1. RDA Europe Task Force on Sustainability and Funding Fotis Karayannis Athena Research Center and RDA secretariat April 2017

2. Background
Initiated to address the recommendations of the first RDA Europe informal review*:
“RDA Europe 3 should develop short-term and longer-term sustainability goals that will make RDA a centerpiece of European strategy for open science”
“Rationale: As data-intensive research continues to expand in scale across disciplines and countries, knowledge infrastructures must expand in scale and sophistication to keep Europe competitive”.
“RDA efforts will continue to be valuable for all research communities. RDA Europe 3 members are in the best position to design a sustainability plan”.
The financial situation of RDA is currently complex to assess. Establishing a comprehensive budget for RDA global and RDA Europe is now necessary.
Reviewers: Jean-François Abramatic, INRIA, France and Christine Borgman, UCLA, USA

3. Task Force Objectives
Contribute to RDA Global sustainability from the RDA Europe perspective, containing provisions for governance, funding and fiscal policies
Determine the place of RDA in the European infrastructure and data landscape

4. Output
Sustainability plan with a short landscape analysis and a set of recommendations  Concise document (~10 pages)
1. Analysis of the overall context and the e-Infrastructures/data landscape, in which RDA / RDA Europe are operating including possible gaps. This will assess among others the relations of RDA Europe with:
RDA Global
RDA national/regional entities/partners
the emerging data infrastructure eco-system in Europe
2. Assessment of the status of RDA sustainability from the RDA Europe perspective in terms of:
Funding-Financing: Establishing a budget plan for RDA Global and RDA Europe
Governance structures and processes including the RDA Foundation
Fiscal processes and policies, including the RDA Foundation
3. Recommendations for the future (on the above) to be taken up by the following phases of RDA Europe

5. Target audience -stakeholders
Funding agencies, policy and decision makers, including partners, and assist them to act accordingly.
a. RDA Europe funders, namely the European Commission and national funders
b. RDA Council and related RDA Council Subcommittees including the one on Sustainability and Funding
c. The RDA Funders Forum, and in particular the funding agencies contributing to the RDA Global budget
Other relevant stakeholders
a. RDA Europe 3 and RDA Europe 4 project partners, and other stakeholders involved in the next RDA Europe phases

6. Ownership, membership, liaisons
Ownership: The TF reports to RDA Europe 3.0 project decision body (RDA Board of Directors)
Membership: Fotis Karayannis, Chair (RDA Secretariat & ATHENA Research Centre), Sandra Collins, Fabrizio Gagliardi, Leif Laaksonen, Secretary General*, Raphael Ritz, Peter Wittenburg
Liaisons: Liaise with related stakeholders, in particular RDA Council and its subcommittees and RDA SG
It will base its work on previous related work by SG and Council
Output access: Document will be private, but possibly a public version will be created
A webpage (RDA organic group) will be created, possibly hybrid (partly public and partly internal)
* Initially Mark Parsons and after July 1st invite interim SG, Ingrid Dillo

7. Timeline
Started Feb 2017
Wrap up towards the end of the year or beginning of 2018
Input to RDA Europe 4 project (expected to start early 2018)
Internal milestones
First report in P10 in Canada

8. TF first directions
Initial directions taking into account members inputs and RDA EU 4 plans
Develop stronger national nodes
Engage more with:
targeted industrial sectors (e.g. IoT, publishers, environment)
big research organisations and computer scientists
Evaluate the RDA Governance given the RDA growth
RDA Global entities
RDA Foundation legal entity
Consider whether other legal entity types suit better (e.g ERIC)
Understand and update the current set of budgets
Dedicated calls with Secretary General (Mark)

9. Input from RDA EU formal review
Main related point in both EC cover letter & report:
“Deepening support to the governance structures of the global RDA through sustainability planning”
Sustainability issues of RDA global remain a crucial issue to be addressed and we recommend future efforts are deployed to map the sustainability options and to benchmark these against solutions adopted by other international networks and organisations with clear public missions. One specific task in this context is a strategic reflection on future activities that match both the increasing needs of the European researchers in terms of global data sharing issues and the expectations of the various public funding bodies of RDA global, in relation to services & benefits for data stakeholders and society at large.

10. Input from RDA EU formal review (2)
Other related points in the EC cover letter:
Impact: “The reflection on the sustainability vision for RDA global remained relatively limited in this first project reporting period, in spite of its importance as a condition for maintaining the impact of RDA in the long-term future”
KPI-related point: KPIs are.. “also made relevant for the longer term and include ambitious targets. Furthermore, the reviewers recommend to collect novel KPI metrics from RDA members and RDA activities, which can be used to develop a qualitative understanding of RDA progress and values, with a view to potentially refining the various dimensions of the long-term vision”
Nevertheless, this work package (WP5) replicates some of the outreach activities already carried out in other WPs. In view of this apparent overlapping of activities carried out, an efficiency review could be conducted to determine where savings in resource consumption can be made. The saved resources could be deployed to strengthen sustainability planning as discussed in the reviewers’ recommendations.

11. Input from RDA EU formal review (3)
Other related points in the EC cover letter:
“The consortium responded appropriately to the informal review of two independent experts at month 16, inter alia through the improved definition of success criteria and indicators; and by setting up a EU-led task force on sustainability to be presented at the next RDA plenary. The findings of this formal review confirm the findings of the informal reviewers and strongly support the need for the consortium to focus on sustainability issues. Such issues inevitably involve strategic considerations that extend far beyond the life-time of a typical project. They cannot be simply reduced to a long-term plan, difficult to specify entirely in advance, but should rather set basic norms, rules and tolerance levels for deviations and explore the possible consequences of various contextual outcomes. Such a programme could then be discussed in the policy WP to ensure that funding bodies are able to participate in the discussion and to help shape its final form. The diversification of funding by a range of bodies for specific tasks has been proposed as a possible approach, but further analysis is needed to plan for holistic development of RDA Europe rather than develop in an opportunistic fashion only segments of it”.
“..as part of sustainability planning, an IPR register could be maintained in case any future outputs of RDA become commercially exploitable”.

12. Other related inputs from RDA Gov.
Augusto Burgueño Arjona presentation at P9 on scaling challenge
TAB 2.0 document
TAB workload increasing as number of WG/IGs increases
Ideas: TAB (partially-)funded members or more/dedicated (support) persons, Area directors, etc.
The results of the community coordination exercise at P9
The papers and discussions at RDA Chairs meeting in Sweden (June 2017)
Input from Mark Parsons regarding RDA Budgets
Budgets made available to the Task Force
Note: The TF should reuse the outputs of other bodies as inputs; better not to be directly involved, but can reflect upon (as EU reviewers recommended)

13. Answers to RDA EU formal review
Sustainability planning: “map the sustainability options and to benchmark these against similar cases; a strategic reflection on future activities in relation to services & benefits for data stakeholders and society at large”
Answer: A list of core services that needs to be maintained already exists along with corresponding budget; TF Chair had dedicated discussions to better understand the list of services and budgets; these will be reviewed by the Task Force, who can further reflect upon
Further inputs can be taken into account from
TAB & TAB 2.0 document
June 2017 Chairs meetings inputs and minutes
The Barcelona community coordination exercise outputs
Augusto Burgueño Arjona presentation

14. Answers to RDA EU formal review (2)
Sustainability planning: “not simply a long-term plan.., but should rather set basic norms, rules and tolerance levels for deviations and explore the possible consequences of various contextual outcomes; …discuss in the policy WP… ensure that funding bodies are able to participate.. and ..shape its final form.
Answer: An attempt to come up with a set of scenarios and related norms (with possible deviations) for RDA future will be undertaken; it may be good for the partners to dedicate more effort in this activity as current resources are limited

15. Answers to RDA EU formal review (3)
Other points:
KPIs: collect novel KPI metrics from RDA members and RDA activities, which can be used to develop a qualitative understanding of RDA progress and values
Shift more resources to the TF (from WP5 or other WPs?)
IPR register of outputs
Answers
KPI development can be requested by RDA EU KPI Task Force; however not easy at all; this has been discussed (among others) at RDA Secretariat and it was decided not to develop such KPIs (as they may be misleading; e.g. regarding active RDA members)
Shifting more resources to the sustainability work is a consortium decision
IPR register may be considered in one scenario (to be discussed by TF)

16. RDA Europe Task Force on Sustainability and Funding April 2016