In order to ensure the wider use of research data carried out in Latvian universities and other research institutions and to be included in the common European community of researchers, the implementation of the project "Support for the implementation of open science in practice, as well as created solutions for the sharing of research data and participation in the EU's open science cloud" has been started. The project will be implemented by the Information Technology Sharing Service Center of Higher Education and Science in cooperation with the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU), Riga Stradiņš University, the University of Latvia and Riga Technical University.
Every year, Latvian research institutions carry out thousands of studies and collect data on natural, technological and social developments. Their use ensures sustainable use of natural resources, technological development, and also increases the quality of life of society. Making decisions based on research data is a prerequisite for the development of all economic sectors.
Rector of LBTU Irina Arkhipova says that LBTU and other Latvian research institutions use public funding for research every day, which means that research results should also be publicly available. In addition, it is not just about research publications and final results, but collected and analyzed databases.
"Until now, the sharing of this level of data has been relatively difficult, as it lacked technological solutions, as well as the competence of researchers in data management. The center for shared services of higher education and research information technology and the project started by Latvian research universities for the implementation of open research is a significant step in solving the above-mentioned challenges and will promote not only the mutual cooperation of Latvian researchers, but also our more successful integration into the family of European researchers," said I. Arkhipova.
She adds that this project will also allow researchers to make more extensive use of secondary data analysis and evaluate the resources needed to collect new data.
The project has 3 goals
In order to achieve this, the project plans to develop Latvian higher education and research institutions in the management and use of human capital data, to improve institutional research data management, to promote the preparation, processing, annotation and sharing of high-quality scientific and research data, as well as to develop the necessary information and communication technology solutions.
The project defines three main goals, which envisage creating:
- an integrated Latvian open science data management model;
- unified network of Latvian federated repositories of research data integrated into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC);
- cooperation network of Latvian research management specialists (data curators) and to train the necessary specialists.
A network of curators begins to form
Currently, LBTU has started building a network of data curators and the head of data curators has been selected in an open competition. Professor Ilmārs Dukulis of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology will perform these duties. In general, it is planned to create four to six curator positions in each of the research universities and in the Higher Education and Science Information Technology Shared Service Center. The curators of the center will provide support to university curators as well as to those Latvian universities that will not have their own curators.
"In the first months, the main task of me and other curators is to identify the current situation of the university in the management of research data. In order to be able to do this and to be able to provide the necessary support to other colleagues, it will be necessary to learn the local and international learning content organized by the network of curators, which will take place both in person and online, after which you must successfully pass the final exams and fulfill the requirements for receiving a certificate of learning," he says. I. Dukulis.
Will develop regulatory acts regulating the management of research data
The professor explains that in cooperation with the university's data protection, legal support, ethics commission, library, information technology, administration and other specialists, the development and implementation of regulatory acts regulating the management of research data will be carried out.
"The curators will provide regular informational and educational events for academic, research staff, students and staff on research data management and data reuse or reuse. One of the most important tasks will be to assist our university-funded research projects by providing support to the Data Curator Unit in the development and implementation of data management plans. As soon as the unified research data repository is created, its operation will be monitored and its use will be promoted for both data storage and use," said I. Dukulis.
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