Open Access Research Data without barriers: the Research Data Alliance Launch and First Plenary | iSGTW

Over the last decade, significant investments have been made all over the globe for developing scientific data infrastructures to support the work of research communities and improving shared access to data. There is a common understanding that solutions must be global and that the development of an integrated and interoperable data domain can only be achieved through increased global cooperation. As “big data” emerges as an international priority, plenty of scientists have been campaigning for a shift to open science. The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a newly formed organization whose goal is to accelerate international data-driven innovation and discovery by facilitating research, data sharing and exchange, use and re-use, standards harmonisation for specific communities and across scientific disciplines. These goals are achieved through the development and adoption of infrastructures, policies, practices, standards and with the support of a structure that includes a council, plenary, secretariat, non-governmental structures (NGSs), and working groups. The RDA Launch Event and its First Plenary is scheduled for 18-20 March 2013 in Gothenburg, Sweden,and it follows the First RDA Planning Meeting held in Washington DC, 1-3 October 2012. The event will be launched by sponsors from the European Commission, the U.S. Government and the Australian Government and leaders in the data community which include Vice-President European Commission Neelie Kroes; Carlos Morais-Pires, Scientific Officer, Excellence in Science DG CONNECT & coordinator, Scientific Data e-Infrastructures, DG CONNECT European Commission; Alan Blatecky, Director Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI), National Science Foundation (NSF), US; Ross Wilkinson, Executive Director, Australian National Data Service, Australia; Peter Wittenburg, Head of the Language Archive Unit at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and Leif Laaksonen, Collaboration Director at CSC, IT Center for Science, Finland, the latter two representing the iCORDI community. The event is kindly supported by City of Gothenburg, Stadsledningskontoret, Chalmers e-Science Centre and the IT-universitet, Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University. The RDA First Plenary will be a working meeting to accelerate discussion, working and interest group interaction, and data community development. The programme is available at http://rd-alliance.org/programme/ ... The Research Data Alliance is being brought into existence by an initial three research funding organisations: (i) the Australian Commonwealth Government through the Australian National Data Service (www.ands.org.au), supported by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program and the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative; (ii) the European Commission through the iCordi project (www.icordi.eu) funded under the 7th Framework Program; (iii) the United States of America through the RDA/US activity funded by the National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov).   RDA activities began in earnest in August 2012 with the establishment of an international Steering Group, tasked with defining its charter and organisational structures, with promoting its aims and mustering support for its activities. RDA merges the work of global data initiatives such as DAITF and DWF with support and funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Australian government and the European Union. The initiative's efforts are focused on taking forward the establishing of an open global research infrastructure, on promoting and enabling the exchange of information, while also raising awareness on the need for data sharing across scientific disciplines and empowering connecting policies, practices and standards."