The Research Data Alliance is a global non-profit initiative, founded in 2013. In April 2020, a European legal entity – the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Association AISBL - was established to support the coordination and growth of the European RDA community, currently over 6,000 members.
The Trustees of RDA Association AISBL are delighted to announce that Ari Asmi has been appointed Director of the RDA Association AISBL from 1 February 2022.
A long-standing, active member of RDA, Ari is fully committed to the RDA mission and core values, and brings significant experience and expertise from his pluriennial activities from both a community and infrastructure point-of-view. He has been involved in the core team developing the ENVRI community of European environmental research infrastructures, leading the major cluster projects ENVRI PLUS (Director) and ENVRI FAIR (co-coordinator), as well as participating in different roles in several other European Commission funded projects in the same field. In addition to his pan-European and domain specific skills, Ari has significant knowledge of national level Open Science environments and the research data management challenges faced by Research Performing Organisations (RPOs).
When asked about his vision for RDA in Europe Ari stated “RDA in Europe must be an open and transparent forum for sharing experiences and jointly developing technologies, practices and policies for research data and develop open science. It should be open to all who are interested to develop solutions for open research data, known by everyone in the field, and respected as a platform where one can bring their data challenges or methods, find others to sharing their views and input, create consensus and identify gaps, and finally create solutions, recommendations, and community standards to solve practical challenges. RDA is a central part of the research data actions in Europe and globally, acting in global, European and national level, bringing the data solutions close to the actual research.”
While defining the direction and strategy for the Research Data Alliance in Europe, including the provision of concrete support for the development and implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), Ari will work closely with RDA Global and the Secretary General – Hilary Hanahoe, as well as with the other RDA regional representatives and global governance boards.
“Europe is one of the founding regions of the Research Data Alliance, together with Australia and the United States, and the creation of a dedicated legal entity to represent the passionate and vibrant European community is a very important chapter for RDA.” stated Hilary Hanahoe, Secretary General, “I am truly delighted that Ari has been appointed Director of our European office and I look forward to working with him and our other regional partners from across the globe to ensure alignment and continued service, as well as the identification of new and exciting opportunities for the global Research Data Alliance community.”
Contact Details:
Ari Asmi Director, RDA Association AISBL – ari.asmi@rda-foundation.org
Hilary Hanahoe, Secretary General Research Data Alliance – hilary.hanahoe@rda-foundation.org