Originally initiated at the end of 2020, the RDM expert community meetings facilitate regular and informal knowledge sharing among colleagues in the RDM field. We are now evolving into the Research Data @ UM community. The target audience is broader but the core objective remains: fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration among RDM enthusiasts from UM and MUMC+. Regardless of your role, if you are interested in the meeting’s topic, you are welcome to join. Our last meeting on 11 June featured a diverse audience from different faculties and roles.

We will host three meetings annually to explore and discuss current hot topics in the RDM landscape. At our most recent meeting, we were fortunate to welcome Marta Teperek, program leader for FAIR data at Open Science NL at NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk onderzoek). Marta gave an engaging presentation on the role of funders in driving cultural change toward Open Science becoming the norm. Funders play an important role by influencing all five elements necessary for cultural change: infrastructure, experience, communities, incentives, and policy. Through various examples, Marta illustrated how NWO takes a leading role in fostering the implementation of Open Science. Nevertheless, cultural change also comes with challenges such as finding the right people for data steward positions, measuring progress, and evaluating data reuse, sparking a lively discussion among the meeting’s participants.

We are planning our next meeting for the fall 2024. The next meeting will focus on the theme of ethics. If you would like to stay informed about upcoming community meetings, sign up for the research support update or let us know via rdm-services@maastrichtuniversity.nl so that we can add you to the mailing list.