E-RIHS.nl: Working together on and with data

25 January 2022

E-RIHS is working hard to realise its ambition to develop a European infrastructure that provides access to international laboratory facilities, research data and a network of knowledge and expertise. Within the Dutch E-RIHS infrastructure, DANS contributes to the FAIRification of the Dutch data landscape using a needs analysis.

The research of DANS contributes to the formation of the E-RIHS.nl DIGILAB, a European virtual platform for working with and on data. What are the wishes and needs for finding, sharing, archiving and reusing data within this newly formed common, standardised and easily accessible network of data collections?

The cultural heritage sciences comprise a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from descriptive art historical information to technical or analytical big data. The data originate from different institutions such as museums, heritage institutions, universities, archives and natural science research facilities. To make these data FAIR, it is essential to develop a good digital environment that ensures that the data are “Findable”, “Accessible”, “Interoperable” and “Reusable”. Within E-RIHS.nl most partners have their infrastructure to share collection and research data. There are also (prospective) partners who are still in the process of building an infrastructure.

DIGILAB and FAIR

Therefore, the project “Samenwerken met en aan Data: DIGILAB en FAIR” was started in 2021 within E-RIHS.nl. In this project, DANS is working on an inventory of the current data infrastructures and types of data as well as an overview of the data management needs of the E-RIHS.nl partners. To obtain sufficient information, DANS has spoken with twelve E-RIHS.nl partners and a survey will be sent out in early 2022 to obtain information from a larger part of the landscape. This survey will be announced by DANS and E-RIHS.nl and is meant for all organisations and institutions in the Dutch heritage sciences.

RDM training

In 2022, DANS will provide training in the area of Research Data Management. This training will be deployed with partners of Research Data Netherlands (RDNL) and Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed (NDE) and is mainly aimed at (future) data stewards who will help with the FAIRification of the collection- and research data within the E-RIHS.nl partners, so that the partners can easily connect to DIGILAB.