Joint European Project to Enhance Collaboration: Promoting Research Data management and Open Science within technical fields

This is a duplicate of doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3258178.

Research data management and open science are among the most rapidly developing topics in science and research support services. Cross-country cooperation in these fields promise development of new research-supporting services and promote progress in the open science movement. In addition to more general services, field-specific services need equally to be customised. Researchers often operate in international cooperation, and therefore also the support services should not take place in organisational or national siloes.

In this paper we represent a shared project, which aims at finding concrete solutions for shared research support services in technical fields. The libraries of Tampere University (TaU) and Technische Universität Braunschweig (TUBS) started a seed-funded project in 2018 in order to develop services in the field of research data management and open science.

Objectives and Working Methods

Both libraries offer and develop research support services in the expanding field of research data and open science. Both are integrated in existing national and international cooperation. Also the European Open Science Cloud gives a strong European dimension to the field.

TaU and TUBS will evaluate the possibility to build joint nodes in the European field of research data management and open science. Close cooperation in the technical and organisational implementation of services and infrastructures shall result in improved and precisely-fitting services for researchers at both universities.

Furthermore, both libraries aim at:

• encouraging mutual learning between specialists working within support services
• providing research data management support together for the researchers working in shared TaU-TUB-projects

Working methods include workshops in Braunschweig and Tampere, exchange ideas and information, and develop e.g. training materials, via mail, video conferences, cloud storage, and contacting researchers of the shared research projects for providing services.

Expected impact on institutional cooperation and contribution to the institutional strategies

The cooperation will foster the development of services and infrastructures of both universities in the field of research data management and open science. The cooperation will extend the existing national and international networks and services of both universities and strengthen the operational environment of technical fields. The model and results can be adapted also to other fields.

First results

A first workshop in 2018 in Braunschweig opened the cooperation with a strong focus on mutual learning. Despite of the shared European dimension, there are also significant differences in the context for research data management in both countries. The reflection of the similarities and differences gives good ground for improving services.

Research projects funded by the seed fund give a good starting point for shared and collaborative services. A project in the field of public transportation is the first one for service development and evaluation. Other fields of concrete cooperation include, for example, the content of a self service portal for researchers.

The close integration of shared research projects allows a user centred service design. A second workshop in Tampere in spring 2019 will open the scene to a broader research data community in Finland.