BioMedData Deliverable D2.1 - Report on data management plan needs/gaps

The BioMedData project was established in 2020 to connect the largest research infrastructures within the Life Sciences in Norway with the scope of improving their data management practices, aiming at the production of findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data. This report marks the conclusion of the first phase within the project, aimed at assessing the data management routines at these infrastructures and the gap with respect to the FAIR data principles. This study is supported by a questionnaire, compiled by all the infrastructures involved, covering international requirements (Science Europe, Horizon2020) as well as the FAIR data principles. The investigation revealed a lack of internationally recognised metadata standards and repositories within specific domains. In other cases, the international metadata standards lack attributes representing provenance information of steps prior to data generation. On top of this, the main responsibility for data management implementation is found to often lie with individual researchers and not infrastructures. A more systematic organisation of data management duties and associated budgeting by the research projects would allow the infrastructures to operate a cost recovering support model.