Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RDA TIGER (Research Data Alliance facilitation of Targeted International working Groups for EOSC-related Research solutions)
Période du rapport: 2023-01-01 au 2023-12-31
The RDA TIGER aims to provide services to facilitate and support well-defined Working Groups between key European and international initiatives, resulting in concrete alignment, harmonisation, and standardisation of Open Science developments and technologies globally. In particular the project will directly contribute to the European Open Science Cloud Partnership, by supporting (via the Working Groups) the international engagement and alignment of policies, technologies, methodologies, practices and other outputs of EOSC-related and other European Open Science developments; and develop and offer a service platform for these Working Groups, effectively identifying key partners for the groups, and increasing their work efficiency by facilitation and other support actions and ultimately maximising the impact WG results have on the EOSC, global Open Science, and society. RDA TIGER leverages the demonstrably effective instrument of community-driven RDA Working Groups and the foundations of EOSC, RDA, CODATA, Research Software Alliance (ReSA), and the Open Science movement in general, and provides a way to efficiently use the RDA platform for internationalisation and standardisation of research outputs that allow science to be reproducible and scrutinised. RDA TIGER service platform includes planning, engagement, communication, facilitation and finalisation services to the Working Groups, maximising the WG outputs, and their impact. Most of the RDA TIGER services have been tested in one form or another in earlier RDA-related projects both in Europe and internationally, demonstrating that they are realistic and achievable. RDA TIGER’s ambition stems from the concentrated use of these services, together with systematic quality control and improvement mechanisms, and via the careful selection of Working Groups which will maximize the impacts relevant to the Work Programme.
The first period of the RDA TIGER concentrated on two main activities: Definition and creation of the services, and initial testing of them in real-world service provision for the potential and existing RDA working groups. These activities were supported by creation of the selection mechanism and policies related to service provision, and by communication and dissemination activities to ensure applications to the RDA TIGER services by the relevant communities. During this reporting period, the RDA TIGER supported 14 Working Groups, from varying levels of maturity and service provision.
The services are obviously needed by the communities, and the first steps towards professionalisation and service definition has been taken. The development of the RDA TIGER services will continue in the following reporting periods, and the feedback from the supported groups is actively taken into account in the service provision. The main objective and main activities in the first reporting period has been concentrated on the creation of the RDA TIGER services. Some of them are in the Operational phase (i.e. can be provided fully to the WGs), some are in the piloting phase (limited testing) and one of them is still under development. These services include the following (in the order of requests from the communities):
- Facilitation service, which provides the (potential) Working Groups with direct personal support on their activities, helping them to become accepted as RDA WGs (onboarding), creating the necessary community and work plan, maintaining the work plan in efficient meetings, and overall providing direct support to the WG co-chairs, letting the members of the WGs to concentrate on the subject matter.
- Communication services. Provides the Working groups internal and external communications (e.g. for recruiting new members or advertising the existence of new WG outputs).
- Output services. These services are intended to provide the WGs with support towards end of their operations, to ensure that the outputs are created in correct ways to ensure their use of the relevant stakeholders, and that they are properly documented and stored to ensure their continued use after the end of the Working Group.
- Landscape and engagement service. These services are mainly intended to increase the participation in the WGs, analysing the overall landscape near the subject of the WG and providing support to engage with the key potential WG members.
- Direct support mechanisms services, including 3rd party grants (cascading grants), direct financial support for organisations of workshops, etc., and hiring of external experts to support WG work (subcontractors).
The project also has contributed towards the service creation objectives via several internal services, including quality control, selection procedure, service advertisement, and EOSC connectivity. The project contributes to the Objectives directly via the work of the supported Working Groups, many of them which come from the EOSC involved organisations and initiatives, although only limited number of formally EOSC-related projects are involved in the WGs. The Working Groups are all international (i.e. including also non-European participation), and thus contribute to the overall internationalisation required by the Objectives.
The services are obviously needed by the communities, and the first steps towards professionalisation and service definition has been taken. The development of the RDA TIGER services will continue in the following reporting periods, and the feedback from the supported groups is actively taken into account in the service provision. The main objective and main activities in the first reporting period has been concentrated on the creation of the RDA TIGER services. Some of them are in the Operational phase (i.e. can be provided fully to the WGs), some are in the piloting phase (limited testing) and one of them is still under development. These services include the following (in the order of requests from the communities):
- Facilitation service, which provides the (potential) Working Groups with direct personal support on their activities, helping them to become accepted as RDA WGs (onboarding), creating the necessary community and work plan, maintaining the work plan in efficient meetings, and overall providing direct support to the WG co-chairs, letting the members of the WGs to concentrate on the subject matter.
- Communication services. Provides the Working groups internal and external communications (e.g. for recruiting new members or advertising the existence of new WG outputs).
- Output services. These services are intended to provide the WGs with support towards end of their operations, to ensure that the outputs are created in correct ways to ensure their use of the relevant stakeholders, and that they are properly documented and stored to ensure their continued use after the end of the Working Group.
- Landscape and engagement service. These services are mainly intended to increase the participation in the WGs, analysing the overall landscape near the subject of the WG and providing support to engage with the key potential WG members.
- Direct support mechanisms services, including 3rd party grants (cascading grants), direct financial support for organisations of workshops, etc., and hiring of external experts to support WG work (subcontractors).
The project also has contributed towards the service creation objectives via several internal services, including quality control, selection procedure, service advertisement, and EOSC connectivity. The project contributes to the Objectives directly via the work of the supported Working Groups, many of them which come from the EOSC involved organisations and initiatives, although only limited number of formally EOSC-related projects are involved in the WGs. The Working Groups are all international (i.e. including also non-European participation), and thus contribute to the overall internationalisation required by the Objectives.
RDA Working groups have not had such level of support earlier, and the first results show increased impact of the group activities, as well as higher efficiency of the group work. The impacts of the project include increased internationalisation of the EOSC related initiatives, higher international visibility and engagement of the European research data advances, increased membership in the RDA particularly in the new research areas not previously active in the organisation.
The provided services are well received by the Working Groups, and have a high potential to increase the impact of the participating projects and organisations, as well as RDA and EOSC as a whole.
The provided services are well received by the Working Groups, and have a high potential to increase the impact of the participating projects and organisations, as well as RDA and EOSC as a whole.