Research Data Stewardship Community Launches!

UCL Advanced Research Computing (ARC) has recently established the Research Data Stewardship Community, which aims to bring together those working at UCL under the research data stewardship umbrella in a supportive and uplifting professional environment. In advance of this, both in-person and online launch events have been conducted to introduce the concept and shape the direction and aims of the initiative in the coming months. 

 What is research data stewardship? 

Research data stewardship is a broad term encompassing activities that deal with the handling, management, treatment, and safekeeping of data. In the research context, this includes a wide range of responsibilities across the research data life cycle, which encompasses the way data is generated and managed from inception to final use. Research data stewards support researchers in maximising the usability and value of their data. This support may include, ensuring robust data governance, collecting data, database development, cleaning, querying errors, preparing data for sharing, transforming data into new forms and providing safe data access. 

 The community and its purpose 

The online launch took place on the 31st of January 2025, following the in-person event in November 2024, and attracted participants from a wide array of departments and job positions across UCL. This spanned from data managers to researchers, in fields including architecture, clinical trials, energy security, social sciences, geography, medicine, epidemiology and beyond. Despite the variety of backgrounds, there were many areas of common ground. For instance, a sentiment that was shared among many attendees was a feeling of loneliness within their role, as often they have relatively specialised responsibilities with a unique designation or are working within a small team and have to learn on their own. Having a space to connect with others in similar positions would help to ease the sense of isolation, as well as establishing a network of expertise which could be easily drawn upon to tackle persistent problems encountered by others before. There were also many useful suggestions for regular social and professional events, to allow community members to share their work and interests, and network with other research data stewards across the university. 

Additionally, there was great interest in opportunities for specialised training and career development. A widespread concern amongst attendees was the lack of recognition for their skillset and contributions to the final research publication and impact. Attendees were enthusiastic towards the professionalisation of research data stewardship, which can help to raise awareness of the importance of the role within the university. Coming together as a community will also lay the foundations for collective advocacy and support for career progression. Tapping into the wealth of knowledge from members at different career stages can be an invaluable resource for new starters and can contribute to mentorship and the aggregation of quality training materials. Furthermore, many attendees echoed the point that forming a community provides the ability to enact broad changes and address both technical and non-technical challenges. 

Overall, the launch events fostered evident optimism towards the future of research data stewardship at UCL, and successfully brought forward several promising ideas for events, outreach, and communication. The attendees expressed great interest in using the community for knowledge sharing and both social and technical support, which will be integrated into both in-person sessions and regular online meetings, showcases and forums. 

Outlook 

For those looking to get involved in the community, please complete the Expression of Interest form to join, receive future mailings and updates. Additionally, a Teams site will soon be launched to act as an online platform to host the community. Here, you can meet other research data stewards from a diverse range of departments across the university, seek advice and share your own tips, and find out about upcoming events and initiatives. We would also welcome you to bring forward your own suggestions for the direction of the community and what you hope to gain from it. If you have any ideas for events that the community can run, please get in touch and we look forward to working with you all on this collaborative community. 

The webpage for the community contains further information about how to join: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/advanced-research-computing/research-data-stewardship-community