BioData.pt hired the First Data Steward for Life Sciences in Portugal

In February 2022 the Portuguese Node of ELIXIR - BioData.pt hired the first Data Steward for Life Sciences in Portugal to carry out work at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. Carolina Ventura Costa supports researchers and advises them on handling their data according to FAIR and Open Science principles. The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência is a research and innovation multidisciplinary institute with 27 research groups and 9 support units that produce large amounts of data and are engaged with open science best principles. 

As part of her work, Carolina started by surveying requirements and issues on data management among research groups to further develop tailored measures, namely helpdesk support and guidelines on Electronic Laboratory Notebook, support on data management plans, and personalised consulting on research data management with research labs. Another responsibility focuses on filling the communication gaps between researchers and IT infrastructure, namely to increase awareness of how infrastructural services can support users’ needs, as well as provide training on the subject. 

Simultaneously with the aforementioned works, Carolina also participated in the “Ready for BioData Management?: Data Stewardship for Life Sciences” training program which aimed to train the first generation of Data Stewards for the Life Sciences at the Portuguese R&I organisations. Her work is underpinning the importance of having a Data Steward to support researchers and ultimately increase awareness among other R&I organisations regarding the current lack of human resources on data management. As part of this work, Carolina was one of the instructors of the new “Ready for BioData Management?: Day2Day Data Management Course” hosted by BioData.pt across four R&I institutions to help researchers on the day-to-day data management aspects of research activities.

Link to poster: https://zenodo.org/record/7186474#.Y2KPe3bP23A