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Back to Plenary Participation
Group Session November 21, 2025

Unlock TDRs via the TRUST Principles

Plenary: RDA 26th Plenary Meeting (VP26)

Submitted by
Meredith Goins
Recording

Meeting objectives

Collaborative session notes:

Open session notes

FAIR data requires a Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR) to store it. The TRUST Principles were created within the RDA community, and the community has requested further guidance and tips on how to implement the TRUST Principles in their repositories. 

To that aim, the objectives of this TRUST Adoption and Outreach Working Group session is to share and gather information from the data community on the TRUST Principles. To accomplish this, multiple ways the TRUST Principles have been implemented will be shared by the authors of use cases from an adjacent data principle, a data service provider, and a data repository. The WG encourages those interested in discussion and engagement – and not a lecture – to join in!

To continue the discussion, breakout sessions will be offered for this virtual event to allow individuals to engage with the topics of their choice including those new to the TRUST Principles, those interested in hearing more how TRUST can help them specifically, those who wish to see TRUST go further, and finally, those who wish to give feedback on the working group’s deliverables.

A summary of each breakout will be provided and help guide the Work Group to a successful close.

Meeting presenters

Meredith Goins, Dawei Lin, Micky Lindlar

Meeting agenda

Overview of WG

Use Case Presentations

  • Principle use case – CARE
  • Trustworthy services use case – EOSC EDEN (Anu Märkälä)
  • Repository use case – Digital Repository of Ireland (Beth Knazook)

Breakout sessions

  • New to the TRUST Principles?
  • How can the TRUST Principles help you?
  • Where would you like to see TRUST go next?
  • Community feedback on TRUST Working Group deliverables

Summary of breakouts

Next steps

Closing

Target audience

Data stewards

Data repositories

Infrastructure providers

Data users and producers

Group Activities and Scope

This working group aims to clarify the complementary relationship between TRUST Principles (TRUST) for digital repositories, certification processes, and metrics of other principle frameworks (e.g. FAIR, CARE, Desirable Characteristics, Data Repository Attributes). TRUST is not a criterion for certification. Instead, it is the principles of how repositories can demonstrate their trustworthiness to users. Actions include:

  • A survey to determine what hesitancy exists in using the TRUST Principles
  • Analysis of collected use cases to determine hesitancy
  • Mapping of TRUST to the various data repository certifications
  • Creation of guidelines on how to implement TRUST Principles
  • The creation and launch of TRUST wiki

RDA Plenary presentations and working sessions include:

  •  RDA P18 (10 November 2021) OA Sponsored Birds of a Feather – The Future of “trustworthiness” and reliability of repositories and services: TRUST, FAIR, CARE
  • RDA P20 (23 March 2023) RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG: TRUST Principles & Certification updates where the proposed TRUST Principles implementation working group shared its submitted work plan, adoption plan and timelines associated with the WG charter for community input and to encourage individuals to comment.
    – During the public review and comment period, over 397 individuals downloaded and read the TRUST working group proposal and comments were provided.
    – RDA Tiger support services application was submitted on 31 August 2023 and with notification of support received 26 September 2023.
  • RDA P21st (26 October 2023) RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG: TRUST Principles and Repository Certification Landscape
  • RDA P23 (12 November 2024) Findings on TRUST Principles Adoption
  • RDA P24 (8 April 2025) Applying the TRUST Principles to Build Trustworthy Operations in All Repositories

Other presentations on this TRUST WG outside of RDA include:

  • Goins, M., Lin, D. & Downs, R. (2022, December 22). TRUST Principles Inspire Digital Repositories to Serve Reusable Data for the Long Term. American Geophysical Union (AGU), Chicago, IL. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7473889
  • Goins, M. (2023, September 21). Why TRUST matters and how you can get involved. iPRES, Champaign-Urbana, IL. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8380688
  • Goins M. (2024, January 4). Moving us Towards TRUST: The Next Steps in Outreach and Adoption. American Geophysical Union (AGU), San Francisco, CA. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10459920
  • Goins, M., & Downs, R. (2024, December 10). Entrusting the TRUST Principles: Adoption Challenges Uncovered. American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting 2024 (AGU24), Washington D.C. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14363044

Additional links to informative material

Short Group Status

Co-chaired by Dawei Lin, Micky Lindlar and Meredith Goins, the TRUST Principles WG is an endorsed working group which aims to complete it’s task by March 2026. This group was formed out of the RDA/WDS Interest Group of Certification of Digital Repositories to continue to address the challenges of Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs). As such, sessions have been held at P20, P22, P23, and P25 to aid the repository community.

Applicable Pathways

FAIR, CARE, TRUST - Evaluation and Policy
FAIR, CARE, TRUST - Adoption, Implementation, and Deployment

Avoid conflict with the following groups

RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG
Community-based catalogue of requirements for trustworthy Technical Repository Service Providers Wor

Please indicate at least (3) three breakout slots that would suit your meeting.

Breakout 1. Monday, 16 March, 13:30-15:00 UTC
Breakout 2. Monday, 16 March, 22:30-00:00 UTC
Breakout 4. Tuesday, 17 March, 13:30-15:00 UTC