GO FAIR Today

In an increasingly complex and heterogeneous environment, significant effort is required to efficiently work with data and other digital objects. The Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles were elaborated to tackle these problems, describing a minimal set of requirements for data stewardship towards higher data reusability. The FAIR principles…

Researchers from VODAN Africa drafted the article "Design of a FAIR digital data health infrastructure in Africa for COVID-19 reporting and research" that was published on 11 June 2021 in Advanced Genetics. Obinna Osigwe, VODAN Africa Communications lead and member of the VODAN IN, shares some insights about the article,…

FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs) are emerging as a promising generic approach to solving the interoperability problem of linking data from different domains. However, there is a lack of a widely accepted technical specification of the concept as well as community-driven show cases. In the context of the emerging FDO Forum…

This workshop is organized by the German chapter of the Data Stewardship Competence Center IN, and will be held in German. Please contact the GO UNITE! IN coordinators Patrick Helling and Monika Linne for any questions. Was ist was? – Entwicklung eines formalen Beschreibungsmodells für Service- und Bedarfsstrukturen im Forschungsdatenmanagement…

Summery temperatures, chilled drinks and high-spirited people are just a few of the characteristics that come to mind when thinking about festivals in June. Let's take full advantage of the effervescent energy of summer, and virtually round up the community for three half days to celebrate the FAIR shift in…

Join the GO FAIR US team on June 16, 2021 for their webinar on FAIR Workflows (12 pm PST / 3 pm EST / 7 pm UTC)! Invited speakers are: Carole Goble and Frederik Coppens who will talk about steps towards FAIR principles for computational tools and workflows and how…

The AdvancedNano IN published a video to explain how you can make nano saftey data FAIR and, if interested, how to join their IN. If you struggle with the re-usability of your data, watch this video to learn how the FAIR guiding principles could lead your way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHexNJZ9eQo

GO UNITE! – formerly known as GO UNI – is the German Chapter of the GO FAIR Implementation Network Data Stewardship Competence Centers (DSCC). In the past there have been several misunderstandings regarding the mission and the target group of the German DSCC chapter, caused by its name “GO UNI”.…

The US GO FAIR office is hosting a FAIR Data Stewardship Interest Group Meeting on Friday, 30 April 2021 at 6-7pm CET (12-1pm EST, 9-10am PT). Fill out this form if you are interested in attending.  

On 11 February 2021 around 60 participants gathered for the strategy meeting of GO UNI. Their credo: pragmatic – concrete – community-driven. Based on this credo GO UNI creates a forum under the umbrella of the GO FAIR Data Stewardship Competence Centers Implementation Network (DSCC IN). In this forum Germany-based…

The US GO FAIR office organizes an interactive webinar where participants can share their FAIR-related WIPs (Work in Progress) or CHIPs (Challenges in Progress) and receive feedback from community members. This webinar is structured to map the landscape of current work and challenges within the FAIR community. More information incl.…

*** Update: Read the short report about the strategie meeting.*** Following the successful kick-off of GO UNI on 08 October 2020 the next virtual GO UNI meeting will take place on Thursday, 11 February 2021, 9am-2pm (CEST). The workshop will be held in German. At this strategic meeting, participants will…

The recent open access publication about research data management, "Praxishandbuch Forschungsdatenmanagement" edited by Markus Putnings, Heike Neuroth (GO FAIR Steering Committee member) and Janna Neumann includes an article about the GO FAIR initiative, GO CHANGE and the EcoSoc IN (in German only): GO FAIR und GO CHANGE: Chancen für das…

Join the webinar about FAIR & Research Software on Thursday, 14 January 2021 at 5pm CET (12-1pm Eastern Time, 9-10am Pacific Time, 4pm UTC), hosted by our US GO FAIR office. The invited speaker is Dr Anna-Lena Lamprecht from Utrecht University, who will be discussing how FAIR Principles can be…

Members of the CO-OPERAS IN recently participated in two conferences advancing the conversation about a FAIR continuum for the social sciences and humanities (SSH) data and publications: The OPERAS conference (2-4 November 2020) about “Opening up Social Sciences and Humanities in Europe: From Promises to Reality” enabled discussions about the…

Recently, members of the Food Systems IN co-authored two articles: On 11 December 2020, the practice paper “39 Hints to Facilitate the Use of Semantics for Data on Agriculture and Nutrition” appeared in the Data Science Journal . It is co-authored by Caterina Caracciolo, Sophie Aubin, Clement Jonquet, Romain David,…

The Personal Health Train was awarded the Dutch Computable Award 2020 in the category “Care project”. The PHT consortium, being also a GO FAIR Implementation Network, collaborates with other partners to develop an infrastructure where personal data will be securely shared and documented. It is a distributed infrastructure that enables…

On 14 December 2020 members of the EcoSoc IN published the White Paper on implementing the FAIR principles for data in the Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences. The authors are Noemi Betancort Cabrera, Elke C. Bongartz, Nora Dörrenbächer, Jan Goebel, Harald Kaluza, and Pascal Siegers. Read it on the KonsortSWD…

Update: The session recordings are ready for viewing. Visit our Media page to watch the session videos. *** Register here to attend the symposium: https://bit.ly/FAIRCONVERGE1 (using code FAIRCONVERGE1). *** The Symposium Programme is now available. Please note that this initial programme overview is subject to change. Full programme including details…

Blair Johnston, co-coordinator of the AdvancedNano IN reports: The AdvancedNano IN will assist the science-based risk governance of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) and other advanced material formulations, including the elucidation of the mode of action, grouping, read-across, development of quantitative structure-activity relationships, and Safe-by-Design aspects of nano and advanced material production…

In preparation for the International FAIR Convergence Symposium, a set of early-mover FAIR communities from the Social Sciences, Geo Sciences, Chemistry, Materials, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, and Biodiversity are participating in a series of FIP-Convergence Workshops where they first produce, under guidance and with novel tools, Community FAIR Implementation Profile. Afterward,…

This short report was written by Mirjam van Reisen (IN Coordinator of both IN-Africa and Ambassadors IN, VODAN IN member) & Francisca Oladipo (VODAN IN member). GO FAIR moved from a theoretical concept to an implementation programme when the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged around the globe. There were several big issues…

On 1-2 July 2020 the GO FAIR Implementation Network on "Cross-Domain Interoperability of Heterogeneous Research Data (GO Inter)" organised a hackathon on FAIR digital objects (FDO) and FAIRsemantics. This hackathon has been a follow-up of the May hackathon on implementing the FDO concept to cross-domain interoperability use cases, and it…

For the concrete implementation of a professional research data management, different approaches are chosen at German universities, which are geared to the university-specific needs, and organizational structures and cultures. Here the wheel is often reinvented instead of building on existing and reusable solutions. Both the building and the establishment of…

*** Report: GO UNI successfully kicked-off in Germany *** Due to Covid-19 the founding meeting of the German Chapter of the Data Stewardship Competence Centers Implementation Network (DSCC IN) GO UNI unfortunately had to be canceled. We are happy to inform you, that it was possible to reschedule the meeting…

On 27-28 August 2020 the US GO FAIR Office organised a FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) lesson global sprint through CarpentryCon @ Home together with partners from around the world. Participants from 21 institutions and 11 countries took part in this Library Carpentry FAIR Data & Software lesson sprint whose…

After the successful deployment of seven machine-actionable FAIR Data Points in Africa, a test to execute a machine-based querying of FAIR Data Points across continents between Leiden University Medical Center and Kampala International University was successful. Mirjam van Reisen (IN Coordinator of IN-Africa and one of the coordinators of the…

Maria Pawlowska and her colleagues in the Polish Chapter of the Data Stewardship Competence Centers Implementation Network (DSCC IN), are in the midst of conducting a 1-week Data Stewardship School (September 14-18) as a way to kick-start a Polish Data Stewards Community.  This 1-week training is viewed as "ground zero” for launching national…

On August 31, the LUMC FAIR Data Point went on line, and two days later on September 2, a Technical Session was held between Leiden University Medical Center and VODAN Africa teams to initiate the discussions leading to the documentation of specifications for the VODAN FDP and the demonstration of…

The Personal Health Train (PHT) is one of the last five nominees for the prestigious Dutch Computable Awards 2020, in the care project cluster. The PHT consortium, being also a GO FAIR Implementation Network, collaborates with other partners to develop an infrastructure where personal data will be securely shared and documented. It is…

Arnaud Gingold from the CO-OPERAS IN reports: The CO-OPERAS IN published the reports of all the workshops organized in the past year on the topic of “FAIR data for Social Sciences and Humanities” on Zenodo: As a first step of its roadmap, CO-OPERAS intended to listen to the communities through…

On 11 August 2020 the third COVID-19 FAIR Data Point (FDP) was successfully installed in Nigeria at the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University by the VODAN Africa team. This FDP is the second one in Nigeria, and the third VODAN-in-a-Box deployed in Africa. Next COVID-19 FAIR Data Points are to be…

The Kampala International University issued the following press release on Thursday, August 4, 2020: VODAN in a Box Strengthens South-South Cooperation on COVID-19 Control In a two-hour session hosted by Charles Kahiro and Ivy Wachira of Ravel Works, Africa, and witnessed by 33 participants which consist of Data Stewards and…

Giovanni Pizzi, IN Coordinator of the Materials Cloud IN, and collaborators successfully held a virtual tutorial for AiiDA and the Materials Cloud that attracted 85 participants from all over the world. Materials were made available: Videos, tutorial text, "Quantum Mobile" virtual machine Full report  

After the FAIR Data Stewardship Course earlier this year, Hogeschool Leiden and the GO FAIR Foundation are setting up the next iteration of this “Introduction to FAIR Data Stewardship” course for October – November 2020. The course will be offered at the Hogeschool Leiden (in Dutch), as well as online…

COVID-19 Computer-Readable Observational Data Installed at Kampala International University Following the press release from the Kampala International University, history was made today at 14:14 CET on 22 July 2020 as the first COVID-19 Computer-Readable FAIR Data point of Observational Data was installed in Uganda, Africa. The installation was carried out…

Check out the most recent addition to GO FAIR’s Implementation Networks: AdvancedNano IN. This Implementation Network actively supports the implementation of the FAIR principles in the current nano-EHS databases, i.e. data on NM physicochemical characteristics, release and exposure, toxicity and functionality. Its main objective is to take new and ground-breaking…

Under the severe conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world looks to data for answers. The request for data is urgent and demanding, as policy makers seek to identify life-saving patterns and forecast trends to better advise on interventions. From medical charts that record the disease progression in individual COVID…

Making it easy for humans to make metadata for machines On June 26, the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation (DeiC), in cooperation with the GO FAIR Foundation, launched two Metadata for Machine workshops on behalf of two research communities seeking to upgrade the FAIRness of research data. The workshops are conducted via teleconference…

By Francisca Oladipo and Mirjam van Reisen As the COVID-19 pandemic ran riot around the world, and was gradually making inroads into Africa, a new partnership developed to address the current and immediate challenges faced in the continent using a different kind of science: the science of FAIR Data. VODAN…

ZonMw organises webinars on FAIR data management tailored to COVID-19 research, as well as registries, research networks, data portals (etc) that are developed within the COVID-19 (clinical) research community. The aim is to involve data experts, researchers and professionals in practice to make valuable data from COVID-19 research reusable. This…

A challenging issue as regards implementing FAIR is the question of how the process of creating interoperable research data can be made as simple as possible. The FAIR Digital Object (FDO) concept seems to emerge as a promising approach to solving the problem. However, reference implementations and show cases are…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: the Materials Cloud IN. The Materials Cloud IN is committed to provide suitable tools to assist researchers to make their work FAIR and help them in adopting best practices and common formats. The effort to make simulations FAIR cannot be applied “a posteriori” after these…

Since its creation representatives of the GO FAIR Food Systems Implementation Network have been working on several initiatives to advance the implementation of FAIR in the Food Systems domain. Until now they have identified and aligned themselves with several existing initiatives on FAIR implementation and have created a list of…

The spread of the virus causing the COVID-19 outbreak affects the whole world. Virus outbreaks like these ask for an optimisation of data management and data reuse from which we all can benefit during future outbreaks too. Access to the immensely valuable data of past and current epidemics is not…

Check out the most recent addition to GO FAIR’s Implementation Networks: GO NANOFAB. This Implementation Network (IN) aims to work towards improving capabilities for capturing, storing and making accessible data, parameters and workflows from nanofabrication (NF) process chains by using the FAIR approach. The IN will provide a forum for…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: the Marine Data Centres IN. This Implementation Network is launched by the SeaDataNet consortium, which is a community of more than 50 partners from 35 countries in and around Europe managing access to large collections of data derived in situ of the seas and oceans.…

Read more about a new GO FAIR Implementation Network: FAIR Microbiome IN. The cross-cutting nature of microbiome research in environmental sciences, health, agriculture, energy, and natural and built environments requires the development of new solutions and community coordination to tackle grand challenges that will accelerate basic discovery and lead to transformative…

From its inception, the GO FAIR Community has been committed to working together to build components for an Internet of FAIR Data and Services (IFDS). The GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office does just this, supporting and coordinating community initiatives on FAIR implementations. At the 2nd Annual GO FAIR…

Article written by Mirjam van Reisen, IN-Africa Coordinator Axum, the cradle of civilisation, is located In Ethiopia, a country of 105 million people. Today its President Abija is acknowledged as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. In Axum, one of the earliest trading hubs known to mankind,…

At the 2nd Annual GO FAIR Implementation network meeting in Hamburg the GO FAIR community refocused efforts towards convergence. Convergence is needed to bring together domain-specific approaches on data and infrastructures as well as experiences in training and education which enables the adoption and extension of existing practices and solutions.…

*** Update: Read the meeting report  Accelerating Convergence in 2020 (link to webpage). *** On 23-24 January 2020 the GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office (GFISCO) is organising the 2nd International Meeting of Implementation Networks at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics in Hamburg, with the aim to…

On December 18-19, 2019 colleagues from Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and the USA met for an official launch of the Data Stewardship Competency Centres (DSCC) IN in Leiden. The event was also a knowledge exchange oriented workshop for the IN community to start…

On 25 November 2019 the GO FAIR office hosted a workshop on “FAIR training and skills” at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. 28 professionals, including data stewards, research data managers and trainers from Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Switzerland and Greece came together to exchange experience, concepts and…

GO BUILD Workshop on “Semantic Interoperability of Metadata for Cross-Domain Research of the Future” – How do we make vocabularies and other semantic resources FAIR? The latest workshop offered by the GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office (GFISCO) brought together representatives of the implementation networks (INs) as well as…

GO FAIR organizes the launch of the DSCC-INT Implementation Network. The meeting will be held at the GO FAIR office in Leiden, The Netherlands. The meeting will start December 18 around lunch time and will end on December 19 after lunch. The provisional agenda will be added as soon as…

Check out the most recent addition to GO FAIR’s implementation networks: Data Stewardship Competence Centers (DSCC) Universities and other research performing institutions (RPI) across Europe, and globally, face the challenge of establishing professional, institution-wide research data stewardship and building its related infrastructure. Research ‘Data Stewardship Competence Centers’ (DSCC) collaborate with…

The PHT IN organizes a meeting at the GO FAIR office in Leiden, The Netherlands on November 8, 2019. The meeting will start at 11AM and ends at 4PM. Meeting agenda 11:00-12:00 Welcome and updates from members 12:00-12:30 Introduction of Coordination Action 12:30-13:00 Lunch 13:00-14:30 Brainstorming session for the Coordination Action…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: Ambassadors IN The Ambassadors Implementation Network aims to strengthen the involvement of researchers on FAIR in new countries and new sectors, including PhD students, masters students, bachelor students, diploma students and data stewards, as well as inclusion of seasoned researchers interested in exploring…

On October 1st and 2nd, 2019, the kick-off meeting of the GO FAIR implementation network "Cross-Domain Interoperability of Heterogeneous Research Data (GO Inter)" with 20 participants from 13 organizations took place at GESIS in Cologne. The network aims at bringing together experts from the Semantic Web community, data providers and…

While we have made great strides when it comes to accessibility of scientific data, discoverability is seriously lacking. As a result, up to 85% of research data are not reused. Discoverability is therefore one of the key challenges for FAIR data, especially across disciplines. The GO FAIR Implementation Network on…

Partners of the GO INTER Implementation Network meet to officially kick-off the GO FAIR IN on Cross-Domain Interoperability. This workshop’s major objective is to define action points and draft a roadmap for GO INTER until the end of 2020 and beyond. Read the workshop report (link to news item).

Representatives of the universities participating in the IN-Africa will meet in Leiden for an official inauguration of this Implementation Network. One of the targeted activity areas defined by the activity plan of the IN are local services for digital health. This topic is already being tackled by the IN, therefore…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: IN-Africa Central to the Implementation Network is the African expression of the Internet of FAIR Data and Sercvices (IFDS). The network considers the opportunities of data science for economic potential, especially for Africa’s youth and the need for education and training in this…

The latest workshop offered by the GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office brought together 28 representatives of research data management competence centres and research communities from Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany at the German National Library in Frankfurt on June 19, 2019. United in seeking to establish an…

GO BUILD – GO CHANGE – GO TRAIN – Ways for the German Community to Contribute to GO FAIR On Wednesday, 15th of May 2019, the third Germany GOes FAIR workshop took place in Germany. At the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, representatives of various research…

Check out this new Implementation Network for Cross-Domain Interoperability of Heterogeneous Research Data: GO Inter Despite the existence of widely accepted standards for data representation and linking, research data are often described in heterogeneous and unstandardized ways. This results in domain-specific, disconnected “data silos” which makes discovery, linking and reuse of…

On 12 February 2019 the GO FAIR Personal Health Train (PHT) Implementation Network (IN) German Chapter workshop took place in Berlin. The PHT IN German Chapter workshop report is now available. Interested in more information about the PHT IN? Then check out the newly created webpage for the Personal Health…

Congratulations to Elena Giglia, Head of the Open Access Office at the University of Turin and Suzanne Dumouchel, Co-Coordinator of OPERAS Partnerhips and Public Affairs Officer! The two coordinators of the GO FAIR Implementation Network “CO-OPERAS” presented their poster “CO-OPERAS Implementation Network: FAIR Data in the SSH” at this year’s…

GO FAIR welcomes the GlobAl Integrated EArth Data Implementation Network (GAIA Data IN). This Implementation Network will build on, and promote, extensive pre-existing coordination work, services, tools, and recommendations, whilst seeking to improve transdisciplinary and cross-domain data interoperability. A key objective will be to facilitate access to both space and…

Check out our latest Implementation Network: Food Systems IN. The Food System IN's goal is to advance a global data ecosystem for agriculture and food by implementing FAIR data and services. Agri-food systems are facing unprecedented socio-economic, and environmental challenges to feed 2 billion more people by 2050. In order to…

GO FAIR welcomes the Personal Health Train Implementation Network. Major public and private stakeholders in health, healthcare and biomedical research are developing the ‘Personal Health Train’ (PHT). This is a distributed infrastructure that enables the use and reuse of health data for the benefit of individuals and society. The PHT…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: NOMAD. NOMAD is part of the Dutch-German consortium FAIR Data Infrastructure (FAIR-DI), pillar A (www.fairdi.eu). The Novel Materials Discovery (NOMAD) Laboratory maintains the largest worldwide repository for input and output files of all important computational materials science computer programs. Based on its open-access data,…

The Metabolomics Implementation Network has been one of the early GO FAIR movers. The GO FAIR Metabolomics Implementation Network was established in March 2017 in Leiden during a meeting attended by more than 30 stakeholders from all over Europe (academia, UMCs, research institutes including EMBL-EBI, small and medium companies, software companies,…

More than 90 Implementation Network representatives gathered in the Netherlands to find out about ways to sync their FAIR endeavours. The GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office hosted the first annual meeting of GO FAIR Implementation Networks (INs) on January 15-16, 2019 in Leiden, The Netherlands. This meeting aimed…

Check out the recent addition to the GO FAIR Implementation Networks: Chemistry IN (ChIN). The Chemistry community needs to create a FAIR culture which is supported by standards and infrastructure development promoting machine readability of chemical data and other digital resources. The goals of this Implementation Network are to enhance the open,…

GO FAIR welcomes CO-OPERAS, a new Implementation Network. CO-OPERAS – open access in the European research area through scholarly communication – IN aims to build a bridge between SSH data and the EOSC, widening the concept of “research data” to include all of the types of digital research output linked…

GO FAIR welcomes a new Implementation Network: BiodiFAIRse The global aims of the biodiversity field are to understand the underlying mechanisms of nature, document and capture the state and dynamics of ecosystems, and build predictive models for the future. This understanding is based on access to and use of data,…

Check out the most recent addition to GO FAIR's implementation networks: Discovery IN. Research data are among the fastest growing openly accessible scientific outputs on the web. While we have made great strides when it comes to accessibility of scientific data, discoverability is seriously lacking. Many frontends are designed from…

This meeting aims at getting together international interested parties in the Personal Health Train to discuss the formation of a PHT IN, what to focus on and how to collaborate towards these goals.  

GO FAIR welcomes the Rare Diseases Implementation Network. The key driver for this Implementation Network is the need to speed up substantially the progress towards earlier diagnosis and new treatments of rare diseases. This is much more likely when data that are collected are Findable, Accessible (under well-defined conditions), Interoperable,…

GO FAIR has a new implementation network, the Economic and Social Sciences goINg FAIR Implementation Network (short: EcoSoc IN). For more information, check out their IN page on our website.

The GeRDI Project has formed an Implementation Network (IN) under the GO FAIR initative and offers to exchange experiences in interdisciplinary metadata services, based on community requirements, plus designing and implementing a resulting system architecture. Projects and initiatives are invited to join the IN, especially those also possessing experiences regarding…

Themenschwerpunkte: Vorstellung von GO FAIR & Beteilungsmöglichkeiten an der Initiative, Arbeitsgruppen zu den drei Handlungsfeldern GO BUILD, GO TRAIN, GO CHANGE Link: Agenda Link: Ergebniszusammenfassung

GO FAIR welcomes C2CAMP, a new Implementation Network existing of a group of international experts from relevant research institutions and infrastructure initiatives committed to build interoperable components that are based on specifications from RDA working groups and other comparable initiatives such as OAI, W3C, ISO, and IETF and to integrate…

On April 10th 2018 a group directly involved in current Personal Health Train projects got together at the GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office, in Leiden, to discuss the definition of the main architectural elements of the system, alignments among the different projects and forms of closer collaborations. Besides…

On the 10th of April, many technical experts come together in Leiden for the first time to work on the  general architecture of the PHT infrastructure and discuss the prospects of it.

On 14 March 2018 the first French GO FAIR meeting for future INs took place. Read the report here.

On Jan 24, 2018, a group of founding stakeholders met in the GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office (GFISCO) to brainstorm about the rationale for, and the construction of a GO FAIR Implementation Network (IN) focusing on assisting other people to render their data and associated services FAIR. The…

On January 25, roughly 30 participants came together under the auspices of the GO FAIR International Support of Coordination Office (GFISCO). Their goal was to learn more about the status of GO FAIR as an international activity, about the GFISCO and its operations, and about the process of launching or…

On 10 March 2017, Professor Karel Luyben (TU Delft) welcomed the ‘Metabolomics GO FAIR Implementation Network’ as community initiative to start the European Open Science Cloud. The network aims to implement the FAIR data principles in the field of metabolomics in Europe. This will help scientists to exchange research data…

On 10 March 2017, Professor Karel Luyben (TU Delft) welcomed the ‘Metabolomics GO FAIR Implementation Network’ as community initiative to start the European Open Science Cloud. The network aims to implement the FAIR data principles in the field of metabolomics in Europe.