Who we are
RDA Europe is the European office of the RDA, supporting the regional communities, advocating for their unique and collective interests in the European data landscape, and facilitating the connection between national and global initiatives. RDA Europe is built on the strong commitment of the European countries, individuals, organisations, and the European Commission to the mission of the Research Data Alliance. It draws from the rich history and successes of European Commission-funded RDA projects, such as RDA EU3 and RDA EU4, as well as RDA Regional Members in Europe.
RDA Association (RDA Europe)
The need to create a European legal entity to formally support and facilitate RDA activities in Europe was identified in 2021. This organisation was founded as a non-profit international organisation under Belgian Law (AISBL).
Governance
RDA Europe is governed by the Board of Trustees, currently composed of five Board Members.
Board of Trustees
Board President
Senior Advisor, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)
Board Vice-President
Director of the National Library of Ireland (NLI)
Board Treasurer
Senior EU liaison advisor, GEANT
Board Secretary
Secretary General, Research Data Alliance
Director of the Göttingen State and University Library and University Librarian of Georg August Universität Göttingen
Strategic European Engagement and Coordination Development Manager at CSC – IT Center for Science
Meet Our Team of Experts
Director
Alex Delipalta
Director
Strategy, Operations, Project Acquisition, Training
Email: alexandra.delipalta@rda-foundation.org
Twitter: @DelipaltaAlex
Research Data Support and Services
Ryan O’Connor
Senior Facilitator, Research Data
RDA WG Facilitation Service Manager, RDM Training, Facilitation Service
Liise Lehtsalu
Senior Science Officer, Research Data
RDM Training Lead, RDA WG Facilitation, Project Acquisition
Athina Papadopoulou
Science Officer, Research Data
Services: RDA WG Facilitation, Community engagement
Communication Experts
Genevieve Halbert
Senior Communication and Engagement Manager
Services: RDA WG Communication and Outreach Service Manager
Email: genevieve.halbert@rda-foundation.org
Rosie Allison
Science Officer, Research Data
Services: RDA WG Communication and Outreach
Finances and HR
What we do
1. Strategy, Vision and Mission
Inspiring European Solutions with Global Impact
The mission of RDA Europe is to “Inspire, cultivate and support European communities, organisations and individuals to develop and implement globally agreeable solutions to enable open sharing and re-use of data through the Research Data Alliance (RDA).”
RDA Europe is governed by and operates according to the Guiding Principles of the global Research Data Alliance: Openness, Consensus, Inclusivity, Harmonization, Community-driven, Nonprofit and Technology-neutral.
To reflect the unique challenges of the European regional members and data communities, RDA Europe developed its first strategy in 2023.
RDA Europe operates within three overarching, long-term goals, which drive its strategy and activities:
1) Strengthen the connection of regions to the RDA Global,
2) foster multistakeholder, multidisciplinary and multilingual efforts of RDA at the European level, and,
3) continue to build the reputation of RDA in Europe.
Strategic Priorities 2023 – 2025
Network: Support European data communities to work together and connect to global initiatives.
Develop: Help European data communities to develop and implement solutions for their data challenges.
Advocate: Advocate for and enable the global and European level solutions to research data related issues.
Sustain: Create organisational sustainability and maturity.
2. The Value of RDA Europe for …
European RDA Regions
RDA Europe facilitates the integration of diverse research communities into the larger European and global research ecosystem.
In practice…
Alignment with European level policy and priorities: RDA Europe operates at the heart of the European data landscape. We support the RDA European regions’ alignment with European Commission and EOSC priorities at the national level. By integrating RDA Recommendations and practices, regions can ensure their research data policies are in line with Europe’s open science objectives.
Community Guidance: Whether it’s adapting global best practices for a local context, solving unique regional data challenges, or implementing European solutions at a global scale, RDA Europe provides an entry point to the RDA community with bespoke guidance about its Groups and their Outputs and their adoption, or about how to get involved with and navigate the RDA.
Regional membership support: Regions that wish to engage formally with a partnership agreement with RDA can reach out to RDA Europe for support with efforts to engage with their local funders and stakeholders in support of these efforts at a national level, or to come up with new approaches to respond to community needs.
Showcasing regional success stories: RDA Europe offers a platform to European RDA regions to showcase their innovations, solutions and challenges on a European and global scale. Regions can reach key stakeholders by participating in RDA Europe events and webinars [links when ready], and by sharing your news in RDA Europe newsletters.
Facilitating bi-directional engagement between European RDA regions: RDA Europe bridges the communication gap between European RDA regions. Attend our planned cross-fertilisation webinars to discuss data related solutions and challenges and how they are tackled at the national level, and share best practices towards the advancement and implementation of Open Science [link to cross-fertilisation webinars]. Do you wish to hold a webinar? Contact us now! [mailto: Genevieve]
Supporting Under-represented Regions: While some European regions may not yet have the same level of research infrastructure and access to funding as others, RDA Europe is committed to ensuring equitable access to resources, knowledge, and networks. By supporting these regions, we help strengthen their research capacities and contribute to a more balanced and inclusive European research data landscape. RDA Europe actively works to support under-represented regions through the provision of RDM training.
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
RDA Europe and the EOSC align through our shared goals of promoting open science, enabling data interoperability, and implementing FAIR data principles across the European research landscape. Through complementary strategies, projects and activities, we work to shape the European data ecosystem, ensuring that the global open science community can benefit from European contributions and opportunities.
RDA focuses on supporting its Working and Interest Groups in developing the standards, best practices, and frameworks needed for data sharing, with RDA Europe at the forefront of European data communities; EOSC provides the infrastructure and services that make these principles and practices operational at scale. RDA Europe provides the link with the global communities and supports the global alignment of the principles and practices. Some community activities – such as Global Open Research Commons (GORC) – have this alignment as an explicit theme. However, a global perspective is part of the DNA of every RDA Working or Interest Group, and RDA Europe provides a crucial link between European projects and initiatives and this global community. RDA Europe thus facilitates sustainability and internationalisation of European efforts towards a FAIR research data system.
Together, we ensure that Europe is at the forefront of global research data sharing and open science efforts.
In practice…
- RDA Europe as a legal entity is a partner in a number of European Commission funded projects alongside other European partners. Through our work in these projects we:
- Ensure that RDA Recommendations and Outputs inform European projects to avoid duplication of effort and to support alignment of practice at global level.
- Provide the global bridges needed to ensure that outputs produced by European projects find uptake at global level. RDA Europe supports the sustainability of European projects and actively ensures that EOSC is developed in alignment with global initiatives and standards.
- The EOSC Association Task Forces, together with the EOSC Opportunity Area Expert Groups, represent the EOSC brain pool. Together, these groups include hundreds of expert volunteers collectively working to develop key areas in the implementation of EOSC. Our team actively contributes to the EOSC Association FAIR Metrics and Digital Objects Task Force and the Opportunity Area 5 Expert Group “Skills, Training, Rewards, Recognition, and Upscaling”.
- Facilitating interoperability: RDA is at the heart of developing interoperable solutions to data sharing, as it brings together a global, multidisciplinary network of data professionals across academia, industry, funding and government organisations to work on shared solutions, facilitating convergence of practice and providing space for alignment of methods and approaches. Through our work on FAIR-IMPACT and RDA TIGER, RDA Europe actively contributes to Europe-wide efforts on improving data interoperability by bringing together experts on interoperability in webinars and workshops to identify shared challenges and potential solution pathways and by facilitating working groups developing solutions to legal, organisational, semantic and technical interoperability challenges. This work provides concrete building blocks for successful EOSC implementation.
Watch this space! A preliminary report mapping the value of RDA Outputs and Recommendations to EOSC will be published before the end of 2024.
Research Infrastructures
The value of RDA Europe for Research Infrastructures lies in its ability to integrate global data-sharing standards with European policies and practices, while also addressing the unique challenges of a diverse, multilingual, and highly collaborative research ecosystem. Through its support for the implementation of FAIR principles, capacity building, and fostering cross-border and cross-disciplinary cooperation, RDA Europe helps European research infrastructures remain competitive and aligned with global open science trends, while ensuring that they meet Europe-specific needs.
In practice…
- Internationalisation of research infrastructures : RDA Europe provides bridges between European RIs and both the European and the global research data communities. Through RDA, RIs have access to an established, trusted, and neutral platform for the development of solutions in the field of research data. Starting or participating in an RDA interest or working group is a good way to ensure that solutions developed in one RI are implementable at European and international level.
- Engagement with user communities: RDA Europe links European RIs to their users i.e. researchers, data stewards, and other data professionals. Working together with user communities in the context of RDA allows RIs to better understand the motivations and concerns of their users and develop appropriate services and solutions.
- Use case testing and peer support: The RDA community allows you to test cases and share experiences across scientific disciplines and professional communities.
Sustainability and adoption: RDA Recommendations and Outputs are being adopted and tested as part of the formal endorsement process. Engaging with the RDA community permits you to be an early adopter of new Recommendations and provide crucial early feedback to shape final Recommendations. As early adopters, RIs can contribute to sustainability of RDA outputs and become frontrunners in providing best, community-approved solutions and practices to their user communities.
3. European Commission-funded Projects
RDA TIGER is a support services project for RDA Working Groups, coordinated by the RDA-A in Belgium. The project also includes contributions from CODATA, Netherlands eScienceCenter, and DANS. For the RDA members, this new project provides many potential support services:
- For upcoming WGs, the project can provide help for forming the WG, such as finding WG members with new active global engagement and landscape analysis service, helping to disseminate WG ideas widely, practical help with case statement preparation, and output definition;
- For ongoing WGs, the project can help with close facilitation and organization services, leading to much less workload on the WG members and chairs, who can concentrate more on providing their expertise. Other direct services include communication, writing and editing, and output development services, as well as providing limited grants for output testing, development, travel and even external consultancy services;
- For ending and finished WGs, the RDA TIGER will provide help on last-mile development and writing, output finalization and adoption, guidance on potential standardization pathways and help with the (upcoming) RDA Maintenance Facility maintained by DANS in Netherlands.
FAIR-Impact works in creating practical implementation of the FAIR principles starting with integrated use cases on four scientific domains. The project will identify practices, policies, tools and technical specifications to guide researchers, repository managers, research performing organisations, policy makers and citizen scientists towards a FAIR data management cycle. See here for more on FAIR Impact and where RDA is active.
4. Services
Watch this space! RDA Europe is preparing a service portfolio to support:
- The upskilling of the research data community in Europe through training workshops on Research Data Management for data stewards and research managers and administrators;
- Research data services development in research performing organisations through training workshops and consultancy;
- The work of RDA through the provision of facilitation, communications and outreach and landscape analysis support services to RDA WGs, IGs and CoPs.
Contact Us
Are you interested in a training workshop at your institution, delivered by our team of experts? Do you wish to receive support services for your work in RDA? Contact us to discuss your options.
5. Work with us
RDA Europe is pursuing the following types of activities in alignment with its strategy, mission and vision:
- Advancement and implementation of the FAIR principles
- Developing solutions to achieve and in support of legal, organisational, semantic and technical interoperability, both in the context of EOSC and in broader, global research commons context
- Training and upskilling in particular in the context of widening countries
- Defining data stewardship service models and data steward career tracks
- Enabling European research data communities engage with one another to further the development of an aligned, inter-connected European research data community that also includes and supports the currently more underrepresented countries.
Contact us to discuss how we can collaborate in our mission to advance Open Science in Europe through the RDA.
Join RDA
Joining the RDA as a member in Europe has many benefits. RDA Europe works on concrete actions to support the European data community and the Regional Members in Europe:
- Providing professional support services for the Global RDA Community (via the RDA TIGER project)
- Supporting European RDA Communities
- The Netherlands, France, United Kingdom
- Supporting the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) by aligning international policies, technologies, methodologies, and practices through RDA Working Groups.
- Elevating European successes to the Global community via coordinating and participating in key Horizon Europe projects
- Facilitating international, cross-disciplinary expertise through the coordination of the RDA/EOSC Future Ambassador network.
There are three ways to join the RDA; and an Organisational/Affiliate Member, Regional Member, or Individual Member. Find out more at the links below and join RDA today!
Past Projects
RDA Europe has previously involved in the below projects, all funded by the European Commission.
EOSC FUTURE is the main project currently developing the European Open Science Cloud initiative. The RDA has been particularly active in the RDA Calls preparation and development, as well as supporting the EOSC FUTURE-RDA connectivity.
WorldFAIR is an international project building interoperable set of 11 disciplinary and cross-disciplinary case studies to advance implementation of the FAIR principles and, in particular, to improve interoperability and reusability of digital research objects, including data. The RDA Association is mostly involved in the project in the communications and engagement activities, including building connectivity to relevant RDA Working and Interest Groups.
The WorldFAIR Communication Toolkit is available here.
