Periodic Reporting for period 3 - FAIR-IMPACT (Expanding FAIR Solutions across EOSC)
Période du rapport: 2024-06-01 au 2025-05-31
FAIR-IMPACT's pillar activities towards realising an EOSC of FAIR data and services focus on Persistent identifiers, Metadata and ontologies, Metrics and guidelines, and Interoperability. These are enhanced by coordination, synchronisation, engagement and support mechanisms targeting a wide spectrum of stakeholders in the EOSC and FAIR ecosystem across disciplines at institutional, national and European level. The project actively supported and contributed to coordination activities in the context of the EOSC partnership. During its implementation, FAIR-IMPACT supported uptake of FAIR-enabling practices across communities and across types of research objects (e.g. datasets, semantic artefacts, mappings and research software). The objectives achieved were: 1) A coherent implementation of PIDs across the EOSC, 2) A broader and more harmonised use of FAIR semantic artefacts in EOSC with suggested governance models, FAIR-by-design methodology, standardisation of the artefacts metadata descriptions and their catalogues APIs, 3) Adapted guidelines and frameworks for FAIR data, research software, semantic artefacts and mappings. FAIR enabled Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs) through the functional assessment of repository trustworthiness and digital object FAIRness, 4) Increased object accessibility for researchers and other European data users and stakeholders, 5) 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, and 6) Clear and functioning mechanisms for supporting the governance, coordination, and collaboration activities carried out by the EOSC partnership.
FAIR-IMPACT presents significant achievements at technical and scientific level. In the area of PIDs, it provided substantial cross-domain applicable support and guidance on EOSC compliant Persistent Identifier (PID) policies and practices. Following validation and feedback by the community, especially PID providers, a set of guidelines for creating a user-friendly EOSC PID Policy (D3.3) was published. A hands-on framework for adopting PIDs in alignment with EOSC policies and core solutions (M3.8) features a series of infographics that outline clear, actionable steps for incorporating PIDs into existing workflows, organised across National Initiatives, Service Providers and Institutions. A report outlining a long-term vision of PID usage in EOSC (D3.1) provides the conclusions drawn from collaboration efforts with PID service providers to better understand and address user needs, align with the EOSC PID policy, and promote widespread adoption of PIDs. It also covers recommendations on enhanced coordination between PID service providers and EOSC. End users' needs are addressed in a report presenting best practice recommendations on PID implantation and usage (D3.2) where 7 integrated use case partners representing diverse scientific domains described their PID related practices. Key topics explored include versioning, granularity, kernel metadata, machine-actionability, and research reproducibility in relation to PID minting practices. In the area of Metadata and Ontologies the project delivered key advancements in the adoption and governance of FAIR semantic artefacts (SAs) across scientific domains. Outcomes include the development of 3 governance models tailored to different types of semantic artefact development initiatives, a new version of the MOD and its API –respectively a metadata standard to describe SAs and make SA catalogue interoperable– and practical recommendations for managing the full lifecycle of semantic artefacts. It built the Research Software MetaData (RSMD) guidelines and launched the RDA FAIR Mapping Working Group to standardise and promote FAIR mappings and crosswalks, and completed nine technical connectors linking data repositories with semantic artefact catalogues. These efforts were validated through domain-driven use cases in agri-food, ecology, earth sciences, and more, demonstrating improved interoperability and FAIRness. These results are supported by strategic partnerships -particularly with the OntoPortal Alliance in the development of SA catalogue- and have been widely disseminated across research communities through workshops, conferences, and publications. In the area of Metrics and guidelines, the social science metrics for data and their implementation into F-UJI have been tested, identifying improvements and challenges. Metrics for the earth and environmental sciences have been designed and implemented into F-UJI. The discipline-agnostic metrics have also been evaluated and updated to improve their clarity and implementability. The implementation of the metrics for software assessment has been tested by participants through the support action ‘Assessing and improving Research Software’. For semantic artefacts, FOOPS! has been extended for pre-assessment according to methodology (M5.3) and O’FAIRe adapted to multiple SA catalogues. Work was also done to align metadata fields for semantic artefacts with the FAIR principles and to provide more detailed suggestions for addressing specific issues raised by different tools. With regards to the transparent exposure of repository information for trustworthiness, the guidelines were evaluated in the support action ‘Recommendations for trustworthy and FAIR-enabling data repositories’, and the implementation of the guidelines in the pilot has been published (M5.8). This implementation was tested in another support action ‘Testing the trustworthy and FAIR-enabling repositories prototype’. This community feedback and further development was published in the final Deliverable (D5.3). With regards to L.O.S.T. interoperability, significant advancements were implemented at technical core interoperability in collaboration with FAIRCORE4EOSC, specifically focusing on the CAT components to identify metrics and indicators for assessing compliance with interoperability policies, testing for both domain-agnostic and cross-domain purposes. Global and non-scientific large data infrastructures have been engaged for all aspects of interoperability, with the key results described in outputs on Guidelines for the usage of components for technical and semantic interoperability in cross-domain use cases (D6.1) MoU and Service Level Agreement templates for data interoperability (D6.3) and Cross-domain recommendations and feedback for the EOSC Interoperability Framework (D6.4).
FAIR-IMPACT’s results include the publication of 18 FAIR use cases and 140 FAIR Implementation and Adoption Stories. The results from 3 Synchronisation Force workshop reports led to a White Paper for Synchronisation, containing 15 recommendations to contribute to the web of FAIR data, ensure research security and sovereignty, and sustain project results. The project continued to engage with and contribute to EOSC-A activities (EOSC macro-roadmap, EOSC HE projects’ coordination meetings, EOSC Winter School, etc), collaborated closely with several relevant EOSC projects and organised, together with FAIRCORE4EOSC, the FAIRfest.