With the new release of B2SHARE just last week, which sees the improvement of the metadata creation interface, deposit functions, and the search/browse functionality. Coupled with the existing secure and integrated features, a brand new community extension for BBMRI has been added bringing the community extensions to five now. Presentations from the collaboration projects at the 3rd EUDAT User Forum in Prague lead you to believe that many more will follow over the coming months.

Nowadays it is hard to imagine trying to manage research data without the support of a sturdy and robust network, on a national, European or international level. EUDAT communities, old & new, came together in Prague last week to build another piece of this network – the pan-European Collaborative Data Infrastructure. Communities covering scientific disciplines from maritime research to biobanks, atmospheric monitoring to life sciences, … painted a clear picture of the intense cross-community and multi-disciplinary involvement & engagement in EUDAT.

Community representatives explained why they are signing up to EUDAT including the fact that stakeholders want to use existing European services, resources and skills while at the same time users are seeking common standards & platforms that simplify the efficient exchange & re-use of data. Another point underlined was the community need for support from IT professional supported by a pan-European network of trusted centres. EUDAT in a nutshell, no?

The data issues that the life science communities are facing are common to many others, data is diverse and complex particularly in relation to data coming from different domain. The big data challenge is a serious one and reflections from Elixir include: “Sooner, much sooner, than later producing data will be cheaper than storing it, producing data will be faster than transferring it and the production of data will double faster than computing power”. So teaming up with EUDAT and implementing the B2Service solutions is a natural step for communities towards facing this and other data challenges.

Policy has a large role to play in all this too, researchers need tools and guidance as well as services to ensure that their research data is available but properly managed, secure and properly cited, meaningful and usable over long periods of time. Good data management planning is no longer an option, it’s an obligation and part of EUDAT’s mission is to disseminate and promote best practice in data management. Activities are currently on-going to generate a tool for EU projects to generate research data management.

Another aspect of safeguarding research data is the identification of “trusted” digital repositories. Trust is at the very heart of data sharing and preservation with various stakeholders involved, all for different reasons. The users of data from a digital repository have questions like: Has the data been preserved properly? Is it of high quality? Has it been changed in some way? Does the pointer get me to the right object? The depositors of data want to be sure that in the digital repositories their data is safe and remains accessible, usable and meaningful over time. Finally, the funders want reassurance that their investment in the production of valuable research data is not wasted but will remain also in the future. Certification is therefore fundamental in guaranteeing the trustworthiness of digital repositories and thus in sustaining the opportunities for long-term data sharing. Ingrid Dillo, Deputy Director Policy, DANS, introduced many of these themes both during her presentation on European Digital Repository Certification: the way forward and during the Policy, Sustainability & Certification session she moderated.

All 3rd EUDAT User Forum presentations are available for download from http://www.eudat.eu/3rd-eudat-user-forum

And to stay on the community theme. Join us at the EGI Community Forum in Helsinki where EUDAT is co-organising the Research data and services workshop with RDA, OpenAIRE and ATT on 20th May 2014. Participants to the workshop can expect to get a picture of the Finnish, European and international landscape on research data services, hear from users on how these services are being implemented and why as well as understand what the future holds. For more information, registration and a complete agenda see http://www.eudat.eu/events/egi-community-forum-2014

Some dates for your Diary …

Big Data and Open Data, 7th & 8th May Brussels focusing on the common problems that all data producing large scale research facilities are facing and will face in the years to come, and the ways to elaborate solutions. Peter Wittenburg, EUDAT Scientific Coordinator, will make a presentation entitled EUDAT: Shaping the Future of Europe’s Collaborative Data Infrastructure.

The Open Repositories Conference 2014, is being held in Helsinki from 9 to 13 June 2014 and the main theme of this edition is “Towards Repository Ecosystems”. EUDAT will present the B2SHARE service at the poster session as well as have an exhibition stand.

Save the Date: EUDAT 3rd Conference – Bringing data infrastructures to Horizon 2020 – 24-26 September 2014, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, co-located with the Research Data Alliance (RDA) 4th Plenary Meeting

For a complete list of events featuring EUDAT see http://www.eudat.eu/events/meet-us