Research Data in the Physical Sciences: A Forum for Librarians and Research Support Professionals

ABOUT THE EVENT

The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) and the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) are delighted to invite you to this in-person forum designed for data librarians and research support professionals working within the physical sciences across the UK and EU. This event will be hosted at the John McIntyre Conference Centre from approx. 10.30am on 5th March to 3pm on the 6th March. 

Over two days, attendees will engage in knowledge exchange, community discussions, and networking opportunities, all centred on the challenges, opportunities, and emerging solutions in research data management for the physical sciences. 

With keynote presentations, poster sessions, lightning talks, demonstrations, and interactive discussions, the event aims to foster collaboration and innovation. By connecting professionals in academia, industry, and support roles, we hope to create a vibrant community dedicated to enabling frictionless data sharing, open collaboration, and a digitally integrated research ecosystem. 

This event will also showcase the work of PSDI and seek input from the community to guide future priorities. 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This forum is ideal for anyone directly supporting research data in physical sciences research across the UK and EU, including: 

WHY ATTEND?

• Connect with peers across academia and industry. 
• Exchange knowledge on best practices, tools, and strategies. 
• Contribute your experience and work through posters / talks 
• Discover PSDI’s work and influence its future priorities. 
• Gain insights into the evolving role of research support in the physical sciences. 

WORKSHOP AGENDA OUTLINE

INVITED SPEAKERS

Elizabeth Newbold – Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

Introduction to the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure An introduction to PSDI from the perspective of a research support professional.

Robert Andrews – Cardiff University

Making data FAIR in the Life Sciences ELIXIR-UK is the UK node of a pan-European infrastructure over 240 research institutes, enabling researchers to access and analysis life science data.  Recent activities in data stewardship have focused on the sharing and reuse of data following the FAIR principles.  I talk about FAIR and FAIRification of research data and how we embed and signpost good FAIR data practices in UK universities and institutes.

Dr Robert Andrews sits on the management board of ELIXIR-UK, a national organisation of 28 UK universities bringing together life science data and resources from across UK and Europe.  He has co-led a national Data Steward Fellowship in the life sciences, and is a stakeholder in BioFAIR, a UKRI funded federated digital research infrastructure (£34million over 5 years). Before his current role, he was Head of Genotyping at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute managing a multidisciplinary team generating data for the human 1000 genomes project and UK10K.

Cian Dingle – CCDC

Trustworthy Research Data: Lowering Barriers to Publication and Reuse What is required for a research data repository to be considered trustworthy? How can we assess whether it meets the necessary standards for reliability? The TRUST Principles and the CoreTrustSeal requirements provide key guidance for addressing these questions. This presentation will explore these guidelines in the context of the Cambridge Structural Database, a long-established repository of crystal structure data. It will highlight how data standards, robust infrastructure, expert curation, and community engagement enable the lowering of barriers to the sustainable publication and reuse of trustworthy research data in the physical sciences.

Cian Dingle has worked as a Deposition Coordinator within the Data and Community team at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) for almost 4 years, contributing to the acquisition and preparation of data for scientific curation. He also finds time to work on some of the data initiatives undertaken by the CCDC, including activities that have led to the Cambridge Structural Database being certified as a Trustworthy Data Repository by CoreTrustSeal.

Samantha Pearman-Kanza – University of Southampton

The Careers and Skills for Data-Driven Research (CaSDaR) Network+ Empowering Data Stewards for Research Excellence The amount of data generated by research, is growing at an exponential rate. And yet, so much of this data is unusable, due to the lack of expertise, tools, and resources for effective data management. Data Stewards are the key to bridging the gap between data generation and reuse, as they have a fundamental role that ensures the quality, accuracy, accessibility and longevity of data across the entire data lifecycle. We place great value in data, but the current investment in the time and resources to drive forward data excellence is sorely lacking, and best practice like FAIR cannot be implemented without investing in data stewards. So, this is where CaSDaR comes in! We are a brand new Network+, launching in April 2025 and our goal is to establish a diverse, inclusive, self-sustaining community of Data Stewards and to create a model for data steward support systems within research intensive institutions, thereby clarifying their role and integration within the research data lifecycle. This talk will introduce CaSDaR and our plans for the next four years, and explain how you can get involved!

Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza is a Senior Enterprise Fellow at the University of Southampton. She is a Pathfinder Lead on Process Recording for the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) Initiative. Samantha works in the interdisciplinary research area of applying computer science techniques to the scientific domain, specifically through the use of semantic web technologies and artificial intelligence. Her research includes looking at electronic lab notebooks and smart laboratories, to improve the digitization and knowledge management of the scientific record using semantic web technologies; and using IoT devices in the laboratory.

Simon Hodson – CODATA

The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) and Physical Sciences Data Infrastructures. The Cross Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) is a set of practical, implementation-level principles designed to improve data management practices within any community and lower the barriers to cross-domain data reuse. CDIF offers standards and methodologies for achieving different levels of interoperability necessary for reusing data across diverse domains. It is built around five core profiles that address the essential functions for implementing cross-domain FAIR principles. This talk will describe the genesis, current status and next steps for CDIF, and outline current work to implement the approach for XAS data. Finally, opportunities to explore CDIF implementation with physical sciences data infrastructures will be discussed.

Simon Hodson is an expert on data policy issues and research data management.  Most recently, he was coordinator of the groundbreaking WorldFAIR project, which is now being extended as an international collaborative initiative, WorldFAIR+, to advance the development and implementation of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF). Simon has a strong research background, as well as considerable project and programme management experience: from 2009 to 2013, as Programme Manager, he led two successful phases of Jisc’s innovative Managing Research Data programme in the UK.

APPLY TO ATTEND

This event will be free to attend, but spaces are limited. We have allocated most of the places but still have a few spots available. Applications will be assessed as they are submitted and we will let you know the outcome as soon as we can. Some financial assistance for travel and accommodation may still be available.

Apply to attend here

Join us to help shape the future of research data in the physical sciences. Let’s work together to build a stronger, more connected community.