Under the theme ‘Building Global Partnerships’, scientists, research data infrastructure providers, research data practitioners, policy-makers and research data stakeholders from all over the world gathered at RDA’s second bi-annual Plenary Meeting. 2nd Plenary Meeting took place between 16-18 September 2013 in the esteemed National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, US. The meeting has provided existing and new and aspiring RDA community members with an opportunity to conduct business and make progress on their plans and deliverables. The plenary was organised as a forum to demonstrate the value of RDA and to receive feedback from the broader research and policy communities. RDA members and plenary participants were provided with updates on both the governing and technical (Working & Interest Groups) activities since March 2013 (RDA Launch). RDA leveraged on the plenary to continue to define and build relationships with initiatives and organisations that share the same vision and can mutually benefit from engaging with each other.
”Data sharing offers important benefits for scientific progress and advancement of knowledge. However, several limitations and barriers in the general adoption of data sharing are still in place. Probably the most important challenge is that data sharing is not yet very common among scholars and is not yet seen as a regular activity among scientists, although important efforts are being invested in promoting data sharing.” Costas, R., Meijer, I., Zahedi, Z. and Wouters, P. (2013). The Value of Research Data – Metrics for datasets from a cultural and technical point of view. A Knowledge Exchange Report, available from www.knowledge-exchange.info/datametrics.
Plenary sessions included Keynotes from internationally renowned visionaries, including the US Government, reports from currently active Working and Interest Groups, a forum for affiliate organizations, and general RDA business meetings. All this coupled with parallel breakout sessions for the Working and Interest Groups, other ad-hoc groups and a dedicated session for RDA Newcomers on how to get involved, propose new working or interest groups and interact with the RDA members.
