EUDAT 2nd Conference

EUDAT is working towards multiple goals through the development of its Collaborative Data Infrastructure which will allow researchers to share data within and between communities and enable them to carry out their research effectively, while at the same time providing a solution that will be affordable, trustworthy, robust, persistent and easy to use. And while EUDAT has been running for just over 2 years, the 2nd EUDAT Conference held in Rome – 28-30 October 2013 - responded in many ways to European Commission Vice President Kroes’ statements made during her speech  at the Open Access conference “Embracing change is good for all of us: avoiding duplication while facilitating replication, accelerating discovery, and driving innovation. Of course, you only get so far with "one size fits all". Different domains have different cultures and characteristics. But all face similar challenges, and all stand to gain from this change. And today as much as ever, it's clear that openness can transform every academic discipline, both sciences and humanities. … There are many areas to consider. From new tools and infrastructures. Resolving new technical issues, like … how to preserve data for the long term. Most of all, it needs a new culture: of sharing and working together, between researchers, libraries, universities, publishers and, yes, all of us as citizens.”

The three day event both showcased & trained over 220 participants on EUDAT’s first set of services currently being deployed, highlighted the challenges faced by different domains and cultures and opened the discussion on meeting these challenges through the development of a new set of services and policies emerging directly from collaboration & cooperation between all stakeholders – technical experts, research communities, policy-makers, data scientists, etc.

The three plenary sessions addressed new data challenges - the case for cross-disciplinary science and services, Life and Earth Sciences at a cross-roads community driven flagship initiatives in the EU and USA and Towards Global Data Infrastructure Components. While major collaborative data infrastructures are certainly not built in a day, the plenary speakers presented significant advances in a number of related areas and delegates had lively discussions about future directions for the community.

The Interoperabilities track, with three definitive focuses – Federated AAI, Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) & Identifiers came to some interesting conclusions. A ‘Federated AAI’ solution that is accepted by many partners can be created from existing technologies, but needs a focussed approach in order to not lose momentum. It is still one of the most crucial strategic challenges in EUDAT shared with all other partners in EU and elsewhere (i.e. US, China, etc.). Much work is required here in coming years to harmonize with other activities while promising pilots are underway. The work around PPPs can be considered as ‘moderate’ in the coming years as several good examples of PPPs are either established or underway, but should be tailored for EUDAT-specific solutions. It is well recognised that EUDAT has unique capabilities to offer in PPPs, not just because of the long-term operated centers with capability and capacity resources, but also due to important know-how and experience in working within and across national boundaries. Identifiers are very broadly used in production services and that there is less work to be done for strategic impact in comparison with PPP or federated AAI.