A surfboard for riding the wave: towards a four country action programme on research data

This report calls for a collaborative data infrastructure that will enable researchers and other stakeholders from education, society and business to use, re-use and exploit research data to the maximum benefit of science and society. This paper presents an overview of the present situation with regard to research data in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and offers broad outlines for a possible action programme for the four countries in realising the envisaged collaborative data infrastructure. An action programme at the level of four countries needs the...  [+] Show more

This report calls for a collaborative data infrastructure that will enable researchers and other stakeholders from education, society and business to use, re-use and exploit research data to the maximum benefit of science and society. This paper presents an overview of the present situation with regard to research data in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and offers broad outlines for a possible action programme for the four countries in realising the envisaged collaborative data infrastructure. An action programme at the level of four countries needs the involvement of all stakeholders from the scientific community. Four key drivers are identified: (1) incentives and (2) training in relation to researchers in their role as data producers and users of information infrastructures; (3) infrastructure and (4) funding of the infrastructure in relation to further developments in data logistics.