Talk Title: The Norwegian Research Commons: A model for NERC?

Talk Abstract: In November, 2023 13 partner organizations, led by the UiT the Arctic University of Norway and including other European universities, Harvard, and developers of research tools, proposed to the Norwegian government a major project to create a generalist national research infrastructure (the Norwegian Research Commons or REASON). REASON is the first fully fledged Commons modeled on the recently published Global Open Research Commons (GORC) model published by the Research Data Alliance. REASON involves deployment, on a national storage infrastructure, of a series of interoperable and complementary research tools used in various stages of the research lifecycle, to facilitate streamlined passage of data and associated metadata through the cycle, and availability of the data for discoverability, re-use in, e.g. AI engines, and experimental reproducibility. A key focus of the project is to enhance interoperability between the various research tools including in particular Dataverse, RSpace and iRODS. The project also includes establishment of a governance framework and implementation of a training program. The talk will describe how REASON incorporates the elements of the GORC model, covers the roles to be played by RSpace and Dataverse, and discusses how REASON could serve as a reference/model for developing the NERC. The talk concludes with an overview of plans to deploy RSpace on NERC.

Bio: I’ve been involved with the development of research data management for the past 20 years. My main interests center on enabling passage of data and metadata between research tools, the associated topic of tool and data interoperability, and development of integrated research infrastructures that facilitate these data and metadata flows.  As CEO of Research Space, I have overseen the evolution of RSpace from an electronic lab notebook to a digital research platform that enables FAIRification of research data. RSpace is distinguished by an open architecture which enables connectivity and inter-operability with other research tools.  A particular focus is on integrations with data repositories, including Dataverse and Zenodo, enabling data produced in the active research phase to be seamlessly transferred to repositories land hence made available for public sharing and query, in line with FAIR principles. I also host the FAIR DataPodcast, and am active in the Research Data Alliance, where I currently co-chair three groups: Research Data Architectures in Research Institutions, Working with PIDS in Tools, and Mapping the Landscape of Digital Research Tools. I was actively involved in development of the Global Open Research Commons model, and have recently joined the DataCite Services and Technology Steering Group.