A sustainable approach to professionalising the role of 'Data Steward' in the UK

This presentation was delivered to the SRDSN DSC Node at their Fall Meeting on the 27th October 2026, alongside Yan Wang. The aims of this group is to provide a community for data stewards to share challenges and provide support for their roles and tasks. Talk abstract: Sustainability is a pressing concern for development of any initiative, especially given the current economic, environmental, and geopolitical climates. The Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research (CaSDaR) initiative is a 4-year UKRI funded project with the aims of professionalising the role of data steward in the UK and supporting reward and recognition for those who undertake data stewardship tasks in their role/s. The CaSDaR initiative was designed with sustainability in mind. Through three key pieces of work, we aim to ensure that the work of the project continues past its funded period: Establishing a Data Steward Association to continue professionalising the role and moving towards a professional entity; Providing funding to run projects which demonstrate the impact of embedding data stewardship into a project; Creating reports to describe the skills and careers of data stewards and aligned roles. This presentation is an output from the CaSDaR project, grant number UKRI739. More information can be found here: www.casdar.ac.uk