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.