Enabling Best Practices in Research Data Curation in Physical Sciences: Recommendations on the Role for PSDI

Jointly authored by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) and the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) for the Physical Science Data Infrastructure (PSDI), this report examines current approaches to research data curation and provides a set of recommendations to PSDI on how to most effectively enable and advance best practices across the Physical Sciences in the UK.

Drawing on a number of community initiatives and discussions, we posit that effective data management during the research project is necessary for effective data curation and preservation beyond the project completion, and we outline the diverse roles involved across the research data lifecycle, the relevant conceptual frameworks, as well as a range of case studies demonstrating the implementation of best practices and the emerging challenges & opportunities in data curation.

Our resulting recommendations for PSDI span six distinct categories: community building and skills development; infrastructure, tools, standards, and services; promoting and supporting standards; bridging industry and academia; policy, advocacy and strategic engagement; and continuity and sustainability of activities.

Importantly, PSDI is already carrying out several of the recommended actions. A continued consultation with the wider Physical Sciences community will inform and help to prioritize the PSDI's efforts going forward, based on the community needs and available resources.