Seizing Opportunities: The Role of RMAs in the Research Data Alliance (RDA)

Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a community-driven initiative to build technical and social infrastructures that enable data sharing and reuse. RDA has over 14,500 members from 153 countries who come together in 104 working groups, interest groups and communities of practice to engage in peer-to-peer exchange and to produce community-based recommendations for technical, social and cultural solutions in the research data sharing and research data management space. Research managers and administrators (RMAs) have become key stakeholders in research data sharing and research data management. RMAs engage with research data management throughout pre- and post-award as well as in governance and service-development roles. RMAs play a pivotal role in ensuring that adequate effort and budget are earmarked for research data in proposal development, that research projects comply with funders’ data policies, and that RPOs have policies and workflows in place to meet national, European and international mandates. The deep engagement and increasing expertise of RMAs in research data is often still not recognized, however. RMAs often also remain distant from established and emerging research data communities, including the Research Data Alliance. This diminishes visibility of RMAs expertise and role in Open Science and hampers the development and sustainability of RMA roles. The poster highlights RDA as an opportunity for RMAs to actively contribute their views and requirements to global, community-driven technical and social infrastructure development in the research data space.