Why Searching for Research Data Deserves More Attention - OpenAIRE Blog

"In the era of Open Science, sharing research data has become increasingly common – to a large degree driven by funder requirements but often made possible by services and infrastructure offered by universities and Non-Profit Organizations, such as OpenAIRE. However, while more data are available than ever, finding it remains a challenge. Researchers often face dead ends, vague metadata, and scattered repositories. The FAIR principles —Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable— describe a set of properties of the data, metadata, and repositories in which they reside. Applying the FAIR principles is a prerequisite for findability, but they do not address the ability of researchers to search for data. This skill exists independently of the data and supporting infrastructure.

Another challenge is that researchers often need data that are not necessarily created through a research project but by public authorities, Non-Governmental Organizations, and other institutions. These datasets may very well be appropriate for research but are often not made public in accordance with the FAIR principles.

At the Royal Danish Library, we have seen firsthand the difficulty in locating relevant datasets. This inspired us to create a workshop that focused solely on data discovery. Our goal was to help researchers develop practical strategies to find and evaluate research data."