FAIR-IMPACT Open Calls for Support

Deadline: 1-Jun-23

FAIR-IMPACT has launched the first of three Open Calls for Support, offering two defined support actions designed to enhance the FAIRness of data, semantic artefacts and data-related services.

The FAIR-IMPACT project will provide a set of clearly defined support actions that will help successful applicants learn how to use specific tools/methods/approaches which will help them start (or continue) their journey to becoming more FAIR-enabling and active contributors to the European Open Science Cloud.

Each of the defined support actions will provide dedicated guidance and assistance to a cohort of selected applicants on implementing one or more tools and approaches. There will be at least three open calls for participation in the defined support actions over the lifetime of the FAIR-IMPACT project.

The opportunity to share their knowledge and learn from their peers through the virtual workshops.

The opportunity to promote their work via a published FAIR-IMPACT Implementation Story.

The support actions

• #1: FAIRness assessment challenge

  • More harmonised use of semantic artefacts such as ontologies, terminologies, taxonomies, thesauri, vocabularies, metadata schemas and standards is a key element to achieving a high level of FAIRness. However, it can often be difficult to find and use semantic artefacts as they themselves are not always FAIR.
  • This targeted support action will help a cohort of dataset providers or semantic artefact developers to self-assess and work towards maximising the level of FAIRness of their resources. Successful applicants will be supported to employ a variety of assessment tools and methods, including F-UJI, O’FAIRe and FOOPS. FAIR-IMPACT mentors will provide guidance and advice on how to interpret their scores and to improve the overall FAIRness of their resources. The duration of effort required, including attendance at mandatory virtual workshops and completing the assigned ‘homework’, will be approximately five days.

• ​#2: Enabling FAIR Signposting and RO-Crate for content/metadata discovery and consumption

  • The findability of both data and metadata is central to the FAIR principles. In this support action, FAIR-IMPACT will provide a method to increase the discoverability of the metadata and content. It will do so using a combination of two approaches; RO-Crate and Signposting. These two approaches are being used in combination as a pragmatic approach to making digital scholarly/research objects more FAIR. The duration of effort required to take part in this one will be five days of effort over a one-month period, again most likely in early autumn 2023.

Detail

• FAIR-IMPACT will provide a dedicated, tailored support package including virtual workshops, expert guidance, and advice from FAIR-IMPACT project partners and resource providers, to enable successful applicants to implement a particular tool(s) or approach.
• FAIR-IMPACT will also provide financial support of up to a maximum of 10.000 EUR to successful applicants to enable their participation, payable by invoice to the individual or their organisation upon successful completion of the support action. Each support offer will make clear the amount of financial support being made available to successful applicants. The exact amount of the financial support will vary across the support actions as it is calculated using a standard day rate of 500 EUR against the effort required to carry out the work. The maximum amount of effort required to participate in any support offer will not exceed 20 days over a period of a maximum of four months. In most cases, we anticipate that the number of days required participating in support offers will be between 5-10 days for participants over a 1-2 month period. Funds may be used solely for supporting staff time to carry out the support offer activities. The funds may not be used to support travel, catering or purchasing of equipment.
• They welcome applications from teams, but it is important to note that the funding provided is based on the number of days required to complete the action rather than the number of people involved. For example, a successful application with one member of staff taking part will receive the same amount as a successful application from a team with four members of staff taking part. Financial support will be payable by invoice to the FAIR-IMPACT project coordinator (KNAW-DANS) upon successful completion of the support action and participation in an exit interview.
• The FAIR-IMPACT project is working to refine or augment a number of current and emerging FAIR-enabling approaches and solutions with our integrated use case partners. Below is a list of example support offers that may be developed over the life of the project (this list will be refined and updated with details as the offers are defined):
  • Fairness assessment challenge for datasets and semantic artefacts;
  • Enabling FAIR Signposting and RO-Crate for content/metadata discovery and consumption;
  • Implementing specifications of shared metadata descriptions of semantic artefacts and their catalogues;
  • Testing guidelines for creating a user-tailored EOSC-compliant Persistent Identifiers policy;
  • Applying FAIR-enabling guidelines for research software within EOSC;
  • Implementing components of a metadata schema designed to improve legal interoperability.

Eligibility Criteria

• #1: FAIRness assessment challenge
  • Data repository service providers (any level) and curators and/or developers of semantic artefacts and datasets.
• ​#2: Enabling FAIR Signposting and RO-Crate for content/metadata discovery and consumption
  • Applicants should be actively involved in the development, operation and/or management of repositories that host research objects, including, but not necessarily limited, to research data. Ideally, the group of participants should consist of about 50% technical developers and 50% information architects.
• This call is open to individuals, groups and organisations from public and private research-performing organisations, including:
• • • Research-performing organisations and research infrastructures;
    • Repositories, data and metadata service providers;
    • Representatives of national and international level initiatives.
    • Applicants must reside and/or work in an EU or Associated Country for the duration of the grant. A key aim for FAIR-IMPACT is to prioritise support for organisations, groups, and/or individuals based in countries or representing domains that are currently less advanced in terms of their FAIR enabling capacity.
    • The call is not open to individuals or groups based at any of the FAIR-IMPACT project partner organisations nor to individuals who hold the status of FAIR Champions under FAIR-IMPACT.

For more information, visit FAIR-IMPACT.