Our next webinar is from The Scholarly Kitchen! “Building a Sustainable Research Infrastructure-What Comes Next?,” is happening Tuesday, April 21, at 11 am ET. Registration for the event remains open with a discount available for SSP members.
A strong and sustainable research infrastructure—the tools, services, and systems that support the research process—is vital. It speeds up the dissemination of research, helps ensure that it’s FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable), minimizes the risk of errors, and reduces the administrative burden on researchers and their organizations alike. How close are we to making this a reality? What improvements are needed? Who are—and will be—the key players? How much of the research infrastructure should be open, for whom, and why? This webinar will update you on the current state of the research infrastructure and take a look ahead to what needs to be done to ensure that it meets the future needs of all stakeholders across all disciplines and regions.
Alice Meadows (Director of Community Engagement, NISO) will moderate the event and is joined on the panel by Liz Allen (Director of Strategic Initiatives, F1000), Phill Jones (Owner, Principal Consultant, Double L Digital), Gabriela Mejias (Engagement Lead, Europe, ORCID), and Karin Wulf (Professor of History, College of William and Mary and Director, Omohundro Institute).
Alice took the time to answer questions about the event:
Who is the intended audience for this webinar and why should they attend?
Anyone who provides research infrastructure tools and services or uses them (basically anyone involved in scholarly publishing and communications!).
Why do you think this topic is important and timely?
To learn why a robust and sustainable research infrastructure is essential to scholarly communications from a variety of perspectives – researcher, publisher, IT, infrastructure provider, funder, etc.
Is there a particular topic you’re looking forward to seeing discussed?
I’m especially keen to include a discussion about the role of open infrastructure. What we mean by that, why it’s important, how we can ensure it’s sustainable, risks and opportunities.
What do the selected speakers bring to the discussion?
They represent several key stakeholder communities. Karin Wulf is a humanities scholar, publisher, and funder, as well as an ORCID board member. Liz Allen is a former funder, now publisher, also a former ORCID board member, now on the Crossref board. Gabi Mejias represents the persistent identifier/research infrastructure provider community (ORCID again – sorry!). Phill Jones is a former research scientist, turned product manager, turned research infrastructure expert who’s worked for publishers, funders, and tech startups. And I am a former publisher, now very much research infrastructure/scholarly communications focused. We are all passionate about the need for and value of a strong and sustainable – and open – infrastructure.
What can attendees expect from the webinar?
An informal discussion with relatively few slides rather than longer, more formal presentations. There will be lots of time for Q&A.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the webinar?
Hopefully a better understanding of why we need to continue to invest in and develop the research infrastructure and make sure it’s available to – and meets the needs of – all stakeholders, irrespective of geography, discipline, career stage, etc.
News contribution by SSP member, Heather Kotula. Heather is Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Access Innovations, Inc.
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