The RDA’s Thematic Community Cross-fertilisation Workshops & Carousel Event
The community cross-fertilisation workshop series was part of the RDA’s strategic plan to celebrate and commemorate its 10th Anniversary in 2023.
Aligned with the 10th Anniversary schedule, a virtual workshop took place during most months, from February to November 2023, to bring RDA Working groups, Interest groups and Communities of Practice with a similar focus together with members of the wider research data community to discuss the future of the following research data management themes:
| Month 2023 | Community cross-fertilisation workshop theme | Summary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| February | FAIR data, software and hardware | Thursday, 23 February See the summary | |
| April | Health and medical data | Wednesday, 26 April See the summary | |
| May | Metadata and technical infrastructure: RDA for PIDs RDA in collaboration with ARDC | Wednesday, 31 May See the summary | |
| June | Agriculture and environmental data | Wednesday, 28 June See the summary | |
| July | Research data policy: RDA for Research Evaluation RDA in collaboration with ARDC | Thursday, 27 July See the summary | |
| August | Disciplinary data: RDA’s Engagement with Disciplines / RDA for Disciplinary Data (A special community cross-fertilisation workshop) | Wednesday, 30 August See the summary | |
| September | Sustainable development and responsible research | Tuesday, 26 September See the summary | |
| November | Research data management support and education | Thursday, 16 November See the summary |
Celebrating ‘A Decade of Data: Community Cross-fertilisation Carousel’ Event
On November 30th, the RDA’s 10th anniversary celebrations culminated in a 1-hr webinar to reflect on the outcomes of the community Cross-fertilisation Workshop series.
During this webinar, participants were taken through a whistle-stop tour of the workshop series, exploring the content, and learning about the main challenges and future actions for the RDA community to focus on for each theme.
RDA Roulette: Speed networking
At the end of the webinar, participants were invited to stay on for ‘RDA Roulette’, an optional speed networking session whereby participants were randomly grouped to network for a short period of time. Each participant experienced several rounds of speed networking during the session. This was an exciting opportunity to meet new RDA members, make new connections, and send off the year with a bit of fun!
🥂 RDA members ‘raised a glass’ to the RDA’s 10th birthday! 🍻
More about the Community Cross-fertilisation Workshops…
During each thematic workshop, participants had the opportunity to answer and discuss the following questions:
- What are the main challenges that should be addressed within the theme over the next two years?
- How can the RDA community groups address these challenges over the next two years?
- What initiatives and/or communities could the RDA community implement/collaborate with to advance the theme?
Benefits for participants and the RDA community
These thematic workshops presented a valuable opportunity to:
- Connect and strengthen collaboration between RDA groups with similar interests and focus.
- Facilitate discussion about a particular theme related to research data management that is of relevance to the RDA community.
- Showcase and celebrate community group efforts and achievements to date.
- Identify gaps, needs and challenges within the community, and exchange knowledge, experience and ideas to address them.
- Provide chairs and members with a voice to direct, define and align goals and group activities.
Workshop Pilots
In order to determine the feasibility of the thematic community cross-fertilisation workshop series and to plan for its execution in 2023, pilot workshops on ‘RDA for Data Management Planning’ and ‘RDA for Agricultural Data’ took place in November 2022.
Following the success of these pilot, the Community Development Management team organised further workshops throughout the year, aligned with each monthly theme.
The workshops are not be recorded but the collaborative notes are made openly available to the wider research data community following the event, and a summary document is published on Zenodo.
Summaries for the Pilots can be accessed here:
| RDA for Data Management Planning | Thursday, 10 November 2022 | See the workshop summary |
| RDA for Agricultural Data | Thursday, 17 November 2022 | See the workshop summary |
Get in touch
If you have questions or comments about the community cross-fertilisation workshop series, please feel free to contact our Community Development Manager, Connie Clare (connie.clare@rda-foundation.org).
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Rossella Aversa, Francis Crawley, Lindsay Ferrara, Francoise Genova, Hilary Hanahoe, Maggie Hellström, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Reyna Jenkyns, Sarah Jones, Rebecca Koskela, Katherine McNeill, Laura Molloy, Karen Payne, Jonathan Petters, Frankie Stevens, Andrew Treloar, Bridget Walker and Michael Witt for their valuable contributions during the development of this workshop series.
With thanks to all workshop leads, presenters and participants for making the Community Cross-fertilisation Workshop series and end-of-year event successful and special.