The National Conference Highlighted Milestones and Challenges on the Path to Effective Research Data Management

The EOSC CZ National Conference, titled “From Repositories to Repositories”, attracted over 200 participants – 113 onsite and nearly 100 online. The strong interest in the event confirmed the growing importance of research data management, open science, and the development of national and international data infrastructures.

The conference was opened by Luděk Matyska and Jan Hrušák, leading figures of the EOSC CZ initiative. Luděk Matyska emphasised the importance of proper data management:  “If you have data and don’t know how to manage it, then EOSC is just a fairy tale.” Jan Hrušák highlighted the importance of collaboration: “Extensive collaboration is key to realising EOSC. The Czech Republic is fully aligned with EU developments and is considered a model in many respects. Only through joint work at both the national and international levels can we create an environment that accelerates scientific discoveries and supports open science.” Matej Antol described the development of the Czech initiative in building the national repository and promoting FAIR data principles.

Petra Černohlávková from the National Technical Library presented the importance of libraries, library staff, and open science methodologies in the context of science and research and the EOSC initiative as a whole. She also called for more support for new professions, such as data stewards: “I evaluate the conference as successful and inspiring. For me, it was particularly valuable in confirming current trends and sharing practical experiences. The role of data stewards is crucial for libraries, and we need more funding and training for them.”

A foreign perspective was brought by Oliver Koepler, representative of the German initiative NFDI (National Research Data Infrastructure), who shared valuable experiences in building the national data infrastructure in Germany. His contribution emphasised the importance of sharing knowledge across countries and drawing inspiration from proven approaches.

The afternoon session focused on the National Repository Platform (NRP). Marek Cebecauer introduced the concept of the Data Driven Research (DDR) system and the automated metadata collection that aims to ease researchers’ work. Michal Růžička clarified the ecosystem of NRP services supporting all stages of the research data lifecycle.

Dagmar Hanzlíková and Pavlína Tassanyi presented the activities of the EOSC CZ Training Centre, including the preparation of the FAIR Handbook for Data Stewards, which will be published in 2025. They also announced the date and location of the upcoming EOSC Tripartite Conference, which will focus on connecting the Czech and European data infrastructures. The conference will take place in May 2025 in Brno.

The conference concluded with a panel discussion where invited experts discussed the future of open science and data support in the Czech Republic. The secretary of the EOSC CZ initiative, Michaela Capandová, moderated the entire conference and praised its interactive format: “The event was dynamic, with questions from the audience and the online Zoom platform contributing to an open discussion reflecting the current challenges and needs
of the expert community. I believe we managed to cover most of the important topics.”

The National Conference once again confirmed the significance of EOSC CZ and provided a space for sharing experiences and connecting the communities involved in the digitalization of science in the Czech Republic. “The event raised awareness of the benefits of open science across disciplines and outlined the prerequisites for developing a culture of openness, international collaboration, and better-equipping researchers with the tools and knowledge necessary for the effective adoption of these principles,” praised Manali Das, data steward at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.

For more information about the conference and EOSC CZ activities, please visit the initiative’s website.

EOSC CZ
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a European initiative aimed at developing an infrastructure
to support open science in the realm of research data management. As part of this broader European effort,
the EOSC-CZ project was established on a national level to oversee its implementation in the Czech Republic. The primary goal of EOSC CZ is to create a national version of this European initiative, promoting best practices in research data management across various scientific communities. The core ambition of EOSC CZ is the development of the National Data Infrastructure (NDI), a future platform for sharing, managing, and accessing data for research purposes. NDI aims to support scientific activities and multidisciplinary research encompassing a wide range of scientific fields and disciplines. Participation in supporting the EOSC initiative in the Czech Republic is open to everyone through the twelve EOSC CZ working groups.

NATIONAL REPOSITORY PLATFORM
The National Repository Platform (NRP) for research data will provide Czech researchers with a state-of-the-art environment for storing and managing scientific data through specialised data repositories and related services. The platform will assist the scientific community in preserving well-annotated data enriched with metadata that is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable in accordance with FAIR principles. By the end of 2025, a user capacity of approximately 18 petabytes will be available, with plans to expand to at least 50 PB by 2028. The data will be securely stored across multiple geographic locations.