Interview with Dr. Johanna R. Bruckner, winner of the FAIR4Chem Award 2023.
“With the tools, which we have at hand nowadays, it is possible for everyone to store their data in a FAIR way.”
How did you get the idea to apply for the award?
Our group is a member of the collaborative research center 1333 (https://www.crc1333.de/), which places great value on sharing research data in a FAIR way. Thus, the CRC management informed all members about the call for applications for the Fair4Chem-Award. Since, I believe in the importance of FAIR data management and we had just published a suitable manuscript together with the according research data, it was natural for me to apply.
Have there been any difficulties in storing your data in a FAIR way?
There have been no major difficulties in storing our research data in a FAIR way. We had to put some thoughts into the denomination of the data files and had to duplicate some files in another format, which were not easily readable. Besides this, we simply had to upload the data to an appropriate repository. Thankfully, the University of Stuttgart provides the data repository DaRUS (https://darus.uni-stuttgart.de/), which is easy to work with and is supported by a great team.
Why do you store your data in a FAIR way? Do you think it is important to do so?
I believe that storing and sharing research data in a FAIR way is very important and becomes more and more important the more data is produced by the research community. This is due to several aspects:
- Openly accessible and understandable primary data underpins the meaningfulness and validity of the research.
- The data is available for the analysis of other aspects or meta-analysis.
- Researchers can spend their time with more important tasks than repeating experiments, which have already been performed by another group.
In the end, it is essential that we as a society move forward to solve the big challenges of our time. The best way to do this is by working together.
What would you say to a colleague who does not save their data in a FAIR way?
With the tools, which we have at hand nowadays, it is possible for everyone to store their data in a FAIR way. If you have nothing to hide, there is no reason not to do it.
Do you and your group use a data management plan?
We do not have an explicit data management plan. Nevertheless, there are certain rules, e.g. data associated to a publication needs to be stored on DaRUS and data, which has been produced as part of a thesis needs to be stored on a local server together with a clear description of the data files. However, as the size of our research group increases, so does the necessity to use an explicit data management plan. Thus, I believe it is something, which we need to address in the near future.
