Data Stewardship Flavors: Dutch Cuisine

A short presentation on research data stewardship in the Netherlands. Three case studies: VU Amsterdam, Utrecht University and TU Delft. Below is the abstract of the whole session:

4.2 Professionalising support for Open Research

Open Research encourages making research more transparent and outputs from every stage of the research workflow - including data, software and publications - freely available and accessible to all. To achieve this shift in research culture, additional skills are needed that are not covered by traditional professional development offers for researchers. To support researchers in these new practices, a range of professional roles such as research software engineers and data stewards have been developed over the last few years that provide training, support and guidance to address new funder requirements and facilitate cultural change.

Those support roles however often do not have formal career paths and rarely get rewarded for their contributions. Thus, professional associations and support networks are being built to campaign for recognition and share knowledge and experiences. While sharing the same goals and facing similar challenges, there has not been much exchange between those professional communities to join forces and exploit synergies. 

This workshop will bring data stewards and research software engineers together and provide an insight into case studies of initiatives to professionalise roles supporting open research from a range of countries. Group discussions will address challenges that those professions still face to get recognised and explore opportunities for collaboration on policy changes, professional development and hands-on cooperation in institutions.