The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is an international organization that promotes data sharing and exchange to accelerate data-driven innovation by building social and technical bridges. It consists of over 4,500 members from 115 countries who collaborate in working and interest groups to address challenges such as data preservation, reproducibility, and legal interoperability. The RDA has produced 15 flagship recommendations and supports global initiatives while facilitating connections among diverse research communities.

1. Research Data
Alliance:
an overview
Donatella Castelli
CNR-ISTI
CC BY-SA 4.0
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

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RDA in a nutshell
What is RDA?
Why an RDA?
What is it all about?
Who can join RDA?
What has it produced so far?
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
CC BY-SA 4.0

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What is RDA?
RDA is an international member based organization focused
on the development of infrastructure and community
activities that reduce barriers to data sharing and exchange,
and the acceleration of data driven innovation worldwide
CC BY-SA 4.0
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
115
countries
4,500 members

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Why a Research Data Alliance?
Vision
Researchers and innovators openly share data
across technologies, disciplines, and countries
to address the grand challenges of society
RDA Mission
RDA builds the social and technical bridges
that enable open sharing of data
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

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RDA Funders
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

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What does RDA do?
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
Experts and Data practitioners come together in
self-formed, volunteer, focussed
RDA Working and Interest Groups
to overcome concrete hurdles
e.g. Reproducibility, Data Preservation, Best practices for domain
repositories, Legal interoperability, Data citation, Metadata, Data
type registries, Education & Training on Research Data

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Who Can Join RDA?
Any individual or organization, regardless of profession or
discipline, with an interest in reducing the barriers to data
sharing and re-use and who agrees to RDA’s guiding
principles
Individual Membership is free @
https://www.rd-alliance.org/user/register
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
46 Organisational & 6 Affiliate Members
4527 Individual RDA Members

8. RDA worldwide growth
115 Countries
Total RDA community
members 4527
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

9. Who is RDA?
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
CC BY-SA 4.0

10. Organisational & Affiliate Members
CC BY-SA 4.0
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
46 RDA
Organisational
and 6 Affiliate
Members

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Working Groups (WG)
“focused effort and tangible progress” for which
roughly 12-18 months of work can eliminate a
roadblock for a substantial community or
have substantive applicability to particular segments
of the data community
Interest Group (IGs)
“common issues and interests” for which longer-
term collaboration is needed. Often established
prior to a Working Group for community discussion.
RDA Working & Interest Groups
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

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WG related workflow
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
RDA Recommendations & Outputs
(official and endorsed results)
Adoption Use cases
Outcome
release
Proposal
submission
Review by
TAB
Review by
Council
Start of WG
Activities
Through remote collaboration tools &
f2f meetings at RDA plenaries
15 flagship
recommendations with
over 75 cases of adoption
in different domains,
organisations and
countries

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Domain Science - focused
Agrisemantics WG
BioSharing Registry: connecting data policies, standards &
databases in life sciences WG
Fisheries Data Interoperability WG
On-Farm Data Sharing (OFDS) Working Group
Rice Data Interoperability WG
Wheat Data Interoperability WG
Agriculture Data IG (IGAD)
Biodiversity Data Integration IG
Chemistry Research Data IG
Geospatial IG
Health Data IG
Structural Biology IG
Quality of Urban Life IG
Marine Data Harmonization IG
Metabolomics Data Interoperability IG
Digital Practices in History and Ethnography IG
RDA/CODATA Materials Data, Infrastructure & Interoperability
Research data needs of the Photon and Neutron Science
community IG
Global Water Information IG
RDA Interest (IG) & Working Groups (WG) by
Focus (1)
Community Needs - focused
RDA/CODATA Summer Schools in Data Science and Cloud
Computing in the Developing World WG
Teaching TDM on Education and Skill Development WG
Archives & Records Professionals for Research Data IG
Data for Development IG
Development of Cloud Computing Capacity and Education in
Developing World Research IG
Education and Training on handling of research data IG
Engagement IG
Ethics and Social Aspects of Data IG
Total 72 groups:
27 Working Groups &
45 Interest Groups
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

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Reference and Sharing - focused
Data Citation WG
Data Description Registry Interoperability WG
Data Security and Trust WG
Empirical Humanities Metadata WG
RDA / WDS Publishing Data Bibliometrics WG
Research Data Collections WG
QoS-DataLC Definitions WG
International Materials Resource Registries WG
National Data Services IG
RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG
Reproducibility IG
New Paradigms for Data Discovery IG
Partnership Groups
RDA / TDWG Metadata Standards for attribution of
physical and digital collections stewardship
RDA/NISO Privacy Implications of Research Data Sets WG
RDA/WDS Scholarly Link Exchange Working Group
Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership
WG
RDA/WDS Publishing Data IG
ELIXIR Bridging Force IG
RDA Interest (IG) & Working Groups (WG) by
Focus (2)
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
Total 72 groups:
27 Working Groups &
45 Interest Groups

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Data Stewardship and Services – focused
Brokering Framework WG
Brokering Governance WG
RDA / WDS Publishing Data Services WG
RDA / WDS Publishing Data Workflows WG
Active Data Management Plans IG
Data in Context IG
Data Rescue IG
Domain Repositories IG
Libraries for Research Data IG
Long tail of research data IG
Preservation e-Infrastructure IG
RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG
RDA/WDS Publishing Data Cost Recovery for Data Centres IG
Repository Platforms for Research Data IG
Research Data Provenance IG
Virtual Research Environments IG
Base Infrastructure – focused
Array Database WG
Data Foundation and Terminology WG
Data Type Registries WG
Metadata Standards Catalog WG
Metadata Standards Directory WG
PID Information Types WG
Practical Policy WG
Data Fabric IG
Data Foundations and Terminology IG
Federated Identity Management IG
Service Management IG
Vocabulary Services IG
Data in Context IG
Big Data IG
Brokering IG
Metadata IG
PID IG
RDA Interest (IG) & Working Groups (WG) by
Focus (3)
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
Total 72 groups:
27 Working Groups &
45 Interest Groups

16. What are Plenary Meetings?
Working meetings of RDA Working & Interest groups and new
potential groups through Birds of a Feather meetings
Outputs and Adoption cases presentation
CC BY-SA 4.0
rd-alliance.org/plenaries
1. Gothenburg, Sweden (2013)
2. Washington DC, US (2013)
3. Dublin, Ireland (2014)
4. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands (2014)
5. San Diego (CA), US (2015)
6. Paris, France (2015)
7. Tokyo, Japan (2016)
8. Denver (CO), US (2016)
"FAIR Data Management: Best Practices and Open Issues", Florence, 14-15 November 2016

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https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-ninth-plenary-meeting-barcelona
Host collocated or associated events on 3rd, 4th or 7th (PM) –
Applications open until 27 Nov 2016 17:00 CET https://www.rd-
alliance.org/plenaries/ninth-plenary/rda-9th-plenary-
collocated-associated-events
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016

18. CC BY-SA 4.0
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-tenth-plenary-meeting-montreal-canada

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RDA-Europe:
the European plug-in to RDA
• RDA Europe Forum
• RDA Europe Science Workshops
• RDA Europe national & pan-
European outreach
• RDA Europe policy report
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES", FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016
Supports RDA global and
brings European voice to
the table

20. RDAin a Nutshell
WWW.RD-ALLIANCE.ORG/
@RESDATALL
RDA Global
Email - enquiries@rd-alliance.org
Web - www.rd-alliance.org
Twitter - @resdatall
LinkedIn -
www.linkedin.com/in/ResearchDataAlliance
Slideshare -
http://www.slideshare.net/ResearchDataAlliance
Facebook -
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Research-
Data-Alliance/459608890798924
RDA Europe
Email - info@europe.rd-alliance.org
Web - europe.rd-alliance.org
Twitter - @RDA_Europe
RDA US
Twitter - @RDA_US
"FAIR DATA MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND OPEN ISSUES",
FLORENCE, 14-15 NOVEMBER 2016