The SIM4RDM project aims to improve current policies in the area of managing research data. The project has surveyed a selection of research data management (RDM) stakeholders across the EU and is currently building a self-assessment tool to help them evaluate and improve their RDM maturity.
This tool is based on an online questionnaire and produces overall maturity scores and detailed results measured against five scales, thus allowing users to decide what RDM areas they wish to improve first. The tool will suggest sets of concrete activities designed to increase the user’s RDM maturity, and users are also pointed to online resources and case studies to help them complete these activities.
The process of developing the self-assessment tool revealed that there are overlaps in the activities suggested to funding bodies, infrastructure providers, research institutions, publishers and researchers. However RDM policies and recommendations are usually developed in cultural and sectorial isolation: senior executives in these stakeholder groups have very few opportunities to discuss RDM issues of common interest with each other.
SIM4RDM has therefore planned a workshop at the 2nd EUDAT Conference to offer senior executives (from funding bodies, infrastructure providers, research institutions, publishers and research centres across Europe) a unique opportunity to provide feedback on the functionality of the self-assessment tool, and to explore opportunities for cross-stakeholder collaboration on RDM issues of common interest.
The workshop is structured in two parts. In the first part, the participants will highlight RDM issues that are crucial to their activities and which they would like to explore through cross-stakeholder collaboration. In the second part of the workshop, the participants will engage in small-group exercises to provide feedback on the functionality of the self-assessment tool and to explore some of the opportunities for cross-stakeholder action highlighted earlier in the workshop.
Further information about SIM4RDM is available on the project website. To attend the workshop, please register on the EUDAT Conference webpage.