Rec. 4: Develop interoperability frameworks for FAIR sharing within disciplines and for interdisciplinary research

• Short Title: Rec. 4: Develop interoperability frameworks for FAIR sharing within disciplines and for interdisciplinary research
• Source Documnent: Turning FAIR into reality: Final report and action plan from the European Commission expert group on FAIR data
• Source Document Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.2777/1524
• Publishing Organisation: European Commision
• Date of Publication: 2018-11-26
• Topic: Capacity building/ incentivisation, Sustainability/ funding/ business-model, Interlinking/ interoperability
• Keywords: interoperability, data sharing, FAIR
• Addressed Stakeholders: research funders, data service providers, research community, institutions, policy makers, coordination fora
• Full Text: Research communities need to be supported to develop interoperability frameworks that define their practices for data sharing, data formats, metadata standards, tools and infrastructure. To support interdisciplinary research, these interoperability frameworks should be articulated  in  common ways and adopt global standards where relevant. Intelligent crosswalks, brokering mechanisms and semantic technologies should all be explored to break down silos. Action 4.1: Enabling mechanisms must be funded and implemented to support research communities to develop and maintain their disciplinary interoperability frameworks. This work needs to be recognised and incentivised to reward stakeholders for enabling FAIR sharing. Action 4.2: Examples of FAIR use cases and success stories should be developed to convince reluctant research communities of the benefits in defining their disciplinary interoperability framework. Action 4.3: Disciplines and interdisciplinary research programmes should be encouraged to engage with international collaboration mechanisms to develop interoperability frameworks. Common standards, intelligent crosswalks, brokering mechanisms and semantic technologies should all be explored to break down silos between communities and support interdisciplinary research. Action 4.4: Mechanisms should be facilitated to promote the exchange of good practices and lessons learned in relation to the implementation of FAIR practices both within and across disciplines. Case studies for cross-disciplinary  data  sharing  and  reuse  should  also  be  collected,  shared  and  used as a basis for the development of good practice. Action 4.5: The components of the FAIR ecosystem should adhere to common standards to support disciplinary frameworks and to promote interoperability and reuse of data across disciplines.