Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FAIR-IMPACT (Expanding FAIR Solutions across EOSC)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-05-31
FAIR-IMPACT works towards improving the FAIRness of data and other research outputs by coordinating the implementation of frameworks and the alignment of FAIR data practices. It identifies practices, policies, tools and technical specifications to guide its target stakeholders towards a FAIR data management cycle. It focuses on a) persistent identifiers (PIDs), b) metadata and ontologies, c) metrics, certification and guidelines, d) interoperability. The expected impacts related to these pillars of FAIR-IMPACT are a) a coherent implementation of PIDs across the EOSC, b) improved interoperability of federated research objects across the EOSC enabled by better governance of FAIR semantic artefacts and clear, common ways to interact with metadata and ontologies, c) adapted guidelines and frameworks for creating and assessing the FAIRness of data, research software, semantic artefacts and the trustworthiness of repositories that curate them as Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs), d) increased data accessibility for researchers and other European data users and stakeholders. FAIR-IMPACT supports wide uptake of and compliance with FAIR data principles and practices by national and European research data and metadata providers and repositories, leading to the development of a Web of FAIR data and related services. Active, engaged and informed research communities supporting the implementation of an operational, open and FAIR EOSC ecosystem through increased uptake and adoption at cross-domain and pan-European level is of high significance. Adoption and implementation are supported by open calls for funding, in-kind contributions and harmonisation efforts. A High Level Advisory Committee advises at strategic level and 13 EOSC FAIR Champions act as ambassadors in their respective communities. FAIR-IMPACT operates at national, European and institutional levels addressing a wide range of stakeholders, providing extra support to research performing organisations, repositories and data service providers, and national initiatives. Integrated real-life use cases in social sciences and humanities, photon and neutron sciences, life sciences and agri-food and environmental sciences bring expertise and solutions and act as a bridge to their communities. FAIR-IMPACT contributes to the Horizon Europe EOSC Partnership in line with specific action areas of the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. The Technical Bridging Team, Synchronisation Force, and FAIR Implementation Team constitute clear and functioning mechanisms for supporting the governance, coordination, and collaboration activities carried out by the EOSC Partnership.
Work on EOSC-aligned PID policies and PID implementation that supports end-user needs, and collaboration and alignment between service providers has led to a joint value proposition by relevant PID providers. Responsibilities defined in the EOSC PID policy were mapped against stakeholder groups. The identification of relevant PID solutions and user requirements across research domains has begun. Representatives of PID service providers have analysed the EOSC PID Policy roles and discussed the value propositions. FAIR-IMPACT has been gathering materials to federate the approach to metadata and ontologies within the EOSC. It develops and fosters the uptake of a semantic framework for the governance, creation, mapping, sharing, reuse, FAIRness assessment and interoperability of semantic artefacts for EOSC. Semantic artefact design methodologies and alignment with the FAIR principles to conceive FAIR semantic artefact “by design” are being investigated. Governance models for semantics artefacts are reviewed. An open community of shared and standardised semantic artefact catalogues is built, illustrating multiple use cases in agri-food (AgroPortal), ecology-biodiversity (EcoPortal) and earth sciences (EarthPortal). Other communities are also joining the partnership with the OntoPortal Alliance. FAIR-IMPACT addresses the needs with respect to research software metadata descriptions, especially developing guidelines and recommendations relying on the Codemeta standard. Collective efforts define technical requirements and specifications to make semantic artefacts such as metadata mappings and crosswalks FAIR, develop a common exchange model based on SSSOM to publish and share mappings, identify effective methodologies, and establish best practices. A first version of a landscape metadata analysis of +2500 semantic artefacts was realised. Harmonisation of different assessment tools is ongoing, as are crosswalks, metadata analysis, and DCAT explorations, to feed into guidelines for exposing trustworthiness and FAIR assessment information for repositories and digital objects to establish better connections with registries and discovery portals. In the areas of metrics and tools for FAIR assessment, focus was placed on data, research software, semantic artefacts and resources about TDRs. A reference collection of test data sets was created and a report on implementing metrics for automated FAIR digital objects assessment in a disciplinary context was published. The disciplinary-specific metrics were informed by FAIR Implementation Profiles (FIPs) and other community specific analyses of the Social Sciences domain. Interoperability is addressed from the four perspectives set out by the EOSC Interoperability Framework: legal, organisational, semantical and technical. The semantic and technical perspectives are initially pursued with a questionnaire targeting the integrated use case partners for exploring dimensions of semantic and technical interoperability as outlined by the LOST framework from specific scientific domains. Legal and organisational interoperability is addressed by identifying potential schemas or vocabularies to convey legal constraints associated with research outputs. This work is anchored within the EOSC ecosystem and beyond with the motivation of providing recommendations and support for cross-domain data interoperability.
The first Synchronisation Force workshop attracted the online participation of more than 120 participants from the EOSC and FAIR ecosystem across 6 online sessions. The Technical Bridging Team ensures interaction and technical alignment with FAIRCORE4EOSC, EOSC Future, the EOSC Association, and other relevant initiatives with coordination meetings and events. FAIR-IMPACT participates in the EOSC Forum, EOSC groups and the EOSC Association concertation events, and contributes to the EOSC Focus macro-roadmap. A targeted landscape analysis report established the basis for the development of the FAIR Implementation Framework of resources, instrumental for the delivery of in-kind support to research performing organisations, repositories and data service providers, and national level initiatives.