Hi Simon,

I think you raise a good point. It is very difficult to sustain activities on an international scale. The DCC currently cooperates in numerous international initiatives. Several are jointly funded - for instance we are partners in a JISC and IMLS funded project at the moment. However, these are generally short-term projects and it would be good to have some sort of sustained fund that supported international cooperation over the longer term. The new EC project sounds interesting. The DCC has been working to improve understanding and communication between researchers and other stakeholders in the research data lifecycle for the past seven years so this would be something we'd be keen to hear more about.

Perhaps more immediate to many of the researchers and research support staff we work with in the UK is the challenge of sustaining support and services at the institutional level. The JISC Managing Research Data (MRD) programme has made some excellent progress in embedding the results of short-term projects into institutional infrastructures and budgets. The next group of MRD projects due to start in October should progress things even further. 

I guess part of the problem is deciding where the financial support will have the greatest impact - locally, nationally or globally. There is probably a need for support at all levels. However, if more institutions were able to sustain their research data management, sharing and preservation infrastructures and support locally it might lead to a bottom up improvement on a global scale. 

Best regards,
Joy


-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Fenton-Jones [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 04 August 2011 01:00
To: Joy Davidson; [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; 'DCC Phase 3'
Subject: RE: [dcc-associates] News release: JISC support for MPs' peer-review report

Hi Joy,

I had the same kind of discussion with some Aussie MP's re this one a few
years ago. It boiled down to some people pointing out to MP's that it's a
bit "do we say, not do as we do". The most important researchers (it can be
argued) in any country are the ones who support Parliamentary inquiries.
After all , they decide where the public's money is spent.

A Parliament's researchers are not seen to collaborate in an inquiry. Each
does pretty similar things, separately. Each comes up with fairy similar
conclusions, separately. Each then goes off the fund pretty similar (ICT)
research inquiries, separately. Then it's left to the inquirers to
compensate for the obvious lacking in a parliament's perspective. We live in
a globalized world.

This National mindedness is enlarged to a European level, where an EC
parliament offer dobs of money, to existing professionally-minded consortia,
on a ritualized basis; the division of which is judged by "expert groups".
Many associations attempt to gather a consortia from their own profession.
The DDC do so in their member's attempts to improve the "management of Data"
as much as others, like terena, will do in their member's attempts to "share
data" in a "cloud". One will work on "open archives", the other will work on
"open storage" as if one was in no way related to the other.

I'm bring this up now as you may have noticed the EC attempting to improve
their "partner's search". http://tiny.cc/pwzk4 
The FP7 site is becoming participant centric.
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/whatisnew 
With a communication hub to come (they hope).
http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?lg=en&pg=forum 
At the core, they're starting to get their heads around the fact that if
"their" NCP's don't collaborate globally, then it's unlikely their fundees
will. 

So is there any chance you might like to focus on this call as well.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/fet_en.html
It's a bit more open. Now the real problem. Data/content managers and
Network operators don't talk the same language. One focuses on (Information)
Awareness; the other, (Communication) Collaboration. Never the twain doth
meet.

But there is talk at a EC project called Paradiso about "Platforms for
Awareness and Collaboration", so maybe there's a chance we can get the two
(well defended) professional kingdoms together.
Excuse the length. But you'd have to admit, it beats reading any National
MP's report. Just so irrelevant these days.

Question. How do you fund Global Groups (for the long term) instead of a
National Institutions?
Regards, simon


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joy Davidson
Sent: Tuesday, 2 August 2011 3:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; 'DCC
Phase 3'
Subject: [dcc-associates] News release: JISC support for MPs' peer-review
report

News release
1 August 2011

JISC support for MPs' peer-review report 
 
MPs recently recommended improvements to the way scientific papers are
checked before they are published, calling for the peer review process to be
more transparent.

Read the BBC article about the report
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14314501>

The recommendations came out of a House of Commons Science and Technology
Committee report which also urged that researchers make their scientific
data publicly available, and that reviewers have formal training.

Executive secretary at JISC, Dr Malcolm Read, said: "At JISC we strongly
support the recommendations of the House of Commons Committee report.
Though most researchers agree with the principles of peer review, many feel
there is room to improve how it is implemented.  Recently there have been
suggestions about alternatives, like open peer review and JISC has funded
universities to look into open access academic journals which are compiled
from other openly available material."

JISC is already acting on a number of the recommendations - including
funding the Dryad project mentioned in the report.  Dryad-UK provides a
repository for the data underpinning research articles, encouraging greater
research openness. The BMJ Open journal and titles from BioMedCentral and
PLoS have become partners, integrating their submission process with Dryad
and strongly encouraging authors to deposit research data. 

Neil Jacobs, programme director at JISC, said, "We are also engaged in
productive collaboration with innovative publishers such as PLoS, as well as
industry bodies, for example on standardising the way usage statistics for
articles are reported."

The government report describes access to data as 'fundamental' for
researchers to reproduce, verify and build on each others' results.  

This spirit of openness is something JISC supports, through its work with
the UK Research Councils.  

However, there are challenges, as JISC's programme manager for data
management Simon Hodson explains, "These objectives will be difficult to
realise unless research practice and supporting systems and infrastructures
are developed to make good practice easier.  Similarly, researchers will
feel little motivation to make data available in a timely way unless
conventions of recognition and reward evolve to encompass the effort
required to ensure data quality and reusability.  The JISC managing research
data programme is helping universities support researchers in responding to
these challenges."

ends

JISC's position on why becoming more open can benefit colleges and
universities <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/openaccess>

How can I better manage my research data?
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/supportingyourinstitution/researchexcellence/datamana
gement.aspx>

Advice on data management planning from the Digital Curation Centre
<http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-plans>

Follow the 'importance of good data management' event online in advance and
on the day (13 Sept 2011)
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2011/09/researchintegrity/conferenceonline.asp
x>