COST Connect | Data sharing in European research networks

Over the last decades, data have risen to a prominent role in society, and in science and technology in particular. Some opinion makers have gone so far as to call data “the world’s most valuable resource”. Data management is a critical component of successful research networks, and by ensuring that data is properly collected, stored, and shared, researchers can conduct high-quality research that is transparent, reproducible, and compliant with relevant regulations and guidelines.

COST Action networks can involve hundreds of researchers and innovators, and these networks have shown innovative ways in how they collect, manage, use, visualize data. Given the often interdisciplinary nature of COST Actions, data-sets range from widely different backgrounds with data related to domains as diverse as mobility, space, vegetation, migration, archaeology and genomics, among others. Therefore, COST is an important contributor to the idea of Open Science, which is identified by the European Commission as one of the key priorities in its research and innovation policies.

This envisioned idea of Open Science leads to many new challenges concerning data management. First, there are the technical challenges: how can data be made available to a broader public of researchers and innovators, in such a way that they can easily be valorised? To this end, the FAIR principles were drafted by a group of prominent researchers. The FAIR principles state that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. How can these principles be brought into actual practice in an efficient way?

Beyond these technical challenges, there are questions of a more managerial nature. If data are shared and pooled on a structural basis, who is responsible for the day-to-day-management of the data pool? Can authenticity and quality of available data be assured? Who is actually the owner of these pooled data? If data have been made available for one particular purpose, can these data freely be used for other purposes? What if researchers or other stakeholders involved in data collection object against the reuse of data? Do individuals still have control over “their” data?

This COST Connect event has the aim to bring together representatives of a broad range of COST Actions and relevant stakeholders in order to create a platform where the above-mentioned questions will be discussed. Institutions and professionals engaged in data sharing and management can bring another point of view and a managerial approach to data sharing to the table. The event has the aim to create synergies between all actors involved, to share best-practices, to raise awareness about data sharing and to exchange and promote the principles of data management amongst researchers and society at large.

Attendance to this event is possible by invitation only.

Further information about this COST Connect can be requested by email to Bart Veys, COST Policy Officer.