Driving the sustainable development of an open research data culture : two examples of collaborative best practice from the University of Malta

Abstract

Open Science is a gradual process that requires a culture shift among the entire research community; as such, it is at different stages of development in different parts of Europe. Malta - a small island country in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast, which acceded to the European Union in 2004 - is at the forefront of Open Science initiatives, spearheaded by the University of Malta (UM) Library. Since 2014 the UM Library has been carrying out sustained efforts to drive the sustainable development of an open research data culture and guide researchers through the change, both internally and via international collaborative projects. This presentation focuses on two examples of collaborative best practices to support the sustainable development of Open Science, especially for smaller or under-resourced universities.

First, we will showcase University of Malta’s internal role in advancing sustainable Open Science practices, enhancing research accessibility and management, and supporting collaboration among researchers, as well as between the Library and the Research Office. Following the establishment of an Open Science Department in 2017, the UM formalised its approach with an Open Access Policy in 2019. To further strengthen this commitment, in 2021 the policy was upgraded to a mandate formally requiring researchers to adhere to Open Science principles. In 2023, the UM Library expanded their open research focus to include research data management and implemented a data repository, drUM, providing a robust platform for managing and sharing FAIR data. drUM has become an integral part of research data management at the UM because the repository’s functionality encourages and enables the adoption of research data management practices, ensuring compliance during the grant application process and clearly signposting to how individual research data produced at the UM can be accessed and reused. The platform also includes specific funder and grant details within the item metadata, which fosters researcher collaboration, alongside powerful reporting dashboards and visibility over the research shared, enabling proficient reporting and compliance monitoring. By actively promoting the data repository and core open data principles, we have observed that a gradual culture shift towards Open Science is taking place, and research data management is being integrated as a fundamental aspect of the research process, even at the early stages of research projects.

Second, we will present the work of the SEA-EU Alliance - a European Commission initiative which, since 2019, unites nine coastal universities across Europe - focusing on Work Package 5: Building an Open Future: Fostering Open Science across the SEA-EU Community and Beyond, the research data management and open data project steered by the UM Library. This had various deliverables, including the drafting of a SEA-EU RDM Policy Framework for the SEA-EU Alliance, adaptable by participating universities for their respective communities, further promoting open data practices.