FAIR-by-design upgrade strategy of an interdisciplinary research infrastructure for nanoscience
Creators: name: De Angelis, Dario
name: Modolo, Irene
name: Aversa, Rossella
name: Brandino, Giuseppe Piero
name: COZZINI, STEFANO
name: Lot, Ruggero
name: Panighel, Mirco
name: Recchia, Andrea
name: Rossi, Giorgio
name: AFRICH, CRISTINA
Publisher: name: Genoa University
Year: 2023

description: Presentazione su call tenuta alla GenOA Week 2023 nella sessione "Dati della ricerca come risorsa e bene comune"
Abstract degli autori:
"It is an acknowledged fact that modern scientific research requires more than just experimental instruments or theoretical models to efficiently improve the description of reality.
In the last few years, research activity is undergoing a major shift towards the exploration of the open data potential, and it increasingly focused to make research results available and reusable by the research community for broadening its discoveries. As the amount of produced data increases, there is a need to make the scientific research system more efficient and to accumulate data in line with the FAIR principles: Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability [1].
In the poster, we present the solutions adopted in the drafting of the research data management infrastructure of a distributed research infrastructure for nanoscience (NFFA). NFFA is a high priority PNIR Research Infrastructure of European interest. Since 2015 it operates as NFFA-Europe Research Infrastructure (www.nffa.eu) and since 2023 it is also supported by the PNRR project NFFA Digital Infrastructure (NFFA-DI), which will be operative for external users in 2024. NFFA provides combined access to resources for the synthesis and experimental and theoretical analysis of nanomaterials. It is the first research facility integrating nanofoundry laboratories (i.e. facilities for atomically controlled growth and structural characterisation of nano-objects and nano-structured materials) with Large-Scale Facilities that provide fine analysis of matter based on radiation sources and distributed theoretical tools, creating a unique and heterogeneous offer for the nanoscience community, in which research data is produced by more than 180 different experimental techniques.
In this framework, we designed strategies for the complete digitalization of the laboratories and for the digital tracing of the workflow concerning the condensed matter experiments. The main challenges we encountered in implementing an efficient workflow are related to the interpretation and application of the FAIR principles to the data generated in a wide and interdisciplinary project, due to their variety in size, complexity, format data and domain knowledge required. Moreover, the size of such complex datasets makes storing and preserving them not trivial. Along with the creation of Data Management Plan for the NFFA facilities, we designed conceptual schemes for the implementation of a data management and storage infrastructure that will be implemented in the near future.
Our work is intended to address the issues coming from the fact that more than ever, the ability to collect, share and retrieve FAIR data has become critical to perform state-ofthe-art studies.
[1] M.D. Wilkinson, M. Dumontier, I.J. Aalbersber et al., Scientific Data 3, 160018 (2016)."