LIBRARY

Join the EPFL data champions community

Research data generation, analysis, visualization or sharing greatly impact research projects. Join a cross-disciplinary community of data-enthusiastic researchers.

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Do your colleagues ask you tips on how to manage their research data? Would you like recognition for your help? Are you enthusiastic about data analysis, visualization or sharing also beyond your research? Do you wish for a bottom-up cultural shift in data management? Would you like to meet others that feel the same? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you should join the EPFL data champions community.

The EPFL Library is currently running the first EPFL data champions call, open to researchers and staff willing to share their experience, ideas and curiosity around research data practices, whatever the level of expertise in data science, research data management or data visualization.

What a data champion does? According to your personal availability and field, you will get a chance to: act as spokespersons in and for your faculty; advise researchers on data handling or redirect them to expert support on campus; endorse the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable) principles; promote or participate in training or events; develop or promote software and tools useful for research; participate to possible publications on research data management.

This voluntary engagement in a community means that you will invest only the time you think you might dedicate, no more, no less. An EPFL data champion is not expected to replace other professional roles (e.g. Ethics Committee, IT staff, data librarians, etc.), nor will be held responsible for the consequences of advices to researchers.

Join a bigger movement

EPFL is not the first institution to embark on such an initiative. At EPFL Library, we acknowledge the stimulating discussions with colleagues and fellow data champions at Cambridge University and TU Delft. EPFL Library is also a member of SPARC Europe, who runs similar initiatives focused on Open Access, connecting people from different countries. The EPFL data champion community is also a great occasion to create synergies, and share ideas and practices around research data beyond EPFL campus.

Still not convinced? As a reward for investing some of your time as a data champion, you might enjoy some benefits: increase your impact, by helping people and gaining visibility on a dedicated webpage; boost your CV with qualifying activities and transferable skills; receive news on career opportunities related to research data management; develop your professional network, by getting in touch with other data champions, researchers and fellows interested in research data handling at the EPFL and beyond; learn new skills, by attending or leading workshops on data science and research data management, enhancing presentation skills, or collaborating to the development or acquisition of data tools.

The EPFL data champions community is recognized by EPFL Research Vice Presidency and its functioning is supported by the Research Data Library Team. EPFL Library provides the financial support, while another institutional support comes from the EPFL Open Science Strategic Committee.

Francesco Varrato, EPFL Library research data team

> CONTACT: datachampions@epfl.ch

> MORE INFORMATION: go.epfl.ch/datachampions

> RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT AT EPFL LIBRARY: go.epfl.ch/rdm