The Sarah Jones Award

The Sarah Jones Award for exceptional contribution to fostering collaboration in Open Science.

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About the Sarah Jones Award

Sarah Jones was an esteemed member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Council, former member of the Technical Advisory Board (TAB), and RDA community member.

Sarah was a true believer in and driver of Open Science and invested a huge amount of time and effort into advocating for openness.

In her memory, the RDA set up the ‘Sarah Jones Award for Exceptional Contribution to Fostering Collaboration in Open Science’. This biannual award celebrates individuals whose work has had a significant positive impact on collaborative Open Science practices (including, but not limited to, education and training, research data management, and FAIR data practices).

The RDA invites nominations for the Sarah Jones Award, which are evaluated by a panel of judges according to the nomination and selection criteria. The winner receives a physical award and is included on the RDA Sarah Jones Award website listing with details of their exceptional contribution. The awardee will also have access to a fund to be invested in activities relevant to their Open Science work (e.g. further capacity building, cross community collaboration, or community animation and engagement)

Remembering Sarah Jones

RDA community members have shared their memories and dedications to Sarah.

Read RDA’s tributes to Sarah Read GÉANT’s tributes to Sarah 🌹 Listen to the ‘Sarah Jones (In Memoriam)’ FAIR Data Podcast 🎙

Nominations – 2026 Sarah Jones Award

Nominations for the 2026 edition of the Sarah Jones Award are now OPEN! The deadline for receipt of nominations is 14th June 2026. Before nominating, please read the Terms of Reference carefully.

Who is eligible?

Anyone can nominate a candidate to be considered for the award. Nominations are invited for individuals whose work has had a significant positive impact on collaborative Open Science practices (including, but not limited to, education and training, research data management, and FAIR data practices). This impact can be on an organisational, community or individual level. Nominations for Early Career candidates are strongly encouraged, as are nominations from regions less well-represented in the Open Science field. Please refer to the Terms of Reference for more details.

This award is open to all nominees and not restricted to members of the RDA community.

How to nominate

To nominate a candidate for the 2026 award, please complete the Sarah Jones Award Nomination Form.

Nomination Form

For information about timelines, scoring criteria, and submission forms, please read the Terms of Reference.

Terms of Reference

Past winners

2024 Winner of the Sarah Jones Award

During the Closing Session of the 23rd RDA Plenary Meeting in Costa Rica, Aleksandra Lazić was announced as the first winner of the ‘Sarah Jones Award for exceptional contribution to fostering collaboration in Open Science’.

Aleksandra Lazić, M.A.

Aleksandra is a PhD Candidate and Research Assistant at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, Laboratory for Research of Individual Differences (LIRA) and was one of the co-founders of REPOPSI – the Repository of Psychological Instruments in Serbian.

The panel of judges, who reviewed the many excellent candidates nominated throughout the submission period, selected Aleksandra for her impactful work and emphasised her passion in promoting open science practices, her understanding of the complexities of building repositories, her commitment to the RDA community, and her strong belief in the value of international collaboration.

As recipient of the award, Aleksandra received a trophy, a fund to attend open science trainings and events, and a series of opportunities to raise awareness and visibility of her work.

Help to sustain the Sarah Jones Award

Donate

The RDA is accepting donations to the fund for the Sarah Jones Award 2024. If you would like to contribute to the award in Sarah’s name, we’d be most grateful. All contributions go to the award and will serve to allow us to maintain the award for some years.

Donate to the fund

Sarah Louise Jones Biography

Sarah was born in Blackpool, United Kingdom in 1982.

After a first degree in German and Economic History, she studied digital information management, which included work in archives. She worked at HATII (Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute) at the University of Glasgow for 15 years on various Research Data Management and digital preservation projects and services.

For most of this time she was part of the Digital Curation Centre where she covered different roles including Associate Director. She played a significant part in every aspect of the DCC’s work – training, consultancy, publications, online services and a wide variety of European projects – as well as being part of its management team during a period of significant change.

After leaving DCC in 2020, she worked at GÉANT as their EOSC Engagement Manager. Her role was to support National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) with Open Science. Alongside her roles at DCC and GÉANT, she also served as independent expert for the European Commission on expert groups for FAIR data, the Transport Research Cloud and the EOSC Executive Board. She was elected twice to serve on the EOSC Association Board.

Sarah served as a member of the RDA Technical Advisory Board from 2020 and in May 2023 she was elected to the Research Data Alliance Council, the executive board of RDA.

Sarah passed away in December 2023.