scientific information policies and e-infrastructures APA conference 2012 Frascati, 6 November 2012 Carlos Morais Pires European Commission DG CONNECT, unit C1 Author’s views do not commit the European Commission

European Commission Policy maker Funding research Research performer (JRC) Research Infrastructures & funding capacity

ODE How policy makers and funders can target their limited resources at so many points of the data sharing ecosystem for maximum social and economic benefit is an enormous question to which there are no simple answers. But two things are clear: that investment at all these points is necessary to create a fully realised data sharing system; and that gaps and redundancies in investment can best be avoided by a co-ordinated approach on the part of all agencies – governmental and non-governmental – that make research policy and fund research activities.

preservation, volumes, costs, etc (*) Peter Buneman, Univ. Edinburgh, Linz April 2006,

Neelie Kroes Digital Agenda Digital (information) single market Open Science means optimal sharing of research results and tools such as publications, research data, software, educational resources and infrastructures across institutional, disciplinary and national boundaries.

reports and studies: european

reports and studies: global

Open Infrastructures for Open Science Open Scientific Content data, computational resources and software resulting from public funded research Open Culture career systems should support and reward those who participate in the culture of sharing Open Infrastructures reliable, high-performance and economically efficient infrastructures

Open Infrastructures for Open Science COM and REC on Scientific Information, July 2012 Open Access, Long term preservation, Capacity building with data infrastructures ALLEA Declaration, April 2012 Open Scientific Content, Open Culture, Open Infrastructures

recommendation: […] hereby recommends that member states

recommendation THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 292 thereof, (1)The Communication from the Commission Europe 2020 puts forward the development of an economy based on knowledge and innovation as a priority. (2)The targets set by the Europe 2020 strategy are given in more detail in particular in the Flagship Initiatives ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ and ‘Innovation Union’.

recommendation HEREBY RECOMMENDS THAT MEMBER STATES: Open access to scientific publications 1.Define clear policies for the dissemination of and open access to scientific publications resulting from publicly funded research. These policies should provide for: –concrete objectives and indicators to measure progress; –implementation plans, including the allocation of responsibilities; –associated financial planning.

recommendation 2.Ensure that research funding institutions responsible for managing public research funding and academic institutions receiving public funding implement the policies by: –defining institutional policies for the dissemination of and open access to scientific publications; establishing implementation plans at the level of those funding institutions; –making the necessary funding available for dissemination and open access, allowing for different dissemination channels, including digital e- infrastructures where appropriate and new and experimental ways of scholarly communication;

recommendation Open access to research data 3.Define clear policies for the dissemination of and open access to research data resulting from publicly funded research. These policies should provide for: –concrete objectives and indicators to measure progress; –implementation plans, including the allocation of responsibilities (including appropriate licensing); –associated financial planning.

recommendation Preservation and re-use of scientific information 4.Reinforce the preservation of scientific information, by: –defining and implementing policies, including an allocation of responsibilities for the preservation of scientific information, together with associated financial planning, to ensure curation and long-term preservation of research results (primary research data and all other results, including publications);

recommendation Preservation and re-use of scientific information –ensuring that an effective system of deposit for electronic scientific information is in place, covering born-digital publications and, where relevant, the related datasets; –preserving the hardware and software needed to read the information in future, or by migrating the information to new software and hardware environments on a regular basis; –fostering the conditions for stakeholders to offer value-added services based on the re-use of scientific information.

recommendation E-infrastructures 5.Further develop e-infrastructures underpinning the system for disseminating scientific information by: –Supporting scientific data infrastructures for dissemination of knowledge, research institutions and funding entities to address all stages of the data life cycle. These stages should include acquisition, curation, metadata, provenance, persistent identifiers, authorisation, authentication and data integrity. Approaches need to be developed to provide a common look and feel to data discovery across disciplines, thus reducing the learning curve required to achieve productivity;

recommendation E-infrastructures –supporting the development and training of new cohorts of data- intensive computational science experts, including data specialists, technicians and data managers; –leveraging and building on existing resources to be economically efficient and to innovate in the areas of analysis tools, visualisations, decision-making support, models and modelling tools, simulations, new algorithms and scientific software;

recommendation E-infrastructures –reinforcing the infrastructure for access to and preservation of scientific information at national level, and earmarking the necessary funds; –ensuring the quality and reliability of the infrastructure, including through the use of certification mechanisms for repositories; –ensuring interoperability among e-infrastructures at national and global level.

recommendation E-infrastructures 6.Ensure synergies among national e-infrastructures at European and global level by: –contributing to the interoperability of e-infrastructures, in particular addressing scientific data exchange, taking into account experiences with existing projects, infrastructures and software developed at European and global level; –supporting transnational cooperative efforts that promote the use and development of information and communication technologies infrastructure for higher education and research.

recommendation Multi-stakeholder dialogue at national, European and international level 7.Participate in multi-stakeholder dialogues at national, European and/or international level on how to foster open access to and preservation of scientific information.

recommendation Structured coordination of Member States at EU level and follow-up to the Recommendation 8.Designate by the end of the year a national point of reference whose tasks would be: –coordinating the measures listed in this Recommendation; –acting as an interlocutor with the EC on questions pertaining to access to and preservation of scientific information, in particular better definitions of common principles and standards, implementation measures and new ways of disseminating and sharing research in the European Research Area; –reporting on the follow-up to this Recommendation.

recommendation Reviewing and reporting 9.Inform the Commission 24 months from the publication of this Recommendation in the Official Journal of the European Union, and every two years thereafter, of action taken in response to this Recommendation, in accordance with formalities to be defined and agreed by the working group. The Commission will review on this basis the progress made across the EU to assess whether further action is needed to achieve the objectives laid down in this Recommendation.

General Hub Distributed and participatory architectures; robust networks of people and institutions Discoverability, Access and Interoperability of Data Access to Storage and Computing Resources High-speed Connectivity to enable international collaborations Node: “Domain Specific hub” “National hub” e-Infrastructures for Data (adapted from Prof. Sulston Presentation in the European Parliament on October 2011)

Funders Perspective on Research Data Alliance initial group of funders Alan Blatecky (NSF), Carlos Morais Pires (EC) EUDAT conference Barcelona, October 24, 2012

IGoF and the RDA Why/ Funders Motivation How/ How do we see the process What/ What do we expect

Not understanding the critical importance and the need to share data for next century science and education Not understanding the urgency to address and create a global data infrastructure now Relying on additional workshops, conferences, committees and so forth to study and provide more recommendations Waiting for standards to be approved that will enable data sharing, interoperability, and support the entire data life cycle Four Threats to Establishing a Global Data Research Infrastructure

G8+O5 and Data infrastructures South Africa (Nov 2011) and Hamburg (April 2012) Technical/Cultural Creation of data Curation & Preservation of data Access to data Computing infrastructures International governance IGoF Motivation vision that research data will Unmanaged → Managed Disconnected → Connected Invisible → Findable Single-use → Reusable Transform research and usher in a new era of discovery and innovation

Expectations of Research Data Alliance A strategy of let’s start and do instead of more talk and discussion RDA to be a layer of coordination helping science agencies achieve "Global Data Interoperability; Real actors (scientists, producers of data, service providers, research and education organisations) to be in the driving seat; RDA to be a simple and effective mechanism so that anyone with good ideas can contribute; RDA documents become a source of trust that can enable rapid adoption of methods, standards, technologies, and so forth, without replacing the role of formal adoption of standards;

Reminder of RDA Principles Openness – membership is open to all interested organizations, meetings are public, processes are transparent, products are openly available; Balance – organized on the principle of balanced representation for individual organizations and stakeholder communities; Consensus – achieving consensus and resolves disagreements through appropriate voting mechanisms; Harmonization – harmonization across standards, policies, technologies, tools, and other data infrastructure elements; Voluntary – not a government organization or regulatory body and, instead, is a public mission body responsive to its members; Non-profit –not a commercial organization and will not design, promote, endorse, or sell commercial products, technologies, or services, and that there will be different policies/rules/legal bases in the different countries or regions.

iGoF expectations RDA output reach out to the wider community in particular higher education through innovative teaching/learning contexts be based on the virtualization of science; RDA results reach out to the industrial sector and promote innovation; Governmental institutions informed by funders will look into policy aspects of international cooperation like, for instance, the reciprocity in data exchange, degree of openness, licensing regimes etc;

Non Government Structures (NGS) Funded to support RDA US: Fran Berman – RPI Bill Michener – DataOne Beth Plale – Indiana Sayeed Choudhury – Johns Hopkins Australia: Ross Wilkinson – ANDS Andrew Treolar - ANDS Europe: Leif Laaksonen (iCORDI/CSC) Peter Wittenburg (iCORDI/Max Planck Institute) Juan Bicarregui (iCORDI/STFC)

Initial Council US: Fran Berman – RPI Australia: Ross Wilkinson – ANDS Europe: John Wood, (iCORDI/ Commonwealth Universities) 4 more At-Large members to be appointed by March meeting and will represent other sector stakeholders

Opening up RDA Involve other science agencies ion global research data infrastructures; Leverage the G8+05 working group on data infrastructures; First international meeting of RDA will be held in March October (Washington) October (Barcelona) November (Gottingen) NovDec 3-4 December (Amsterdam) MarchSep … March (Gothenburg) Oct … 2nd RDA Meeting ( Washington DC ?)

Additional RDA Outcomes Act as a Clearinghouse for data sharing products and processes Develop repositories of re-usable codes, best practices, discovery tools, “chunk-able” components, usable documentation Provide an international focus for users, researchers and working communities who share research data Support community building including multidisciplinary collaborations and promote participation and user engagement Develop digital exchange expertise and operations Help create a vibrant international data research economy Reuse Data as a Service “Digital Rolodex”

Thank You! Carlos Morais Pires carlos.morais-pires(at)ec.europa.eu