Multi-Stakeholder Engagement in Research Data Management

Abstract

Research data management (RDM) services have become a high priority for government agencies and post-secondary institutions across Canada in recent years. There is a strong sense of urgency: Canada has lacked coherent national strategies such as those in Australia or the UK, and at the same time there are growing expectations for sound RDM practices. For example, Canada's Action Plan on Open Government includes deliverables aimed at improving access to publications and data resulting from federally funded scientific activities, and the federal research granting councils will be adopting a Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management in 2016 that will be reviewed and revised through continual stakeholder engagement. Amongst those stakeholders are the research universities of the country, including their libraries. Canadian university libraries have a long history of the kinds of collaborations required in the multi-stakeholder RDM environment, deep experience in developing programs to advance research, and critical expertise in preservation. In 2015, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) launched a national research data management network, named Portage, to assist researchers and other RDM stakeholders through a university library-based network of expertise on RDM and through working with multiple stakeholders to develop national platforms for planning, preserving, and discovering research data. This work has proceeded in concert with the RDM priorities of university presidents and research administrators, as well as federal research granting councils and agencies responsible for advanced research computing and the national high-speed optical research network. This paper will describe approaches taken to aligning RDM services across multiple stakeholder groups in Canada and discuss various factors to be considered in such collaborations.