Executive summary
In September 2020 the NeIC Director and board initiated a working group on FAIR collaborationopportunities in the Nordics. This came in the wake of the data tsunami era and the realisationthat machine learning and connected data will become of crucial importance to society andscience. Furthermore, the findings of the EOSC-Nordic project show that the FAIR uptake in theregion is slow and a majority of data repositories are not FAIR, while only a small fractionmeasures up to the available FAIR metrics. Sharing publicly-funded data in a meaningful,reusable way must become part of the normative behaviour in order to nurture data-drivensciences. By enabling data capabilities we are facilitating interdisciplinary data reuse, along withinformation and knowledge exchange. A key objective is data integration, where concepts andproperties, and the relationships between them are linked, forming knowledge graphs andproviding an opportunity to provide insight (new knowledge) from the multitude of relations andpatterns.
Although FAIR awareness is growing and there is an appreciation of the Open Science visionamong researchers and support staff, a small survey conducted by the working group confirmssome challenges that are contradictory to the Open Science (OS) movement and contribute toconfusion and status quo when it comes to implementing FAIR. If we are serious aboutembracing OS and the implementation of the FAIR principles it is necessary to ensure that allelements pull in the same direction (this includes infrastructure, skills and services to policiesand incentives). Data stewardship is gradually becoming part of the researcher workflow insome organisations, institutions and departments. Professionalising this crucial support is key tosucceeding in a swift and effective transition to sharing discoverable, accessible and reusabledata. The working group finds that coordinating tasks such as raising awareness, training andskills development and developing common tools and services for research data management(RDM) can contribute to strengthen the momentum of FAIR uptake and better utilise resources,skills and tools across the Nordics. A Nordic coordination office may be one way to orchestratea common strategy on working towards the realisation of the Open Science vision.