Key findings from the EOSC Association Long Term Data Preservation Task Force

From 2022 to 2024 the Long Term Data Preservation Task Force (LTDP-TF) of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Association brought together members, association experts and external contributors from diverse backgrounds across research infrastructures and the digital object management lifecycle to deliver a vision and recommendations for optimal preservation of FAIR digital objects. Through a sequence of meetings, engagements, a contextual overview paper, an open consultation and a final report with recommendations the group identified gaps and proposed actions. The key gap, which impacts the development of essential knowledge about roles and costs, is the uneven distribution of awareness within EOSC and beyond that active preservation requires a long term commitment to data management that must adjust to changing technologies and the changing needs of users. Progress on gap analysis issues included the recognition of the emerging need for more concrete and clearly defined sets of activities and functions for repositories, and the validation of the CoreTrustSeal proposed levels of curation and preservation care. Together these and the recommendations can support a move towards clearer typologies of repositories and their levels of speciality, responsibility, curation and preservation.

The resources provide bite-sized contextual assertions that can be reused by actors at all levels from researchers and practitioners to funders and policy makers. There are clear calls to action that are applicable to a range of actors and that guide a cascade of progress from European, to national to institutional level. The materials address FAIR data, trustworthy digital repositories (TDR), standards, assessment, certification, transparency, sustainability  and future project and network routes to collaboration and progress. Together these provide an insight to infrastructures and institutions seeking to deliver, mature and scale complex services with restrained resources.

Attendees will be provided with insight into the context of this EOSC-A task force and its key findings and about how they can engage with and contribute to follow up initiatives.