Open science and data management: further information sessions to find out more

With the international scientific community becoming increasingly active and funding bodies intensifying their demands in the areas of data management, open science and software management, the Scientific Information Resources Center (CeRIS) and the Information Systems Department are holding several meetings to provide information and discuss these topical issues with you. This series will start with the "data meetings" and the information sessions on financial aspects.

Open science and data management: meeting the requirements of funding bodies – information sessions

The various bodies which provide funding for the projects carried out at the Institut Pasteur, such as the European Commission, the French National Research Agency (ANR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are imposing increasingly strict requirements in the area of open science:

- Depositing publications in an open archive

- Publishing articles in open access journals

- Drawing up a Data Management Plan

- Opening up or sharing data

Failure to comply with the open access and open data policies of funding bodies may incur heavy financial penalties.

To help you understand the requirements imposed by funding bodies and how to go about meeting them in practice, we invite you to attend one of the information sessions organized by the CeRIS and the Information Systems Department. These sessions will take place on April 4, 2019 from 2.30 to 4pm and April 12, 2019 from 2.30 to 4pm, in the Jules Bordet room (on the ground floor of the Elie Metchnikoff building). The presentations will be in French.

Teams are on hand to answer any questions you may have:

- For questions about open archives and open access publications: hal-pasteur@pasteur.fr

- For questions on data management: pgd@pasteur.fr

- For IT questions related to data: data-dsi@pasteur.fr

"Data meetings": a new event for Institut Pasteur staff

From FAIR principles and open science to Data Management Plans and Software Management Plans, funding bodies are stepping up their demands and the international scientific community is becoming increasingly active in the area of research data management. The Institut Pasteur is also affected by this topic. The Scientific Information Resources Center (CeRIS) and the Information Systems Department have begun to focus on the issue, launching a series of "data meetings" in January 2019.

The idea is to give scientists and engineers who handle scientific data on campus (data managers, bioinformaticians, biostatisticians, etc.) the opportunity to meet and discuss various topics related to research data.

The first "data meetings" were held on January 17, 23 and 29 and were attended by 36 people. The aims of the three sessions were as follows:

- To provide an overview of scientific data management: the data lifecycle, issues related to data management at the Institut Pasteur, challenges and benefits, the demands of funding bodies, etc.

- To present the Institut Pasteur's Data Management Plan template and show how it can be used in practice via the REDCap tool.

- To discuss data management practices and requirements in terms of information, training, support, etc.

These three sessions resulted in fruitful discussions, raising a number of questions and highlighting user expectations. For example, participants emphasized the importance of adopting recommendations or even obligations, so that the data management practices at the Institut Pasteur can be harmonized and/or clarified. Some participants in particular suggested that it would be a good idea to make it compulsory to deposit research data and software produced at the Institut Pasteur in a centralized storage space to make sure that the data can be used as effectively as possible.

Positive feedback on the Data Management Plan

Several funding bodies such as the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the European Commission now require a Data Management Plan (DMP) to be drawn up for every funded research project. This DMP, drawn up at the beginning of a project, facilitates data management procedures throughout the project.

Discussions between participants highlighted the potential of the DMP as a tool to help optimize data management and sharing. Publishing DMPs online would make it easier to identify potentially shareable data and boost the potential for collaboration within the Institut Pasteur.
DMPs can also help facilitate data security and management of the regulatory requirements governing any new data produced at the Institut Pasteur.
Scientists can now draw up a DMP based on the Institut Pasteur template using the REDCap tool. This tool enables scientists to collaborate with external partners and duplicate the DMP.

See the minutes of the January "data meetings"

More "data meetings" set to be held

The CeRIS and the Information Systems Department are planning to hold a further session in June on the topic of clinical data, involving several departments (the Center for Translational Science, the Legal Affairs Department, the Ethics Unit, the Information Systems Department, etc.). It will be open to the entire campus.

The CeRIS and the Information Systems Department are available to answer any questions you may have:

- For IT questions related to data: data-dsi@pasteur.fr

- For questions on data management: pgd@pasteur.fr

- For questions on REDCap: redcap@pasteur.fr

Please feel free to visit the CeRIS Webcampus page about managing research data.