Research Data Management (RDM) is central to the implementation of the FAIR (Findable Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and Open Science principles. Recognising the importance of RDM, ELIXIR Platforms and Nodes have invested in RDM and launched various projects and initiatives to ensure good data management practices for scientific excellence. These projects have resulted in a rich set of tools and resources for FAIR data management.
However, these resources remain scattered across projects and ELIXIR structures, making their dissemination and application challenging. Therefore, it is important to coordinate these efforts for sustainable and harmonised RDM practices, with dedicated forums for RDM professionals to exchange knowledge and share resources.
Goals of the Community
The ELIXIR RDM Community will bring together RDM experts to develop ELIXIR’s vision and coordinate its activities in order to take advantage of the available RDM assets. It aims to coordinate RDM best practices and provide an overview of how to use the existing ELIXIR RDM services, in close collaboration with ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups.
The expected members of the Community are life science RDM professionals in academia and industry in ELIXIR and beyond.
The scope of the Community is:
- The network of RDM professionals across all Nodes (and beyond);
- The management of RDM knowledge and know-how in the form of the content of the ELIXIR RDM ecosystem;
- The management of the RDM training resources and expertise;
- Coordination of the interactions with external international stakeholders in the area of RDM.

The initial objectives of the RDM Community focus on sustaining and consolidating the outputs of previous initiatives and projects into a unified structure. This falls into four main areas:
People network
- Provide a forum that enables regular inter-personal knowledge exchange between life science RDM professionals.
- Facilitate ELIXIR Node capacity building in deploying RDM services, e.g. by establishing a knowledge handbook for RDM service providers, and developing an RDM services maturity model for ELIXIR Nodes.
RDM knowledge
- Coordinate and contribute to the RDM ecosystem content by collaborating with the editorial boards of RDMkit and FAIR Cookbook, to ensure that the content is continuously fit for purpose.
- Collect requirements that would facilitate flow of FAIR data from researchers to repositories (such as the ELIXIR Deposition Databases) via RDM services, in order to improve the FAIRness of research data made available for life science and society at large.
RDM training
- Provide a forum that enables knowledge, and teaching of best practices exchanges among RDM trainers.
- Ensure that RDM training materials are being developed and FAIRified, enabling reuse and adoption by the ELIXIR Nodes.
- Develop RDM learning paths for researchers, data stewards, tool developers and trainers.
External stakeholders
- Create and maintain an overview of external stakeholder engagements with RDM aspects across ELIXIR Platforms, Communities, Focus Groups and projects.




- Mailing list: rdm@elixir-europe.org or contact the co-leads at rdm-coleads@elixir-europe.org.
- Intranet group page
- Publications:
- D'Anna F, Jareborg N, Jetten M et al. A research data management (RDM) community for ELIXIR [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. F1000Research 2024, 13(ELIXIR):230 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.146301.1)