Data Stewardship Career Paths: Recommendations of the EOSC Task Force Data Stewardship Curricula and Career Paths

This document provides an overview of the topic of Data Stewardship Career Paths. Our review and summary of relevant reports and papers, ongoing initiatives, projects and surveys highlight the importance of ensuring more sustainable career paths for Data Stewards. The report further argues the need for further in-depth study and documentation of this topic. In particular, the analysis identifies relevant aspects that should be considered, ranging from employment conditions and salary to scientific recognition and roles. The report provides a list of recommendations and identifies activities that can be taken by the EOSC in the areas of Partnership, Association and Projects, summarised as follows:

1. The EOSC Association and related projects should ensure that the overview of the current situation is kept up-to-date as a reference point. A section on the EOSC Association public website should be dedicated to Data Stewardship initiatives including a dedicated bibliography. To ensure long-term sustainability, a governing body should own and maintain this "inventory" as a point of reference; future projects should be encouraged to use it as a reference and provide input.
2. The EOSC Association should ensure collaboration with international initiatives, in particular, the RDA IG Professionalizing Data Stewardship – TF Career Tracks and ensure coordination among current activities and studies carried out within the various EOSC Horizon Europe projects, and promote and support the organisation of dedicated events.
1. The current and future EOSC projects and initiatives in the field should build on the work of this task force, as well as on the results of the studies above, and extend them by Applying qualitative methods such as guided interviews or focus groups to investigate the aspects covered in section 6 (“Data Stewardship Careers - What Counts”) in more depth
2. Developing Data Steward Personas based on the proposed methodology detailed in Annex 1
3. The EOSC Partnership (EOSC Association, European Commission and Steering Board) should establish a permanent Data Stewardship expert group (including representatives from the various existing initiatives and this task force) with the following responsibilities: Develop and implement a monitoring framework that will allow the EOSC and other national and international institutions to support the career paths and development of personnel hired (at least in part) in Data Stewardship roles
4. Advise the Association and the relevant (ongoing and future) projects and initiatives
5. Issue recommendations on further activities of the Association regarding Data Stewardship
6. In consideration of the importance of the key role of Data Stewards in the development and implementation of the EOSC and to facilitate the exchange with and among Data Stewards, a further objective of the EOSC Association should be to assess the need for a professional network for Data Stewards, at least on the European level.

The use of an innovative methodology, the Persona workshops, is recommended alongside further surveys and in-depth interviews to explore the relevant aspects of career paths and professional development of Data Stewards, including the roles and responsibilities of employers and Data Stewardship training programmes.

Context

This work was carried out within the Data Stewardship Curricula and Career Paths EOSC Task Force framework, particularly its Career Paths work stream.