TF-RED All-hands VC meeting 24th of March 2020, 11 30 – 13 30 CET.


Agenda for the meeting:


  1. Updates
  2. New SC structure
  3. Strategy document
  4. Community feedback


Attendees (14)

Chris Atherton (GÉANT)

Juraj Bilic (CARNet)
Carina Kemp (AARNET)

Sylvia Kuijpers (SURF)
Olga Popcova (RENAM)
Raman Ganguly (University of Vienna / RDA)

Alex Reid (University of Western Australia)
Koen Schelkens (Belnet)

Enzo Capone (GÉANT)
Radovan Igliar (CESNET) 

Ann Harding (SWITCH)

Tim Chown (Jisc)

Tania Altamariano (RedClara)

Dave Mifsud (University of Malta)


Notes

Presentation link: https://geant.box.com/s/7ph4xmmnbdrzb4a4uf638duy6nu0r10x 

Chris presented an update on the state of the task force, where the task force had been since the last TF-RED meeting at TNC in Tallinn back in June 2019.  Chris reported that the steering committee has been refreshed and a new temporary chair selected for the next 12 months.

The new Chair is Chris Atherton (GÉANT)

The new steering committee members are:

  • Carina Kemp (AARNET)
  • Sylvia Kuijpers (SURF)
  • Olga Popcova (RENAM)
  • Meoli Kashorda (KENET)

They will be supported by Juraj Bilic from CARNet as the task force coordinator 

Since the last TF-RED all hands the steering committee has met twice.  In that time (since January), they have put together a new strategy document for the task force.  The strategy document can be accessed here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n4FIIkI8S-BsnlpYHRpjWzAeB5m-6g42W7a7-dY3wSY/edit?usp=sharing 

The vales of the task force were presented:

  • Innovation
  • Increased User uptake
  • Collaboration
  • Competence
  • Community
  • Trust


The vision for the task force was presented:

TF-RED formalises existing collaborations of NRENs and other research infrastructures from around the world, to provide an open forum for all those interested, to work together, to develop methods for engaging researchers and collaborations nationally and internationally.  The scope of the task force focuses on collaboration between the participating NRENs/research infrastructures, who then work within their own countries to engage their research support offices and collaborations. The TF intends to develop a framework for research engagement amongst the participating NREN community, and other research infrastructures.  The other ambition is to assist NRENs/Research infrastructures to develop their own form of research engagement, which will benefit the various research domains across Europe (and beyond). The task force will also focus on strengthening the communication, information flow and collaboration between the members of the task force.


NRENs globally need to continually innovate and provide value to their members and users, so as to retain and grow their membership. While service excellence could be considered one pillar, offering innovative services in a trusted, collaborative environment, globally are the other pillars which each NREN offering is built upon.  However, to add extra value to existing NREN and other research infrastructure users, and to attract potential new users to NRENs/research infrastructures, there needs to be a continual evolution of the service offering as well as an understanding of the services on offer to support researchers. A Research Engagement or business development function has the strategic vision to offer the right kind of established services to the researchers that an NREN supports, while being aware of current and future technological trends which have the potential to support research communities.  It also enables NRENs and other research infrastructures to be ready for the future needs of European Researchers. The vision of TF-RED is to grow NREN/research infrastructure business development capabilities and competencies for members through building a community of professionals which shares and collaborates globally. Thereby benefiting the global R&E community through the increased opportunities for collaboration offered to their researchers.


The objectives for the next 12 months were presented:

To achieve the vision of a growth in NREN business development activities globally, TF-RED will focus on these specific objectives over 2020/2021:

  • Survey of NREN community needs - (Juraj)
  • Producing a white paper on how an NREN can set up a research engagement function - (Chris and Olga)
    • Examples of Understanding national funding opportunities
    • Examples of Understanding of continental (European) funding opportunities and its implications on the national level.
    • Description of Research Engagement
    • Purpose of role
    • Job description
    • Job Specification
    • Value added capabilities
    • Research Engagement Best Practices
    • International Contact points and coordination 
  • At least one valuable face to face meeting - (Chris and GÉANT Learning and Development)
    • Training aspect
    • Workshop/discussion on current trends/technologies/stuff going on in other SIGs+TFs
    • Community building activity
  • Analysis of where Research is going globally: Where is data going, who are the big research groups, how to share this information across all NRENs. - (Carina)
  • Align with CEO forum Global research engagement group - (Carina)


Our group KPIs are

To produce a survey of the TF-RED community by March 2020

1 white paper on setting up a research engagement function to be completed for 8th June 2020 and presented at TNC2020

To hold a face to face meeting on the 8th June 2020

To have an increase in attendance of the TF-RED all hands meeting (highest was 53 during TNC18)

To produce an analysis document of research data trends by November 2020.

To attend 1 meeting of the CEO forum research engagement group.


The community present were invited to provide feedback on the document.  The broad consensus was that people were in favour of the suggested strategy document

Raman - would like to share the open access publication from RDA which discusses support structures for research engagement.  He believes it is a good idea to connect with this group. Raman to share details of the VRE-BOF and the interest group.

From the national side in Austria, Raman says that there are a number of projects which are focused on fair data and data labs (which focuses on research environments).  The development has been affected by the virus, but the projects are in the setup phase at the moment. Raman believes that they are fine on the national side of things but the issue is that his organisation is missing the big picture, the inter linkages between the different research infrastructures. He would like us to paint a big picture.  Raman to help on the ‘big picture’ document that Carina is working on.

Koen - is surprised.  We’re still not in the phase of getting more involved with researchers.  He is pleased with what is being suggested in the white paper. He is puzzled with how to contribute to the group.  Koen to help on user engagement white paper. Koen would like to work towards having a means of sharing information on research organisations to other NRENs. Chris explained that this would be the broader ambition of the group.  We first need to define the processes before we can then build the systems which will support our work. This will all come in time. The focus is on the initial steps to reach that eventual goal.

Alex - would like time to look through the document.

Olga - would like to understand experience from RDA.  Welcomes the input from Carina and Raman.

Carina - In Aus we’re interested in collaborating globally.  Would want the bigger picture things to be addressed. To also come together as a community to talk with a common voice to research communities.  And would like to address how an NREN fits into the big data life cycle from the perspective of the researchers and research communities. Would like the CEO forum group to focus on the top down approach, of how we can collaborate globally.  With TF-RED focusing on the bottom up approach. The CEO forum RES group would be open to all.

Juraj - His NREN receives a lot of funding from EU funding.  Approx €180 m. He believes that there should be a map of what ways an NREN could be funded.  He is currently involved in a survey to see what research is funded by which grants and wants to share this info with the group.  This information on the types of funding sources which may be available to NRENs will be included in the Research Engagement White paper.

Enzo - likes the direction of the task force.  Likes that we’re being more structured. With RDA, he would like an approach path to be set up between RDA and TF-RED.

Sylvia - Worked with the steering committee to put the strategy document together.  Agrees with the strategy document, a good way forward, believes it is more scalable than what we have been doing before.  Would like to see the survey questions before they are sent out to NRENs.  This is still a work in progress and so Juraj will share with the wider task force once the first draft is prepared.

Radovan - Agrees that we should be focusing on sharing information between NRENs more effectively.

Tim - Is chasing the holy grail that a researcher talks to their campus if they need a service (with the particular example of moving large scale data between organisations across NRENs and GÉANT).  Allowing for researchers to get the services they need when they need it. He believes that this group is well placed to help boost the knowledge of researchers when they need to - for example - move large pieces of data, to seek out the campus IT staff first, who will seek out the NREN, who will seek out the international collaborations.

Tania Altamariano (RedClara) - RedCLARA interested to collaborate in the White Paper document as well as the wider landscape document.


Actions

  • Raman to share details of RDA groups which may be of interest to our community
  • Raman to be introduced to Carina (Chris)
  • Koen, Juraj and Tania to help with White paper document
  • Raman and Tania to work on big picture document
  • Chris to share minutes
  • Chris to share results of mentimeter survey
  • Juraj to share survey questions for NRENs with wider task force for input.

The next meeting will be the 8th of June (hopefully if TNC goes ahead)


Appendix


https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1080
https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-virtual-plenary-programme



This is the registration for the RDA session that Raman is talking about https://aarnet.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtduuqrT8uJVO_x7uiwhTNhUfZNqUqIg



https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-virtual-plenary-programme
https://www.rd-alliance.org/engaging-researchers-research-data-what-works-0


Mentimeter Survey results: https://www.mentimeter.com/s/cdcf7d9e62af24e7ea319b8453fe8c4e/04a84d0a1259




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