A Pick & Mix Approach: Exchange of Best Practices among European Data Service Providers

In the field of research data management (RDM), all data service providers are confronted with similar challenges: engaging with their community, transparent communication of policies, demonstrating trustworthiness, supporting and assessment of the FAIR principles and being interoperable with other data services. The EOSC FAIR Impact Program offered a unique opportunity for organizations and services to engage with a diverse network of European Data Service Providers, fostering collaboration to overcome these challenges together. We participated with the RDM platform Coscine [1] in the 2nd support program of FAIR Impact for repositories and data service providers [2] - moving on a journey from self-assessment to the identification and implementation of improvements. Our main aim was to analyze our options for CoreTrustSeal (CTS) Certification by getting in direct contact with CTS experts. In six workshops, European service providers presented best practices in the above-mentioned challenges. During the workshops we focused on understanding our drivers with the FAIR Implementation Framework [3] and the benefits of becoming more FAIR-enabling while assessing our current capabilities. We explored various tools and methods that helped us analysing our level of FAIRness (e.g. CTS requirements, PID assessment with FUJI) and developed a tailored FAIR Implementation Action Plan, outlining actionable steps for integration. The FAIR Impact "pick & mix" approach allowed us to selectively adopt strategies for Coscine that resonate most with our operational goals, e.g. preparing the service for CTS certification and improving the user experience regarding the FAIR assessment of objects. After each session, we worked with experts from the program to discuss the next steps for our FAIR Implementation Action Plan. They helped us by prove reading our results (e.g. our mission statement [3]), searching for similar services to Coscine and their solutions (e.g. selection policies, preservation plans) and gave us insides into the CTS requirements and its limitations. Throughout the entire process, the perspective of the state North Rhine-Westphalia and its RDM strategy on the integration of Coscine into other RDM structures was taken into account. Finally, we worked together on our strategy to better engage our multiple stakeholders – for example by being more transparent with our internal processes. Through the interactive sessions and collaborative discussions, we gained access to a wealth of European knowledge shared by experts in the field. This collective intelligence enabled us to review our processes in relation to the FAIR principles [4], thereby increasing trustworthiness, identifying necessary updates to improve transparency and user experience, and ultimately delivering higher quality data services with Coscine. We are already looking forward to participating in the EOSC FIDELIS and EDEN projects [5] - continuing the path towards greater FAIRness together in a new network with other European service providers. Both projects will certainly also be important building components for the upcoming NFDI EOSC node.