverage this shared pool of information for ongoing policy monitoring activities. 

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: 

  • coordinate the registration of data policies into FAIRsharing 
  • work collectively to consider how the registered policy data may be leveraged for ongoing monitoring of the policy landscape

Participants :

  • gained a deeper insight into what components should be covered in FAIR-enabling data policies
  • understood how the registration of data polices can support machine actionability and comparability 
  • increased the availability of data policies within their country/region/domain

Successful applicants to the Improving the availability and machine readability of data policies with FAIRsharing support action:

  • Clara Boavida, Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon
  • Juan Andrés Tutasi Guerrero, Consortium of universities of Catalonia (CSUC)
  • Lizette Guzman-Ramirez,Technical University of Eindhoven
  • Beth Knazook, Digital Repository of Ireland
  • Matthias Löbe, Institute for Medical Informatics (IMISE), University of Leipzig representing NFDI4Health
  • Adam Partridge, University of Sheffield, UK / UK Reproducibility Network
  • Chokri Ben Romdhane, CNUDST
  • Anna Wałek, ACC CYFRONET AGH

Support offer details

Who should apply?

We encourage applications from those with a formal national role in their country such as EOSC Mandated Organisations or Research Infrastructures representing a particular domain but are equally happy to receive applications from those working in more informal roles within their country/domain. We also welcome applications from teams covering a mix of stakeholders as well as those working regionally (e.g., at the state level or across several countries).

Skills needed to participate

Applicants should be able to secure and coordinate the participation of at least 20 stakeholders in their country,  region or domain during the support action. Stakeholders should be engaged from one - but ideally more - of the following communities:

  • Research Performing Organisations
  • Funding bodies
  • Publishers
Virtual workshops 

This support action will include mandatory participation in two half day virtual workshops delivered by FAIR-IMPACT and FAIRsharing. 

The first virtual workshop will take place from 14:00-16:00 CET on May 9th 2024 and will introduce the FAIRsharing policy metadata and provide an hands-on opportunity for the successful applicants to add/update a policy record within FAIRsharing using the updated metadata fields.  

The bulk of financial support provided for this support action is to facilitate the time required to organise and deliver one virtual event by the successful applicants with participants from their own country/region/domain. The workshop will replicate the approach introduced to successful applicants during the first virtual workshop.  The virtual workshop must take place by August 2024.

Following the delivery of the country/regional/domain level virtual workshops by participants, FAIR-IMPACT and FAIRsharing will deliver a policy hackathon from 14:00-16:00 CEST on September 16th 2024 to explore the extraction of the contributed policy data for use in continual monitoring of the policy landscape.
Support providers and mentors 
  • Joy Davidson (DCC)
  • Laurence Horton (DCC)
  • Allyson Lister (FAIRsharing)
  • Susanna-Assunta Sansone (FAIRsharing, Director OeRC University of Oxford, and FAIR-IMPACT Champion)
How much time will this support action require from participants? 

This support action will begin in May 2024 and run over a five month period. The bulk of the work will be carried out independently by successful applicants following their participation in the first virtual workshop. Support during the independent work phase will be provided by set office hours every two weeks.

What FAIR-IMPACT will provide to enable participation?
  • 4000 €  will be provided to support staff time for each participant/small team to participate in this support action. Funds will be paid upon successful completion of the support action. The amount provided is based on the number of days required to participate in the action using a flat daily rate and not the size of the team (i.e., 4000 euros is the maximum award regardless of the team size). 
  • FAIR-IMPACT and FAIRsharing mentors will provide hands-on instruction on registering policies using the improved metadata within FAIRsharing. 
  • The mentors will also provide limited support and guidance to participants as they plan their local virtual events.
  • FAIR-IMPACT and FAIRsharing mentors will provide guidance and support during the policy hackathon to help participants extract knowledge from FAIRsharing and to consider approaches to longer term monitoring of the policy landscape.

What do we expect from participants?

  • Active participation in the first virtual workshop and policy hackathon which are mandatory. In cases where the small teams are participating, at least one member of the team must participate in these events. 

  • Independent work to organise, promote and deliver one or more virtual events at the country/regional/domain level.

  • Participation in a mandatory exit interview which will result in a published Implementation Story to share real life experiences in making FAIR a reality.  

  • Participation in follow-up questionnaires and/interviews on progress on the implementation plan.
How many applicants will be supported?  Up to 10 individuals/teams will be supported to participate in this support action.

 

 

 

 

Supporting materials

 

Timeline for this support action

Call launch and introductory webinar

31 January 2024

Deadline for applications

31 March 2024

Selection of applicants

End of April 2024

Applicants informed of decision

Mid May 2024

Expected start date for support actions

9 May 2024

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.