The 14th January saw around 150 people convene in a virtual setting, for a one day Royce Workshop Data Management For Materials Researchers
The Workshop had a number of key objectives:
- To bring together the wider community to discuss the importance of data acquisition, storage, analysis and sharing in materials science context
- To promote the sharing of examples of good practice between attendees
- To begin to formulate a list of requirements/actions for the community to enable better data management practices.
The event was introduced by Ed Pickering, Royce Research Area Lead for Advanced Metals Processing (AMP), followed by Co-Chairs Chris Race and João Fonseca, who outlined the present challenges in the area, and the aims and structure of the workshop. The day was supported by Kathy Christofidou, Doyin Mansell and Ed Pickering acting as Moderators.
Discussions went on to focus on a number of important strategic areas including: Why should data management be important to materials science researchers? What should they capture? And how should they be stored?
Examples of good practice were shared after the lunch break, with speakers going on to explore how we should store our research data – and indeed, when should we delete them? The event concluded with discussions around: should all data be shared, and if so, when and where? And what cultural changes are needed to facilitate our data management ambitions?
Commenting on the event, Ed Pickering said:
“We were delighted to see so many from the advanced materials community coming together to understand more and to discuss this pressing area, which is of increasing importance to materials researchers”.
“The next step is to produce a summary of the main discussion points and a list of actions for the community to consider in order to improve our data management practices; this may include actions for researchers, academic supervisors, institutions, and funding bodies. We look forward to moving the dial on this important dimension of our work.”
A huge thanks go to all the speakers who made the day possible including Andrew Stewart, Richard Broadbent, Ben Thomas, Joe Kelleher, Adam Plowman, Tim Dodwell, Chris Race, James Kermode, Alice Pyne, Bill Ayres, Norman Paton and Sandra Korte-Kerzel. Many thanks to Poppy Robinson and Emmanuel Adebayo for assistance in setting up the event.
