4TU.ResearchData at IDCC2025

Members of the 4TU.ResearchData team participated in the 19th International Digital Curation Conference in the Hague on 17-19 February 2025. Our colleagues contributed with lightning talks and poster presentations on the conference theme of “Twenty years back, twenty years forward: lessons and directions in digital curation.” IDCC25 emphasised lessons learned and recommendations on how to progress, and invited participants to take a generational perspective on the past, present and future of digital curation.

Over the years, 4TU.ResearchData has established a strong relationship with the Digital Curation Centre and the IDCC, including contributions to past conferences, collaborations and sharing of best practices. This year, the keynote speaker Marta Teperek from Open Science NL highlighted the progress made in FAIR data and open science in the Netherlands and beyond. 4TU.ResearchData actively participates in such developments, including through its repository infrastructure enabling FAIR data and software and by helping to build capacity and expertise in data stewardship. 

Here is how our team contributed to the IDCC25 conference:

Lightning talks:

• Celebrating 15 Years of 4TU.ResearchData; by Daniel Bangert and Madeleine de Smaele https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14882924
• Meeting Domain-Specific Requirements with the 4TU.ResearchData Repository; by Madeleine de Smaele, Roel Janssen, Daniel Bangert and Jan van der Heul https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14856604
• European Perspectives on Training Data Stewards; by Nida van Leersum and Saba Sharma https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14929461
• FAIR Principles Implementation in ML/AI – Findings from Skills4EOSC Delphi Study; by Elda Osmenaj and Curtis J M Sharma https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14932517

Poster presentations:

• Thematic Digital Competence Centers: Strengthening Digital Competences Across Dutch Research Domains; by Nicole Emmenegger, Nils Arlinghaus, Layan Nijem, Celia van Gelder, Kimberley Zwiers, Fieke Schoots, Joanne Yeomans, Lena Karvovskaya, Errol Neo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14773494
• A Decade of Data Supporters Training: RDNL as a Future Proof Partnership; by Madeleine de Smaele, Fieke Schoots, Marjan Grootveld, Celia van Gelder, Maithili Kalamkarstan, Michelle van den Berk and Ingrid Dillo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14773482

Workshop participation:

• Open Science in Action: Building Skills, Crafting FAIR Resources, and Recognizing Achievement; by Skills4EOSC. In this workshop, various Skills4EOSC training programmes and resources were tested by participants and work packages and task leaders from the project were present to facilitate the activities. 4TU.ResearchData is a partner in the Skills4EOSC project. 

It was an interesting and theme-packed conference, and many speakers took the opportunity to reflect on the history and development of the field and look ahead to future challenges, for example regarding FAIR data, data reuse, reproducibility and artificial intelligence. 

Some of the key takeaways for us resonate with the speaker’s presentations, such as the need to support and facilitate community involvement in all our objectives and future development of the 4TU.ResearchData infrastructure. During the conference, our director Daniel Bangert looked back on our 15 year history (a big milestone!) and summarised key developments and future aims for 4TU.ResearchData. We will formally celebrate this important moment during a mini-conference on Open and FAIR in NES, held on 22-23 May in Utrecht.

We’re grateful for the conversations and we look forward to continuing to contribute to these critical discussions in the field of digital curation and research data management.