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A total of about 250 interested researchers were welcomed at the two information events on the new Open Research Data guidelines of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) at the UZH Zentrum (in German) and at the Irchel campus (in English). Dr. Aysim Yilmaz (SNSF, Head of the Biology and Medicine Division) and Dr. Lionel Perini (SNSF, Humanities and Social Sciences Division) presented the new guidelines on Open Research Data for SNSF’s project funding, coming into effect by October 2017. Funding applications must then be handed in together with a Data Management Plan (DMP). In a DMP researchers outline what data they will collect or generate, how they will handle the data during the whole life cycle, and how they will publish and preserve the data. Additionally, the SNSF expects that the research data generated by the funded project will be published and become freely accessible whenever possible. It was emphasized that the SNSF wants to initiate a bottom-up process with the new guidelines and in particular for their implementation. This means for example that the research communities themselves can define which research data need to be published. The aim is to ensure the highest impact, transparency and reproducibility of the research results.

In the subsequent plenary discussion, many questions and some critical comments revealed that there are still some inherent issues and challenges regarding the new SNSF guidelines. In particular, concerns were raised regarding the publication of research data and the associated loss of the edge of knowledge and data ownership. Furthermore, there is still some uncertainty as to whether primary (or raw) data or secondary data should be published and how to deal with proprietary data formats. These are questions that the respective research communities will have to deal with in the future. The SNSF is willing to finance supporting workshops.

The information event was organized by the Data Pilot Project of the University of Zurich (www.data.uzh.ch). The Data Pilot Project is currently preparing a concept for the consolidation of local research data management services and infrastructures at the UZH. The project is able to provide support for questions about data management plans or research data management in general until the end of the project period (December 2017). Contact: http://www.data.uzh.ch/de/data-pilotprojekt/ueber_uns.html

Recording in German: https://tube.switch.ch/videos/878c0935SNSF presentation (slides): http://www.data.uzh.ch/de/data-pilotprojekt/veranstaltungen.html