RDA 14th Plenary in Helsinki

 
 
The 14th Plenary under the title “Data makes the Difference” took place from 23-25 October 2019 in Helsinki, Finland, co-hosted by Research Data Alliance Finland, CSC – IT Centre for Science, Aalto University, University of Helsinki, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The event counted 571 participants.
 

 
Data has enormous and diverse potential to change how we work, make decisions and empower citizens. The 14th RDA plenary explored the extensive ways data can make the difference by bringing together diverse group of experts from all around the globe.
 
The opening plenary session featured a presentation by Andreas Veispak (Head of Unit eInfrastructure and Science Cloud, DG Connect) on “Open data and infrastructures: what next?” highlighting the important role of RDA, specifically in matters of standardization and in relation to the EOSC initiative in Europe as a vehicle for Open Science and the Digital Single Market with the objective of offering resources to European researchers.
 
The presentation was followed by a keynote lecture by Tuuli Toivonen (University of Helsinki) on “Moving towards more open research culture? Experiences from a data hungry research field“.
 
Throughout 3 days, the plenary hosted 8 Breakout sessions including several parallel Working Group and Interest Group meetings, an Unconference, a Poster session and an RDA Adoption session, which focused on the adoption activity of RDA Recommendations in the areas of Agriculture, Climate, Social Sciences and Humanities, Engineering, Health and Sustainable Development Goals. 
 
 
 
More information about the RDA 14th Plenary here: https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rdas-14th-plenary-helsinki-finland
 
 
RDA node coordination workshop – October 21, 2019
 
The RDA Spanish node participated in the node coordination workshop on 21 October 2019 co-located with the RDA 14th Plenary. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the contribution of the nodes to EOSC, facilitating networking between the 22 European nodes, exploring synergies and possible forms of collaboration and in this way finding the balance between the RDA national, European, and global activities.
Representatives of 18 national nodes, RDA EU secretariat, and 5 RDA Ambassadors were present at the workshop.
 

 
As a result of this workshop, RDA Spain identified several possible forms of collaboration, leading to the planning of joint workshops with other RDA Europe nodes in areas like precise agriculture, DMPs, and repository certification. The aim of organizing joint workshops is to exchange best practices between the national node activities and get inspiration to repeat successful experiences also in Spain.
 

 
Other co-located events with the 14th Plenary were:

“The International Research Data Community contributing to EOSC” event on 22 October 2019, hosting several representatives of the EOSC governance and European Commission highlighting the contribution of RDA above all through its international dimension and tangible benefits as a user-driven initiative.
FAIRsFAIR workshop on “Building the data landscape of the future: FAIR Semantics and FAIR Repositories” on 22 October 2019.

Check out the RDA Photo Gallery at http://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-14th-plenary-meeting-photo-gallery“>https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-14th-plenary-meeting-photo-gallery” style=”color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline”>www.rd-alliance.org/rda-14th-plenary-meeting-photo-gallery”>https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-14th-plenary-meeting-photo-gallery as well as our Twitter (#RDA Plenary) and Instagram account (rdaplenary14/).