Putting the Life Science RDM support landscape in context with RDMkit

Proper management of research data is increasing its presence in the lifecycle of data-driven investigations. On the one hand, funders or host institutions demand research data management (RDM) by requiring researchers to build and implement data management plans for projects. On the other hand, research infrastructures provide a plethora of RDM support in the form of tools, policies, standards and guidelines. Researchers often find themselves lost in the middle, overwhelmed in their task to take advantage of the available support and to meet the funder demands for RDM.

ELIXIR is a distributed European infrastructure for life-science data. ELIXIR's 23 national nodes have observed recurring RDM challenges for life-science data and the major pitfalls that researchers find themselves in. To address these RDM experts in ELIXIR have combined forces to build RDMkit (https://rdmkit.elixir-europe.org), launched in March 2021. For researchers, RDMkit is a one stop shop of information, advice and signposting to research data management know-how, tools, examples and best practice, written by life scientists for life scientists. For data managers, RDMkit is a resource to complement institutional guidelines. For funding agencies and policy makers, RDMkit is a resource that can be included in guidelines. RDMkit is recommended in the European Commission's Horizon Europe Program Guide as the "resource for Data Management guidelines and good practices for the Life Sciences." The RDMkit is an open community with editorially guided content from over 95 contributors.

In this lightning talk we will present how RDMkit organises its guidance, the distinctive aspects that it takes in making life-science data Findable Access Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) and how RDMkit is integrated into other tools and platforms channeling RDM expertise in registries such as FAIRsharing, bio.tools and the TeSS Training portal, and working with ELIXIR's Data Stewardship Wizard decision support tool.