NFDI4Earth Fairness and Openness Commitment

Deliverable D4.2.1 NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment NFDI4Earth Consortium ([email protected]) 2024-09 | Version: 1.0 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10123880 nfdi4earth.de Citation NFDI4Earth Consortium. 2024. NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment (NFDI4Earth Deliverable D4.2.1). NFDI4Earth Community on Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1 0123880 Acknowledgement This work has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project NFDI4Earth (DFG project no. 460036893, https://www.nfdi4earth.de/) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/). NFDI4Earth D4.2.1 Executive summary NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment is developed and promoted as the common vision of NFDI4Earth. The commitment is deposited at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1 0123880, published online at https://nfdi4earth.de/commitment, and can be signed at http://nfdi4earth.de/commit by organisations, institutions, and individuals who are part of or related to NFDI4Earth. The NFDI4Earth website for the NFDI4Earth Commitment provides background information and guidance for different stakeholders. More information and background on the NFDI4Earth measure M4.2 on Cultural Change can be found at https://nfdi4earth.de/2coordinate/cultural-change. This documented was approved by the NFDI4Earth Steering Group on September 6, 2024. NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment (D4.2.1) Preamble Science advances when knowledge is openly shared. In response to the growing geo-societal challenges of our planet, and in light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, trustworthy research practices require the open sharing of well-documented data and their provenance in an ethical manner. This requires a cultural and systemic change that evolves current practices and that promotes solutions for data sharing and improvements of incentives within and beyond the Earth System Sciences. Only by working together as a community can this happen. At its core, Earth System Sciences aims to unravel the complex processes that drive the Earth as a dynamic system. This includes the fluxes of matter and energy in the five main spheres - the geosphere, hydrosphere (including the cryosphere), atmosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere (cf. Leopoldina’s report Earth System Science: Discovery, Diagnosis, and Solutions in Times of Global Change). Data acquisition, simulation, integration, and analysis are crucial to understanding these complex processes. The Earth System Sciences community already embraces many Open Science practices, including making its manifold types of research outputs findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable for humans and machines (as stated in the The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship). Equal priority should be given to data management and analysis tools that enable data-driven methods. Efficient and effective use of research outputs, facilities, and funding, as well as appropriate reward systems and recognition of all research activities are equally important parts of Earth System Sciences data activities. NFDI4Earth - the consortium for the Earth System Sciences within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) - aims to become a central facilitator for research data management in the German Earth System Sciences community, enabling more intensive and widespread open knowledge sharing. The mission of NFDI4Earth is to provide easy, efficient, open and, as far as possible, unrestricted and standardised access to all relevant Earth system data, scientific data management and data analysis services, and to ensure sustainable and quality-assured research data management infrastructures. This commitment will help to engage the NFDI4Earth community in shaping, promoting, and implementing the NFDI4Earth agenda. In the longer term, the results of this work will also help to drive the much needed change in the way research is evaluated, as expressed in the DORA and CoARA declarations. NFDI4Earth invites institutions and individual researchers, laboratories, infrastructure providers, publishers, academic societies, government agencies, administrations, industry, funders, and research organisations to sign the following statement of commitment and become ambassadors for change towards more FAIR and Open data practices in Earth System Sciences. To support this shift, the NFDI4Earth website provides background information and guidance for different stakeholders. Sign the Commitment at http://nfdi4earth.de/commit. 1 NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment (D4.2.1) The NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment Signatories of the NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment pledge to support NFDI4Earth’s mission, products, and services. The signature of members and/or representatives of the Earth System Sciences community is a public signal of agreement with the goals and values of the Commitment. By collectively supporting the Commitment, the signatories realise NFDI4Earth as a community of practice, taking into account the full range of expertise and all relevant user groups of Earth System Sciences for a sustainable shift towards more FAIR and Open Research. As signatories: We commit to advance FAIRness and Openness in Earth System Sciences. 1. Commit to the mission of NFDI in bringing together research communities to provide data for the common good, and the recognition of the role of NFDI4Earth as a facilitator of sustainable and collaboratively developed solutions in Earth System Sciences. 2. Support and uphold, where appropriate and possible, the principles and values outlined in existing Open Science declarations and statements. 3. Be familiar with relevant data laws and acts, especially those related to geospatial data, in both national and European jurisdictions. These laws facilitate data sharing at both national and international levels. 4. Give credit to all sources underlying our research findings and, whenever possible, credit is given through proper citations. 5. Choose to publish Earth System Sciences data in Earth System Sciences domain repositories and other suitable research infrastructures that meet all four aspects of FAIR principles and consider the specific characteristics of Earth System Sciences data. 6. Strengthen FAIR and Open Data practices by supporting educational networks, robust training programmes, and the production of educational materials that promote transparency and accessibility of research outputs. 7. Adopt Data Management Plans as important tools for all research projects. These plans are invaluable for strategically planning data documentation, publication, and collaboratively monitoring data management activities. We seek and consider expert curation and guidance for them. 8. Where possible, use open and permissive data and software licences that legally enable the envisioned free and open sharing of Earth System Sciences data. 9. Support and align scientific work with governing bodies and organisations that advance the underlying causes of this commitment. 2 NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment (D4.2.1) We value data infrastructures and data experts. 10. Recognise the vital role that Earth System Sciences domain repositories and their curation services play in achieving and preserving the highest possible FAIRness and Openness in the Earth System Sciences. As researchers, institutions, and funding agencies, we endeavour to ensure the sustainability of these repositories and other relevant research infrastructures. 11. Collaborate with data curators and repository managers and leverage their expertise to make Earth System Sciences research outputs transparent, machine-readable, interoperable, and re-usable in the long term. They use diverse approaches, such as the NFDI4Earth Label, to document and advance interoperability across data repositories. 12. Adhere to and contribute to international standards for harmonising Earth System Sciences data, metadata, data quality, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Support their implementation and development across research infrastructures, as this is crucial for effective interdisciplinary research and advancements in novel analysis methods such as Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning (AI & ML). Acknowledgements This work has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project NFDI4Earth (TA4 M4.2, DFG project no. 460036893, https://www.nfdi4earth.de/) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/). We thank all contributors from the NFDI4Earth community and beyond for their questions, feedback, edits, and their inspirational work that this commitment is grounded on. People who have agreed are listed in alphabetical order on the website and as contributors on the Zenodo record using CRediT. However, we extend our sincere thanks to all unnamed contributors for their inputs, be they small, indirect, or given in passing, from the NFDI4Earth community and beyond, especially the members of the NFDI4Earth steering group and the participants of the in-person workshop “Towards a Cultural Change in ESS RDM Workshop” at the 3rd NFDI4Earth Plenary in Dresden in May 2024. 3