Registration open for May workshops on hard-to-share data in the social sciences and humanities

The first workshop on 8 May focuses on ‘The Ethics of Sharing Fieldwork Data and the CARE Principles’. Participants will visit Erasmus University’s International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and learn about the CARE principles and give their input on possible pathways to their implementation in the context of Ethics Review processes in Dutch Universities.

On 26 May, in Leiden there is a workshop on ‘Sharing Field Notes’, where participants will dive into the reasons why field notes are often not shared, and the pros and cons of sharing fieldwork data, and how to share them – with case studies from various disciplines within the social sciences and humanities.

The workshops are aimed at early-career researchers (e.g. PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, Lecturers, Assistant Professors) in the social sciences and humanities. The language of instruction for both workshops will be English, although we will be happy to facilitate conversations and audience questions in Dutch.

The workshops are complementary, but we also invite you to sign up if you can only attend one single workshop only. These workshops are part of a series organised by the project ‘Beyond personal data: a new initiative to support early-career researchers with hard-to-share data’ financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) via the Thematic Digital Competence Centre Social Sciences & Humanities (TDCC-SSH). You can find out more about this project here.

The Ethics of Sharing Fieldwork Data and the CARE Principles

Date and Time: 8th May 2025, 13.15-17.00 with refreshments available during the mid-way break.
Location: International Institute of Social Studies [Aula B], Kortenaerkade 12, Den Haag

About the Workshop

The CARE Principles are a framework for the governance of data collected in indigenous communities worldwide. These principles – Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics – serve as high-level guidelines that can be adapted and implemented to respect the unique contexts and needs of particular indigenous communities. At the same time, CARE principles also feed into broader conversations about the governance and sharing of data collected in wide-ranging fieldwork contexts. 

Researchers and research data repositories around the world have made efforts to align their practices with the CARE Principles. In this workshop, we will examine how the Ethics processes at Dutch universities facilitate the implementation of the CARE principles and how it can be further aligned. 

The workshop is designed to be both informative and interactive. In the first part, participants will explore how the CARE principles relate to participatory research, gain insight into how the Ethics Review process addresses CARE elements, and learn about the legal frameworks Dutch research institutions use for data governance and sharing.

The second part invites participants to actively engage in working groups guided by experienced researchers from the International Institute of Social Studies. Together, they will dive into three CARE dimensions—Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, and Responsibility—through discussion and hands-on exploration. 

The session will conclude with an invitation to storytelling, where participants can share their own fieldwork experiences and learn from each other. 

The session is highly interactive and encourages participants to suggest viable pathways to address these elements in their own research contexts. As such, while mainly focused on the Dutch Higher Education sector, this training format is likely to benefit users in other EEA countries or further abroad.

More details and registration are here.

Sharing Field Notes

Date and Time: 26th May 2025, 13.15-17.00, with lunch available from 12.15 onwards
Location: Leiden University, Digital Lab 

About the Workshop

Field notes are the ‘raw data’ and/or essential contextualisation of data of several types of qualitative research in social sciences and humanities disciplines like archaeology, sociology, and cultural anthropology. They can vary from handwritten, completely unstructured text in a notebook, to manually or digitally filled out forms. What they have in common is that they form the context to interpret the original data (and in some cases they are the original data themselves). As such they are essential for research integrity and the verification of results. However, they are not often shared for various reasons. 

In this workshop we will dive into these reasons and the pros and cons of sharing fieldwork data, and how to share them. Through case studies from various disciplines within the social sciences and humanities and input from trainers and participants we aim to establish best practices. We will cover the following topics: Why share (or not share) field notes, which notes could be shared (and which not), how to share them (e.g., in what format, on which platform), what metadata are needed for them to be understood. 

More details and registration are here.

Questions about the workshops?

Questions about both workshops can be sent to Research Data Management Specialist Michelle van den Berk by e-mail.