EUDAT - A Pan-European Perspective on Data Management

Data management planning - thinking in advance about what will happen to data produced during the research process - is increasingly required by national research funding agencies, and data management guidelines for Horizon 2020 research projects were released by the EU in December 2013 (Guidelines on Data Management in Horizon 2020). Similar guidelines have been issued by the US Department of Energy (Statement on Digital Data Management), Australia (ANDS Data Management Plans) and across many other countries. The EUDAT project exists in part to disseminate and promote best practice in data management for twenty-first century research, and to provide support for communities in adopting basic principles such as data registration, metadata creation and data movement. As part of its mission to help researchers and research communities manage and preserve their data, EUDAT works with the world-recognised Digital Curation Centre on a version of their widely-used DMPonline tool which will capture the H2020 guidelines in a data management planning tool tailored to the emerging needs of European research. EUDAT's is building a Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI) as a pan-European solution to the challenge of data proliferation and associated management in Europe's scientific and research communities. The CDI will allow researchers to share data within and between communities and enable them to carry out their research effectively. Our mission is to provide a solution that will be affordable, trustworthy, robust, persistent, open and easy to use.