Climbing the STAIRS—A Summit for Fostering Resilient Institutional Data Service Communities

Jake Carlson, Mikala Narlock

The need for research data services is expanding and evolving rapidly, particularly since the NIH data sharing requirement and the Nelson memo were released in 2022. Academic institutions of all sizes and specializations are increasingly challenged to meet the diverse needs of their researchers in managing, sharing, and preserving their research outputs. With this demand comes the potential for duplication of efforts, unsustainable service models, and individual burnout. In order to combat these intertwined challenges, there is a need to work within and across institutions. Stronger working relationships between stakeholder units such as the libraries, IT, offices of research, and research centers within the institution are essential to meet increasing demand for services and support. Similarly, cross-institutional efforts will be essential for addressing shared challenges together. As a first step in identifying potential collaborations, through support from the NIH, the Data Curation Network hosted the Summit for Academic Institutional Readiness in Data Sharing (STAIRS) to explore developing communities of practice internally (within an institution) and externally (across institutions). STAIRS brought more than 100 people from 32 different institutions to discuss: the current landscape of institutionally based data services and repositories, the current and emerging best practices, tools, and resources in data services, and creating connections and communities for institutional data service providers. This presentation will include an overview of the pre-summit survey results, which provided a snapshot of how libraries are working, or planning to work, with others across the institution. We will also explore the recurrent themes that emerged from discussions. Finally, we will present our recommendations as the organizers of STAIRS for developing and supporting resilient communities of institutional data service providers, both within the institution and across institutions. The development of community can help expand capacity and further protect individuals from the increasing demand of research data services.