Focus Group: Data Spaces

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) invites members from the broader research community to participate in focus groups around key elements of the Canadian Research Data Platform: a seamless, interoperable, and researcher-friendly data ecosystem that supports the full research data lifecycle, including planning, active data management, discovery, preservation, and reuse. The Canadian Research Data Platform will address key service gaps, provide the data management layer that sits on top of the distributed storage grid, integrate Alliance national research data services, and provide interoperability mechanisms for community-led Data Spaces.

These focus groups will help the Alliance in its efforts to collaboratively plan and implement this cohesive national research data ecosystem by mapping out the different needs of stakeholders and identifying possible gaps and areas for improved alignment.

This focus group will help shape Data Spaces: community-governed environments that bring together standards, services, and infrastructure to enable ethical, secure, and interoperable sharing and reuse of research data. We will consider questions related to a number of higher-level themes, such as the role of organizations or communities in shaping governance, standards, or priorities for a data space, or what opportunities or challenges participants see for long-term stewardship, access, and collaboration.