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FAIR data has been rising on the agenda for Photon and Neutron Facilities over the last 10 years, with significant advances being made on the systematic generation and management of data to be FAIR-ly available to encourage its use and reuse.  FAIR and open data has become a higher priority for facilities to allow its users to better analyse their own experimental data that is becoming ever larger and more complex, to enable the reproducibility of results, and to potentially open facilities data archives for reuse and reanalysis to support new discoveries, using for example, Machine Leaning.

European Photon and Neutron Facilities have been engaged in two significant joint projects: PaNOSC and ExPaNDS; these have finished recently and have developed a toolkit of practical guidance and tools that facilities can use to evolve their systems and processes to deliver FAIR data as it leaves the facility.   The toolkit covers areas which are of general interest to the RDA community including:

• Defining data policy for a data generating institution that supports FAIR data where appropriate.

• Defining and sharing a framework of metadata standards for annotating data generated within facilities, relying on existing metadata standards when available.

• Tools, methods, and processes for managing experimental data

• Adoption of suitable Persistent Identifiers for the entities involved in PaN research.

• The role of Data Management Planning in facilities

• Applying FAIR Data Assessment to  Photon and Neutron Facilities.

In this session, we would like to discuss this FAIR toolkit and share it with the wider RDA community, comparing with similar efforts in facilities around the world. The toolkit is an evolving body of knowledge, so we would like to discuss how we might further its adoption and continue to develop it within future programmes. Future developments might include developing parts of the toolkit into an RDA recommendation.  The IG meeting will discuss this and identify suitable opportunities.

Approaches to Implementing FAIR Data in Facilities Internationally – 35 mins

1. A FAIR data toolkit for European PaN RIs –  Brian Matthews (STFC)  – 5 mins

2. FAIR adoption in US laboratories – Line Pouchard (BNL), Jon Taylor (SNS) – 20 mins

3. RDM strategies for photon and neutron facilities in Germany – Markus Kubin (HZB) – 10 mins

Tools to support FAIR Data in Facilities – 25 mins

1.     Data Management Plans within facilities processes –  Heike Görzig (HZB)

2.     FAIR vocabularies  – Steve Collins (Diamond Light Source)/Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran (STFC)

3.     PIDs for Scientific Data: Applications in Synchrotron and FEL Facilities – Andrei Vukolov (Elettra)

Future activities of PaN community on FAIR practices – 15 mins

1. Building on the ExPaNDS, PaNOSC and EOSC-Future projects in OSCARS –   Patrick Fuhrmann/Sophie Servan (DESY)

2. The work of LEAPS Working Group 3 and developing an international MoU on RDM –  Majid Ounsy (Soleil)

Discussion on Future IG activities – 15 mins

Data managers, IT Specialists, Data Stewards and policy makers in Photon and Neutron Facilities across the world.

Those with an interest in research data issues in photon and neutron facility user communities, for example chemistry, materials sciences, life sciences, engineering, earth sciences.

Data managers with an interest in practical methods for FAIR data adoption (repositories, DMPs, metadata, policy) especially within experimental science.