The role of research data management in the academic ecosystem

Over the past 15 years, data management has received increasing attention among researchers and research policy agencies alike. Beyond the loss of trust triggered by questionable research practices (QRPs), the rapid expansion of data sources and new analytical methods has further underscored the need for professional data stewardship. While the field has developed significantly and matured institutionally, many of the systemic issues that made rigorous data management essential persist. I argue that a key reason lies in the incentive structures that have increasingly encouraged QRPs in recent years. This lecture proposes a reimagined academic ecosystem which could decrease the incentives for QRPs. In such a system, data management would no longer be treated as a support service. Instead, the scholarly publications about the creation and curation of accessible datasets would constitute one of the independent and mandatory academic outputs related to the research process.