FAIRiness

Towards harmonised and FAIR-compliant data practices across Lasers4EU

Effective data management is essential to ensure compliance with the FAIR principles. This is, making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. However, the diversity of the Lasers4EU partners presents a significant challenge to implementing a unified data management approach.

The objective of the “FAIRiness” work package is to provide concrete support to the partners in their individual transitions toward FAIR-compliant access data management. This objective is based on two main pillars:

FAIR Network 

Under the coordination of EPFL

The role of the network is:
(i) collect Data Management Plans (DMPs) and access policies currently in place at Lasers4EU partners or provided by funding bodies, and
(ii) analyse these documents to identify common features relevant to access experiments and essential for ensuring data accessibility and portability across the multi-instrument access route.
iii) develop a unified Lasers4EU access DMP template based on these common features. This template will be tested through its implementation in curiosity-driven joint experiments and adjusted as needed based on practical feedback and real-world usage.

 

p

FAIR Helpdesk

Under coordination of HZDR

The FAIR Helpdesk supports access providers in tailoring the Lasers4EU access DMP template to the specific needs of their user experiments and offers guidance on selecting the most suitable and currently available metadata formats.

While the Helpdesk is available as a contact point its purpose is to serve as an informational resource rather than a dedicated support service. We encourage users and partners to explore the growing collection of materials provided on the website.

Please contact us at datafairness@lasers4.eu 

Learn more

t

Why FAIR?

Every Horizon Europe project is mandated by the European Commission to manage digital research data in accordance with the FAIR principles.

Metadata must adhere to FAIR principles and be made available under a CC0 licence. However, data may remain closed if there is a valid justification—such as commercial sensitivity, data protection and privacy regulations, or security considerations.

 

i

DMP

Lasers4EU DMP is a “living” document that specifies how research data should be managed during the project and after its completion.

It defines actions and strategies to ensure that research data are high-quality, secure, sustainable, and, wherever possible, accessible and reusable.

Data Usage & Re-use

Research data must be thoroughly documented to ensure transparency, reproducibility, and reusability. This includes comprehensive README files, detailed metadata, and information on data provenance (i.e., how and where the data was generated or collected). Descriptions of the tools, software, and instruments used in the data collection and analysis processes should also be provided, along with any necessary configuration details to enable others to reproduce the results.

Furthermore, a clear data usage license must be specified to inform others of their rights regarding the data. Recommended licenses include CC BY 4.0 or CC0.

Repositories

Researchers have to deposit (meta)data as soon as possible after production/ generation or after processing and quality controls. 

Data has to be deposited in a trusted repository and made openly available as early as possible, in accordance with the principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.”