Workshop: Sustainable Business Modeling for Digital Standards Development

IUPAC hosted a recent workshop on "Sustainable Business Modeling for Digital Standards Development" on March 25-26, 2024, in Cambridge, UK to initiate a community roadmap and sustainability blueprint for digital standards in chemistry data reporting. It aimed to outline value propositions and sustainable community approaches to support adoption and maintenance of these standards across the global chemistry community, aligning with the FAIR data principles. With the rapid advancement of digital technologies, there's an urgent need for consistent reporting and exchange of chemical data worldwide.

Key questions addressed included maximizing opportunities for standards development, identifying necessary deliverables and services for standards adoption, and exploring suitable business models for sustaining pre-competitive community standards. Stakeholder engagement, collective approaches to messaging, and interdisciplinary cooperation were emphasized to ensure the sustainability and broad applicability of chemistry data standards.

The workshop brought together a breadth of stakeholders involved in data standards development and deployment, including representatives from IUPAC, the InChI Trust, the Beilstein Institute, CODATA, RDA, chemical industry groups, data initiatives in the chemical sciences, repositories, software developers, publishers and other scientific unions. Outcomes will include a map of standards that characterizes and aligns them by the needs they address for particular use cases, and a white paper to expand on the topics of the workshop and scope of standards exemplified, reach a broader audience and build a coalition for a concerted effort to create the resources needed to sustain digital standards. A follow up webinar is targeted for June and future workshops will be considered. Keep an eye out! 

Overall, the workshop aimed to address the challenge of sustainability for community-based resources and foster collaborative efforts in advancing digital standards for chemistry data exchange. Special thanks for support from the WorldFAIR Initiative*, the InChI Trust, and the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) for providing a conducive environment for collaboration and innovation.

‘Global cooperation on FAIR data policy and practice’ (WorldFAIR) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe project call HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-01, grant agreement 101058393.