New features in open access and FAIR data management

The Swedish Research Council already recommends that research data financed via public funds should be published openly accessible on the internet within a reasonable time after the research results have been published. This applies to data that applicable legislation allows to be made accessible. This recommendation has now been supplemented with a recommendation that data produced in research should be managed according to the FAIR principles. This means that they should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reuseable.

The application of the FAIR principles relate in the first instance to data produced in research financed via public funds, that can be published with open access. But the application can be made broader than this, and be used also for research data that cannot be published entirely openly.

See the Swedish Research Council’s recommendation on open access and data management according to FAIR

Criteria and guidelines will facilitate the work with FAIR research data

The Swedish Research Council has produced both criteria and guidelines to support the achievement of FAIR research data. The FAIR criteria are intended to increase the understanding and knowledge of what the FAIR principles mean in practice. They can be used by researchers, research funding bodies, or for strategic decisions when implementing FAIR in the policies of organisations.

Criteria for FAIR research data

The guidelines provide a more detailed description of the criteria, and are a tool for all who support researchers in planning data management, in particular the support functions for data management at higher education institutions and infrastructures, where adaptation to FAIR data management and practical implementation of the FAIR principles are often done.

Guidelines for implementation of criteria for FAIR research data (in Swedish)

Updated mandate

The Swedish Research Council’s mandate to coordinate the national work of implementing open access to research data was updated in April 2021. The addition means that we shall now also promote the work and implement mapping, assessment, and analysis of the work nationally. We published an interim report on the mandate in October 2021, which described the initiatives we had completed to date, and the state of open access to research data in Sweden and in Europe.

As part of our work on promoting open access, we are conducting several webinars during 2021/2022, focusing on the management of research data for open access in different scientific fields. The series began with a webinar in June 2021. This discussed how open access is managed at research infrastructures. Future webinars will be advertised here on vr.se.

Interim report on the coordination mandate on open access to research data (in Swedish with summary in English)