San Diego Supercomputer Center Team Awarded Funding for GO FAIR Symposium

San Diego Supercomputer Center’s (SDSC) Research Data Services (RDS) Chief Strategist Melissa Cragin (principal investigator) and RDS Division Director Christine Kirkpatrick (co-principal investigator) were recently awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to fund a GO FAIR symposium in the next several months. The production of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data and other digital objects has become a powerful notion throughout the research world, aimed at increasing successful data integration and allowing for seamless service provision across multiple resources and organizations. Kirkpatrick and Cragin serve as leaders for UC San Diego’s FAIR data efforts via the US GO FAIR Office led out of SDSC. Their new award supports work on an early 2022 symposium that will gather input from the broader scientific community on building U.S. capacity for understanding and implementing the FAIR principles for research digital objects.

“FAIR focuses attention on the need to more closely align research data management (RDM) practices with the end goal of machine actionable data, code, workflows, AI models and other digital objects,” said Kirkpatrick. “Our division at SDSC exists to thoughtfully embed RDM into research computing platforms and services. We seek to foster the community discussions needed nationally to identify gaps, models to follow, and to inform our own local service development.” The team has created a plan to gather a diverse group of experts and representative stakeholders from data and research communities, U.S. funders and mission agencies, and science societies, to seek input on the most promising areas and pathways for expanding uptake, integration and implementation of the FAIR principles in research practice and services.

“We will seek diverse participants who are outside the well-known public voices on research data management systems and services, while also including leaders who are working at the intersections of data infrastructure development, domain sciences, and open science,” Cragin said. “International partners engaged in related initiatives will also be assembled for perspectives and experiences that will inform U.S. efforts in support of more highly interactive sessions.” Cragin said that the symposium will also focus on the wide range of opportunities in the U.S. for expanding an expert data workforce, supporting AI initiatives and institutional work on public access to federally-funded research, and fostering markets for new technologies and implementation services. The GO FAIR Symposium date is currently to be determined. Check the US GO FAIR Office for more information!