In a hybrid meeting on July 31, the organizations will launch the nucleus that intends to present a governance model for institutional repositories of research data, which will be part of the Brazilian Network of Digital Repositories (RBRD) 

The National Research and Education Network (RNP) and the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (Ibict) will launch the Research Data Center (NDP), which will be part of the Brazilian Network of Digital Repositories (RBRD), on July 31, at 4 pm. The launch event will be broadcast in the Open Science room of ConferênciaWeb. 

The NDP presents a governance model to be tested to boost digital repositories of research data in the RBRD, coordinating regional actions to promote and encourage the implementation of open access research data repositories in Brazilian teaching and research institutions. The operationalization of the activities will be supported by a Steering Committee, formed by the five regional coordinators and a national coordinator, in addition to representatives from Ibict, RNP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). 

The planning and formalization of the initiative has been underway since 2017, and is the result of a Technical Cooperation Agreement (ACT) signed in 2023 between RNP, Ibict and CNPq to promote actions for the Open Science in Brazil. 

For Bianca Amaro, RBRD Coordinator, the creation of the NDP, within the scope of RBRD, is very important, since it will be a way to boost and assist Brazilian institutions in implementing their research data repositories.

The importance of the National Consortium for Open Science (CoNCienciA)

In 2021, CNPq joins the RNP and Ibict partnership through a new agreement with the aim of strengthening the recently created National Consortium for Open Science (CoNCienciA). 

CoNCienciA represents a notable boost to the practice of Open Science in Brazil and demonstrates the alignment of CNPq and the other founding members of the consortium, Ibict, Fiocruz, Embrapa and CBPF, with international practices of scientific collaboration and democratization of science. Its main objective is to encourage open repositories of research data by assigning persistent identifiers, with international acceptance and visibility to datasets. 

Today, CoNCienciA is growing both with new institutions joining the consortium, with their respective research data repositories, and with the increase in the number of DOI assignments through the repositories already participating. “In this way, we hope that the NDP will better prepare institutions to join CoNCienciA, as well as provide training to gain institutional maturity in the opening of research data”, explains RNP’s deputy director of e-Science, Leandro Ciuffo.

How the NDP will function 

As the Research Data Center (NDP) is a subgroup of the RBRD, it was decided to maintain its fundamental organization, composed of five regional coordinations, representing the geographic regions of Brazil.

The NDP will coordinate regional actions to open up research data in institutional repositories, with the support of a Steering Committee, formed by the five regional coordinators, in addition to Ibict, RNP and CNPq, and by a national NDP coordinator. This national coordinator will monitor the activities in each of the regional sub-networks, which should propose a work plan appropriate to the maturity of the institutions in their region in the face of the challenge of open access to research data. 

Each sub-network will have the support of a fellow to carry out the expected actions. Both the national coordinator and the regional fellows had their performance profiles defined by RBRD in a collective and consensual manner.

“It is expected that each region will be able to expand the network of data repositories with at least 3 institutional repositories with 3 different datasets. This is the goal for the second half of 2024”, says RNP’s R&D coordinator, Carolina Felicíssimo. 

Institutions interested in participating in NDP meetings can express their interest to the RBRD coordination at this link.