Recommendations for Services in a FAIR Data Ecosystem

The development and growing adoption of the FAIR data principles and associated standards as a part of research policies and practices place novel demands on research data services. This article highlights common challenges and priorities and proposes a set of recommendations on how data infrastructures can evolve and collaborate to provide services that support the implementation of the FAIR data principles, in particular in the context of building the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The recommendations cover a broad area of topics, including certification, infrastructure components, stewardship, costs, rewards, collaboration, training, support, and data management. These recommendations were prioritized according to their perceived urgency by different stakeholder groups and associated with actions as well as suggested action owners. This article is the output of three workshops organized by the projects FAIRsFAIR, RDA Europe, OpenAIRE, EOSC-hub, and FREYA designed to explore, discuss, and formulate recommendations among stakeholders in the scientific community. While the results are a work-in-progress, the challenges and priorities outlined provide a detailed and unique overview of current issues seen as crucial by the community that can sharpen and improve the roadmap toward a FAIR data ecosystem.