It is estimated that some 59 zettabytes of data were created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide in 2020, and in just the next three years we expect this data traffic to be doubled. Yet only a tiny fraction of this data survives to be shared with others. A good part of this data comes from public-funded research and innovation activities, including universities, but many data owners are reluctant to share and deposit their data holdings into organised and trusted repositories that can facilitate the same data to be exploited by others, and re-used to catalyse further benefits from the same data resource.
Open Research Data Officers exchanging with online participants (from left around the table: Prof. Saviour Zammit, Mrs Kaja Lochman, Prof. Aldo Drago, Mr Martin Lochman, Dr Katarzyna Świerk, Mr Roman Tabisz, Mrs Josianne Camilleri Vella and Mr Kevin Ellul)
About reSEArch-EU
The European Research Area Policy Agenda for the period 2022-2024 sets important targets to make science more relevant to society, and this includes facilitating the flow of data. The practicality of science is emphasised. Informed decisions based on science bring out the value of research to provide answers through knowledge, and innovation to smartly turn challenges into opportunities. As challenges, including those beyond the direct environmental and climate-related issues, become more complex and entrenched into the doings, lifestyles and demands of society, the perception of science in the eyes of the public becomes a pertinent factor in defining effective solutions. Scientists, managers, engineers and professionals are further evolving towards multi- disciplinary actions that deeply rely on the open sharing of data and the exchange of experiences as essential ingredients to solve problems holistically and efficiently on the ground.
These targets are also enshrined in the actions planned within WP5 of the reSEArch-EU project. Prof. Aldo Drago, a specialist working on the project relates on the active sessions and outcomes of a 3-day peer meeting about ‘Building an Open Future: Fostering Open Science across the SEA-EU Alliance and Beyond’, organised in hybrid mode by the University of Malta between 24 and 26 January 2022. The event brought Open Research Data Officers from the SEA-EU alliance universities to brainstorm, discuss and review ‘best practices’ in this field, whilst also recommending the next steps. The event was combined with a parallel meeting for Open Science Ambassadors.
The 3-day peer meeting
The Open Research Data Officers meeting served to assess the state of play of the SEA-EU Alliance in relation to Open Research Data Management practices. The major sessions on the first two days of the meeting were led by Prof. Ing. Saviour Zammit, UM Lead Academic WP5, and Mr Kevin Ellul, Director Library Services, with the participation of the Open Research Data Officers from the six SEA-EU alliance universities. Josianne Camilleri Vella, deputy director of the UM library, presented the results of a scoping survey on Open Research Data (ORD) conducted across the SEA-EU alliance, highlighting the common starting points and the differences in the existing frameworks. The major focus of the discussions in the first day concerned the establishment of a common Open Science and Open Research Data Policy for SEA-EU, to enhance the visibility, impact and dissemination of the research developed in the Alliance, and to follow a federated data management approach that provides findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable (FAIR) data. The second and third days included interventions by expert speakers from UM, Cadiz and Split, together with an invited presentation about oceanographic data harvesting and management within SeaDataNet, and on Dataverse, the Data Repository software implemented at the University of Minho in Portugal.
The discussions were dedicated to the common ORD System for the SEA-EU to facilitate the exchange, use, re-use and wide dissemination of research data generated by the SEA-EU universities, in the context of an open science commitment and following the policy recommendations of the EC on the implementation of FAIR Data principles. Such a system starts from the data sourcing and management components, but goes beyond, serving as an interoperable system to organise and exploit data management and data sharing within an approach that serves complementary targets. This is conducive to a consolidated and strengthened research base within the SEA-EU Alliance; it also provides the means to link SEA-EU to external parties in a practical and tangible manner.
The final session led by Prof. Aldo Drago served to consolidate the agreement by the Open Research Data Officers to execute a detailed plan of actions and timelines leading to the common SEA-EU ORD Policy Framework, and for the design and implementation of the SEA-EU ORD system composed of inter-linked institutional repositories.
The Open Science Ambassadors meeting engaged 24 participants (of which 11 online) in an intensive programme focused on the concepts of openness, science, and ambassadorship. Tools such as communication, citizen science, discovery learning, social media, and the available technologies that help to promote open research and data dissemination, were presented. Invited speakers showcased citizen science initiatives while a special session was dedicated to demonstrate the skills involved in providing a friendly and communicative face to science.
The ambassadors from the University of Malta and those present from the SEA-EU partner Universities also shared episodes and engaged in a discussion on personal experiences. During the event, the participants visited the National Aquarium where they discussed the popularisation of science with the staff experienced in education and outreach. The group also visited the National Library which serves as a data group.
reSEArch-EU is a SwafS project (Science with and for Society) funded by the H2020 Programme of the European Commission and implemented by the European University of the Seas (SEA-EU). The Consortium is funded via the European Universities Initiative of the European Commission and intends to target and improve mutual knowledge and construct a common identity among students, researchers and staff from all partner institutions. reSEArch-EU is a supportive parallel project aiming to improve the research infrastructure and the ability of the SEA-EU alliance to better inter-connected and further engage with stakeholders
Group photo of the Open Science Ambassadors participants in Malta. Front line from left: Prof. Godfrey Baldacchino, Dr Adam Gauci, Ms Audrey Zammit, Dr Malgorzata Kurkowiak, Dr Lukasz Ribalski, Dr Jacek Pokrzywnicki, Dr. Ritienne Gauci, Dr Fiona Sammut. Back line from left: Ms Maria Calleja, Ms Raelene Galea, Dr Jakub Idczak, Dr Liana Ermakova, Dr Claire Hellio.
