Towards best practices in Research Data Management: Guiding institutional development in Irish Research Performing Organizations Through Collaborative Self-Evaluation

This paper reports on a series of collaborative self-evaluations on support services for Research Data Management (RDM) at Irish Research Performing Organisations (RPOs). The evaluations are carried out as part of the iFrame project, which is tasked with drafting a national RDM framework for Ireland.

The aim of the evaluations is to:

1. Assess institutional maturity of the services provided and enable the identification of areas for improvement via tailored reports for individual institutions.

2. Gather inputs for a landscape report on the state of RDM service provision in Irish RPOs.

3. Identify best practices in institutions that can be integrated into the upcoming national RDM framework.

The paper commences with a contextual discussion of the Irish higher education environment and the research policy environment that advocates the development of RDM practices. This is followed by a brief review of the literature that examines RDM support and practice in RPOs, utilising maturity models. The main section of the paper outlines the research rationale, design, and methodology employed in the iFrame project, which is built around the principles of openness, collaboration, and process orientation. The paper concludes with an overview of results and anticipated impact, and provides an outlook on the next steps of the project and the development of RDM at Irish RPOs.