Building a More Resilient Ecosystem for Publicly-Funded Research Data

An update from the Strategic Planning Committee 

Strategic Planning Committee members are: Maria Gould (DataCite), Joel Gurin (CODE), Robert Hanisch (Campostella Research and Consulting), Kristi Holmes (Northwestern University), Lynda Kellam (UPenn, Data Rescue Project), Christine Kirkpatrick (San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego, GO FAIR US), Chris Marcum (Data Foundation), Mark Parsons (ESIP), and Katherine Skinner (IOI). Alex Wade serves as the project’s lead consultant, with Maryam Zaringhalam and Lisa Cuevas Shaw serving as COS’s project leads.

Federally-funded research data are a critical public good. Yet many of the repositories and infrastructures that steward these data face risks—both longstanding and emerging—from funding uncertainty and resourcing constraints to policy shifts and strained capacity.

Last November, the Center for Open Science (COS) announced our efforts to develop a community-driven strategic plan for ensuring the long-term preservation, accessibility, and usability of federally-funded scientific data. The Strategic Planning Committee has since been focused on a core question that is increasingly urgent for the research community: How do we build a more sustainable, resilient research data ecosystem that is resistant to single points of failure? 

Our strategic planning work is aimed at understanding, mapping, and monitoring these risks, while charting a path toward a more durable and resilient system for sharing, preserving, accessing, and using research data. The plan is also meant to leverage, coordinate with, and amplify existing complementary efforts to drive visibility and resourcing towards these critical initiatives.

Here, we’re sharing an update on the strategic planning process, which is anchored in three core pillars. The Committee will be heading into an in-person retreat in March to begin building out strategies to advance these pillars. Ahead of that work, we’re also soliciting community input to inform the development of the plan and ensure it reflects the needs and priorities of the research data ecosystem.

Scope of the Strategic Plan

The committee’s work centers on repositories and related infrastructures that house or otherwise support federally funded research data. This includes data subject to federal public access policies, which have expanded access to publicly funded research data over the years. This scope includes:

• Data generated by both intramural and extramural researchers using federal funds

• Fully open access repositories that house research data, as well as repositories that employ access controls

• The broader ecosystem of tools, services, and infrastructures that enable discovery, access, and reuse of research data

Persistent and reliable access to these data are foundational to advancing the openness, integrity, and trustworthiness of research, while enabling data to be used — and reused — to advance the public good. The strategic pillars are meant to promote and build a more sustainable, resilient ecosystem for these data.

Pillar 1: Assessing, Monitoring, and Tracking the Repository Landscape

Understanding where the research data ecosystem is most vulnerable today and how those risks evolve over time is essential to building a more sustainable, resilient system. The Committee will consider strategies and tactics for:

• Monitoring and inventorying at-risk repositories, including developing methods to identify, classify, and track threats such as funding cuts, staffing reductions, policy changes, and domain-specific risks. We’ve discussed how to leverage existing tools and frameworks like the Repository Resilience Scorecard and dataindex.us’s Data Checkup.

• Landscaping the broader FAIR data ecosystem, including the software, tools, and technical capacity that support research data management and sharing, as well as identifying gaps that limit findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse.

• Creating a shared framework for a data health dashboard. This tool could help data stewards and communities monitor and assess across multiple dimensions, including the preservation status, resilience, FAIRness, and usability and utility for different audiences, and the availability of interactive tools to promote use. 

Pillar 2: Laying a Strong, Resilient Foundation for a Research Data Ecosystem

Beyond assessing existing risks to the system, the Committee is focused on defining what a healthy and resilient research data repository ecosystem should look like—and what it will take to get us there. Rather than reinventing existing work, the committee is intentionally deferring to and referencing established initiatives, recognizing that many strong efforts are already underway. Our discussions in the coming months will focus on:

• Characterizing the essential elements of a robust ecosystem for research data management and sharing, along with recommended pathways for building capacity over time to promote the FAIRness and resilience of preserved datasets and associated tools to support their continued discoverability and use in a distributed system.

• Exploring governance and sustainability models that can support a stronger, more resilient future for research data. That includes looking at sustainable business models, practical preservation best practices, and ways to ensure long-term stewardship of important datasets and the repositories that host them. Getting these pieces right is essential to the accessibility and maintenance of critical research data—especially during times of uncertainty or crisis.

• Developing a clear, community-informed roadmap for how to move from today’s landscape to a more coordinated and resilient ecosystem. Rather than reinventing the wheel, this roadmap will build on and connect existing efforts, helping us align around shared priorities, reduce duplication, and make the most of limited resources to address gaps.

Pillar 3: Outreach and Advocacy Strategy

The Committee also recognizes that long-term resilience depends on awareness, support, and shared responsibility across the research data ecosystem. Strategies for outreach and advocacy are therefore critical to building the needed support and coordination to build a more resilient future for research data. The Committee has been discussing the following strategies to galvanize and sustain support with key stakeholder communities:

• Coordinating with related initiatives to align efforts, amplify existing work, and identify opportunities for collaboration.

• Developing public communications and advocacy toolkits that can be adopted and adapted by community members to reach researchers, funders, policymakers, and the public.

• Building community capacity, including guidance on accessing preserved datasets, reporting at-risk resources, and advocating for sustainable infrastructure.

Looking Ahead

The Strategic Planning Committee’s work is grounded in the belief that resilient research data infrastructure is essential to scientific progress, transparency, and public trust. By assessing risks, charting a roadmap towards a stronger foundation, and coordinating and collaborating across communities, the resulting strategic plan aims to support a research data ecosystem that can continue to serve the public good. 

Of course, the success of such a strategic plan relies on input from and adoption by the greater community, so as we continue our strategic planning process. We are actively seeking input from repository leaders, researchers, funders, policymakers, and infrastructure providers. Your perspective will directly shape the strategies developed at our March retreat and beyond.

Share your thoughts with us by March 2, 2026 ahead of our next planning meeting through this survey.