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Group Session November 21, 2025

Provision and Acquisition of Data Services by Institutions in a Disruptive Age

Plenary: RDA 26th Plenary Meeting (VP26)

Submitted by
Matthew Chandler
Recording

Meeting objectives

Collaborative session notes:

Open session notes

This session will explore different approaches institutions may take to maintain continuity of data services and infrastructure through hard times. We will hear prepared presentations from an international panel of speakers and collect approaches that members of the community have taken or are taking to minimize the risk of data loss when funding is tight and budgets are constrained. We are especially interested in sharing creative solutions and contingency planning options–other than seeking alternative funding. We will also discuss institutional capacity for research data management, grounded in recent survey data from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

Meeting presenters

Jonathan Crabtree (UNC Chapel Hill), Wolfram Horstmann (FIZ Karlsruhe), Jacko Koster (Leiden University), Tracy Sallaway (Trent University, Research Intelligence Expert Group, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada)

Meeting agenda

  1. Introductions and overview of the RDARI IG (5 mins)
  2. Motivations for this session (5 mins)
  3. Presentations on data services continuity:
    1. Research Data Management Core (Jonathan Crabtree, UNC Chapel Hill) (10 mins)
    2. Resilient Information Infrastructure (Wolfram Horstmann, FIZ Karlsruhe) (10 mins)
  4. Q&A 1 (15 mins)
  5. Facilitated group discussion on data continuity at institutions (20 mins)
  6. Presentation on the Canadian Institutional RDM Capacity Survey (Tracy Sallaway, Research Intelligence Expert Group, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada) (10 mins)
  7. Q&A 2 (5 mins)
  8. Summing up and next steps (10 mins)

Target audience

The primary audience is professional staff at research institutions, including data services managers, data stewards, and data infrastructure specialists. The session may also be relevant to researchers and data publishers.

Group Activities and Scope

The Research Data Architectures in Research Institutions Interest Group is primarily concerned with technical architectures for managing research data within universities and other multi-disciplinary research institutions. It provides insight into the approaches being taken to the development and operation of such architectures and their success or otherwise in enabling good practice.

The main themes of the IG are

  • Exploring how diverse tools, technologies, and services can be integrated to meet the evolving needs of researchers in research institutions.
  • Considering interoperability between institutional research data infrastructures and (inter)national or discipline-based infrastructures
  • Understanding the different institutional approaches to governance structures and business processes in responding to research ICT demands (e.g. capacity planning/forecasting for storage)
  • Sharing case studies of solutions developed by data infrastructure projects in research institutions
  • Presenting technical innovations and ideas that can further the development of integrated research data infrastructures
  • Agreeing best practice relating to research data architectures in research institutions

Additional links to informative material

Group page: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/education-and-training-handling-research-data.html

Group wiki: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/education-and-training-handling-research-data/wiki/education-and-skills-data-science-wiki

Short Group Status

Endorsed and established. The Research Data Infrastructures in Research Institutions (RDARI) interest group has been running sessions and facilitating discussions at RDA Plenary events since 2018. It has covered a range of topics from the perspective of integrating these into institutional research data architecture. Some of these topics were sensitive data management, Lab notebooks, retention and disposal of data, integration of data description and storage.

Applicable Pathways

Data Infrastructures and Environments - Generalist
Data Infrastructures and Environments - Discipline Focused

Avoid conflict with the following groups

FAIR Data Maturity Model WG
Professionalising Data Stewardship IG

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

Breakout 2. Monday, 16 March, 22:30-00:00 UTC
Breakout 3. Tuesday, 17 March, 07:00-08:30 UTC
Breakout 7. Wednesday, 18 March, 13:30-15:00 UTC