Second Report of the FAIRsFAIR Synchronisation Force (D5.5)

This is the report of the second FAIRsFAIR Synchronisation Force workshop, organised online as a series of eight sessions from 29th of April until 11th of June 2020. The objective of these sessions was to measure the progress towards implementing the recommendations outlined in the Turning FAIR into Reality report (2018). To do this, FAIRsFAIR brought together representatives of the Working Groups of the EOSC Executive Board, INFRAEOSC5 projects, ESFRI clusters, and the FAIRsFAIR European Group of FAIR Champions to share information on the progress of their FAIR-oriented activities and to discuss commonalities and priorities.

The report addresses the EOSC Executive Board and Governing Board and their successors, as well as the European Commission’s EOSC programme (together called “the EOSC Governance” in this report), in addition to the participants and other EOSC-related projects.

A table in the document summarises the amount of activity with regards to the 27 recommendations from the Turning FAIR into Reality report (TFiR). It is a snapshot in time and the observations and analysis in the report express an interpretation of the situation - confirmed by the workshop participants.

The overall conclusion of the workshop series and this review of project activities is that the implementation of the Turning FAIR into Reality recommendations is clearly being addressed across the range of projects and activities surveyed.

The EOSC Governance should look at the less well covered TFiR Recommendations 6, 8, 11 and 13 (coded “some activities support this recommendation”), determine whether extra activity is needed and which could be provided through EOSC co-creation activities, through the Horizon Europe funding initiative or through other means. Workshop participants also felt that supporting recommendation 23 should be reclassified as a priority recommendation.

Finally, this report proposes additional actions that address gaps in the Turning FAIR into Reality Action Plan that were identified by the workshop discussions.