Over the past decade, data-intensive research and Open Science have become the norm. In order to enable this new paradigm of transparent, data-intensive science, the European Open Science Cloud will offer 1.7 million European researchers and 70 million professionals a virtual environment with open and seamless services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientific disciplines by federating existing scientific data infrastructures, currently dispersed across disciplines and the EU Member States. The FAIRsFAIR project (Fostering FAIR Data Practices in Europe) funded under the H2020 programme of the European Commission - in close consultation and cooperation with key partners and stakeholders - will address, over a 36 month timeplan, the development and concrete realisation of an overall knowledge infrastructure on academic quality data management, procedures, standards and metrics, based on the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles.
This ambitious project was officially started during an intense, two-day kick-off meeting organised by DANS, the project coordinator, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on the 14th and 15th of March 2019. Twenty-two partners spanning eight member states are working together to define guidelines towards a FAIR approach to data and service management for data repositories across disciplines.
FAIRsFAIR will play a pivotal role in the development of global standards for FAIR certification of repositories and the data within them, contributing to policies and practices that will turn the EOSC programme into a functioning infrastructure. This will be done in close cooperation with the recently launched national and thematic FAIR initiatives, the ESFRI-clusters and the EOSC Secretariat.
Ingrid Dillo - FAIRsFAIR Project Coordinator DANS, addressed the partners with a clear value-proposition: “Our aim is to create a FAIR data hub. We need to become THE FAIR data hub in Europe, for people to get trained, to be informed, to get help, to get advice on making their data FAIRER – and that goes for everyone: researchers, for graduate students, for research supporters, but also policy makers and funders. I hope we will become the central focal FAIR point for the European Open Science Cloud.”
Practical solutions throughout the entire research data life cycle
FAIRsFAIR focuses around six principle objectives:
To reach these objectives, FAIRsFAIR will set up a Competence network (model courses and curricula, data science schools and a FAIR competence adoption booklet) to harmonise the education institutes, and offer a FAIR data competence centre for all research communities; policy recommendations based on a map of the FAIR policy and practice environments as well as guidance on how to better embed FAIR in research culture; a Registry for FAIR compliant repositories and a series of Toolsets including a network of 50+ trusted digital repositories, and a FAIR certification and capability maturity model towards certification.
To start with, FAIRsFAIR is going to open a call for 15 experts and ‘doers’ in related FAIR projects, coming from all scientific communities, selected based on their individual merits and knowledge, who will share FAIR implementation stories, enhance synergy, and effect cross fertilisation and impact. This group will act as FAIR ambassadors for their scientific communities and will have the opportunity to participate in shaping and promoting new policies to ease adoption of FAIR policy which supports EOSC, as well as FAIR practice. If you are such a champion, or you know someone who might help us, please get it touch: EGFC-call@fairsfair.eu.
On Friday 12 April, during the EOSC-Hub Week, FAIRsFAIR will co-organize the first of a series of workshops dedicated to ‘Services to Support FAIR Data’ together with EOSC-Hub , OpenAIRE and RDA Europe. The purpose of this workshop series is to explore how existing infrastructures can work together and understand how to deliver services that support the creation of FAIR research outputs. The second and third event will take place on 24 April in Vienna, Austria. and on 17 September 2019, in Porto, Portugal. Information can be found HERE
Funded under the H2020-INFRAEOSC-2018-2020 programme of the European Commission
Starting date: March 1, 2019
Duration: 36 months
22 partners from 8 member states
www.fairsfair.eu
Twitter: @FAIRsFAIR_EU #FAIRData #FAIRsFAIR
LinkedIN: in/fairsfair/