Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed) Steering Policies, Roles and Responsibilities

This document is a product of the Enactment of the Agricultural Research Data Federation (AgReFed) Data Stewardship and Governance Framework and the Formation of AgReFed project. It is the output of the enactment of The Guidelines for the Development of a Data Stewardship and Governance Framework for the Agricultural Research Federation (“The Guidelines” https://doi.org/10.25919/5cf179ba35db9) which enabled the movement from the project phase to a sustained federated community (AgReFed) with the shared goal of improving the sharing and reuse of agricultural data including datasets, metadata and data related products. These Guidelines identified a set of Steering and Rowing policies which need to be developed for the enactment of AgReFed (“The Guidelines” https://doi.org/10.25919/5cf179ba35db9).

Contained herein are the documents for AgReFed Steering, developed by the authors through consultation with AgReFed founding members and published as endorsed by the AgReFed Federation Council on 15 June 2021. Outlined are the roles performed by community members to govern and contribute to AgReFed efforts including authority structures, decision rights and substantive role descriptions, as well as the policies to guide participation and sustained operation. It is anticipated that these documents will evolve to enable the collective vision for AgReFed with future versions of this document or parts thereof reviewed, authored and released through the AgReFed governance structure.