Seven Recommendations for Implementation of FAIR Practice

The FAIR Practice Task Force was set up as one of the four task forces of the European Open Science Cloud FAIR Working Group. Its goal was to support the Working Group with oversight of FAIR practices: learning about the possibilities of future FAIR implementation from current experience.

This report can be seen as a followup on the 2018 report “Turning FAIR into reality” from the European Commission Expert Group on FAIR Data. Our primary aim was to translate our findings into actionable recommendations to the decision making entities of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), as well as research funders and policymakers on how to turn FAIR into practice.

After a section describing our methodology and the limitations of our study, this report contains a disciplinary and a regional perspective on FAIR implementation. The disciplinary perspective summarises what we have been reading on fair practices split into 2x2 parts: technical and social impediments on one side, and technical solutions and social enablers on the other. The regional perspective shows trends in regional policies and how they have so far driven the development of FAIR practices, highlighting the differences and commonalities.

A separate section details FAIR practices for digital objects other than research data.

We close the report with two sections with insights. The first one describes differences between disciplinary and regional implementations, what implications these differences have for policymakers turning FAIR into reality and how these differences can and should be addressed. Finally, we close off with our recommendations for the EOSC, research funders and policymakers.

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FEEDBACK

This report is open for public comments and feedback between 9 July 2020 to 31 August 2020. The consultation will be launched during a dedicated webinar on 9 July at 14.00 CEST.

Those who wish to provide feedback are kindly asked to add their comments directly on a commentable version of this document.