Data is everything
“We will ensure that research infrastructure is easily accessible, interoperable, and reusable by driving adoption of the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) principles. This enhances research efficiency and fosters a more collaborative research environment.”
NB. This day starts slightly later and finishes at 15:00 to allow attendees to get out of the conference centre and recharge their batteries
The sessions are outlined below with suggested discussion points that may be addressed
09:45 - 10:30 Funding, Policy, and Sustainability
PANEL SESSION
Goal: Address financial and policy challenges in long-term data stewardship.
Discussion Points:
- What will funders (particularly UKRI) fund for data stewardship, and how can funders incentivise/enthuse planning for costs?
- Is enough being done to recognise data curation workloads and make them available to others?
- What features should/does the UKRI’s new data policy include to address current gaps, and what is missing?
- How do we manage the long-term cost of storing data after grant funding ends? How long is long-term storage?
- How do we balance environmental sustainability with the cost of data collection?
- Is the increase in the creation of data keeping in parallel with the skills required to steward it?
Chair: Jeremy Cohen, Imperial College London
10:30 - 11:00 REFRESHMENT BREAK
11:00 - 11:45 Data Integrity, Accessibility, and Governance
PANEL SESSION
Goal: Ensure long-term usability and accountability for research data.
Discussion Points:
- How can we help ensure data remains readable and intact decades later?
- How do we maintain integrity for research software tools (e.g., legacy code)?
- What are sensible pathways for building domain-specific repositories?
- Are people reusing data when appropriate? Are we still often re-creating data?
- Can governance truly be standardised? Is federated governance a sustainable approach?
- Is the current approach to data governance truly helping or hindering?
Chair: Stephen Longshaw, CoSeC, UKRI-STFC
11:45 - 12:15 REFRESHMENT BREAK
12:15 - 13:00 Data Storage, Culture, and Future Risks
PANEL SESSION
Goal: Tackle cultural awareness and long-term sustainability challenges.
Discussion Points:
- What is the environmental impact of cold storage and archiving—and when should deletion be mandated?
- Are researchers aware of sustainability challenges? Would charging for power usage change behaviour?
- Should we still be looking to keep everything we can, and who is responsible for the decision?
- Who owns and governs research data management within institutions?
- Should data be made more AI-ready as a priority? Should it be accepted that open data is used for AI?
- Is there too much dependency on cloud storage and technologies?
- Are we creating too many TREs/SDEs?
- How do we prevent efficiency gains from being offset by scaling up problem sizes?
Chair: Ric Campbell, Sheffield University
13:00 - 14:00 LUNCH
14:00 - 15:00 Data Management Risks, Lessons Learned, and Cultural Change
ROUND-TABLE SESSION
Goal: Learn from failures and build a culture of proactive data management and transform DMPs from a compliance exercise into a practical tool.
Discussion Points :
- Who has experienced data loss, and what were the consequences?
- How do we quantify the risks of poor data handling?
- What cultural barriers prevent effective data management?
- What practical steps can we take to embed good practices across disciplines?
- Why does research data management remain problematic despite years of encouraging/requiring DMPs?
- Are DMPs ever overkill? How can they be made genuinely useful?
- How do we ensure a DMP remains a living document throughout the project lifecycle?
- What level of involvement should Research Data Managers have from design to legacy?
Chair: tbc
15:00 END OF DAY TO RECHARGE
Current suggestions for activities with volunteer leaders (to be confirmed nearer the meeting)
- Go for a run
- Go for a walk
- Go to a climbing centre
- Visit the John Rylands Library
- Visit the museums (MOSI or Manchester Museum)
- Visit the art galleries (Whitworth or Manchester)