Bringing researchers along on the road to FAIR data

With the aim of improving the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of digital assets, FAIR data holds tremendous promises for knowledge discovery and innovation. The FAIR principles have taken the research world by storm, since their publication in 2016. Funding agencies across Europe, including the European Commission, have readily adopted these principles and have made requirements for FAIR Data. Everybody loves FAIR. Except that many researchers are still unaware of the FAIR principles and many of those who are aware do not know how to apply them practice. There is still a lot of work to do to engage researchers with FAIR Data and to convince them that FAIR Data is worth their time and efforts – particularly in fields of research where sharing data has not been part of that field’s culture and where infrastructure, resources, training and community standards are still lacking. This talk delivered at the OAI 11 – The CERN-UNIGE Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication on 19 June 2019 focuses on researcher engagement with FAIR data. What can individual researchers do and how can professionals in research data management help?