What are the current aims and objectives of Science Europe?
Good research data management throughout the research process helps researchers to plan how, when, and where to share which data. Many research funding and research performing organisations have respective policies in place, especially for data management plans. Science Europe aims to align such policies and requirements across Europe.
This will make things easier for researchers from different organisations or disciplines to work together, and for researchers who change funders or home institutes. It will also make it easier for research organisations to evaluate data management plans and implement their own policies.
Science Europe also aims to ensure the sustainability of research data, including their long-term storage and accessibility. This requires research organisations and research data infrastructures (RDIs) to establish the necessary framework conditions, including organisational policies, technical preparedness, financial solutions, and training.
What is Science Europe doing to achieve these aims?
Science Europe actively promotes the principle that research data should be FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable. It works with its Member Organisations and other stakeholders to align policies and procedures, and to provide clear guidelines to support researchers in their data management.
Science Europe is highly engaged in the development and promotion of the European Open Science Cloud. It supports the uptake of the EOSC in all of its activities on research data.
Together with experts from its Member Organisations, Science Europe has issued several publications on data management. These provide practical guidance to aligning policies across disciplines (2018) and across organisations (2019/2021). It has also provided best-practice examples from organisations that have successfully implemented data management policies to help guide organisations still setting them up. See also our page on Research Data Management.
Research funders, research performing organisations and research data infrastructures are key actors to set a framework that supports researchers in their research data management and that ensures the long-term preservation, accessibility and interoperability of research data (sustainable research data). Science Europe has created a tool that aims to create a common understanding on necessary policies and practices and that will
support the development of organisational agendas for sustainable research data. See also our page on
Sustainable Research Data.
