The second session of the Training Data Stewards for Life Sciences course began with a brief catch-up and presentations of students’ completed Stage A projects, a core component of the course’s project-based learning approach. The session then covered key principles and national services related to the preservation, sharing, and reuse of research outputs.
Gil Oliveira presented on the sharing of non-sensitive data via Dataverse, followed by an overview of the Research Data Management strategy at FCT|FCCN, delivered by Filipa Pereira and Pedro Sobral, who also introduced the POLEN Repository, a national service supporting data preservation. The session concluded with Jorge Oliveira (INESC-ID | IST), who discussed the sharing of sensitive data using FEGA and Beacon.
The third session took place in person during the All Hands Meeting in Porto. The session opened with a presentation by Mijke Jetten (ELIXIR NL) on the professionalisation of data stewards, followed by discussions on core aspects of research data management, including the development of Data Management Plans (DMPs), FAIRness evaluation, DMP feedback provision, funder open science policies, and relevant institutional policies. The session concluded with students presenting their projects.
Attendance reflected a wide range of institutional affiliations, with participants from FCUL, CIIMAR, CCMAR, GiMM, INESC-ID/IST and University of Algarve. This diversity of institutions and scientific backgrounds highlights the broad relevance and growing interest in data stewardship across different life sciences domains.
Together, these sessions provide a structured and practical pathway towards the professionalisation of data stewards in life sciences research, contributing to national capacity building in open science and FAIR data management.
Second and third sessions of the Training Data Stewards for Life Sciences 2025 Course
