re3data – Indexing the Global Research Data Repository Landscape Since 2012

For more than a decade, re3data, the global Registry of Research Data Repositories, has
helped researchers, funding agencies, libraries, and data centers to find, identify, and
reference research data repositories. As the world’s largest directory of such infrastructures,
re3data currently describes over 3,000 repositories on the basis of a comprehensive
metadata schema. The service allows searching for research data repositories of any type
and from all disciplines. Users can filter results based on a wide range of characteristics. The
re3data descriptions are available as open data accessible through an API and are utilized
by numerous open science services.

re3data is engaged in various initiatives and projects concerning data management and is
mentioned in the policies of many scientific institutions, funding organizations, and
publishers. Notable examples include the European Commission, the National Science
Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Moreover, a diverse array of
stakeholders utilizes data from re3data to augment their community services, such as the
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the National Research Data Infrastructure
(NFDI) in Germany. Through its service, re3data supports the discoverability of trustworthy
research data repositories.

In our poster, we reflect on the ten-year experience of running re3data and discuss ten
key issues related to the management of an Open Science service that caters to research
data repositories and their users worldwide. These encompass:

(1) Our ongoing commitment to openness,
(2) the pivotal role of quality assurance in service operation,
(3) our proactive engagement with the global infrastructure and Open Science communities,
(4) the importance of interoperability to enable automated data flows,
(5) the necessity for continuous development,
(6) ensuring sustainability in the face of changing demands,
(7) the service's entrenchment in research data policies and other Open Science regulations,
(8) the emphasis on data reuse for re3data,
(9) the various research endeavors that utilize re3data, and
(10) the significance of public outreach efforts to amplify the visibility of such an
internationally utilized service

This poster is based on: Pampel, H., Weisweiler, N. L., Strecker, D., Witt, M., Vierkant, P., Elger, K., Bertelmann, R., Buys, M., Ferguson, L. M., Kindling, M., Kotarski, R., & Petras, V. (2023). Re3data – Indexing the Global Research Data Repository Landscape Since 2012. Scientific Data, 10(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02462-y