The users of all Photon and Neutron (PaN) facilities in Europe are currently required by the European Union and many national funding agencies to implement FAIR -Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable- data principles for all experiments realized on the basis of public funding. The implementation of the FAIR principles constitutes a major challenge for both the PaN facilities and also for the user communities and needs to be solved in a common approach with a shared accountability. The process of FAIR implementation in the PaN facilities is guided by LEAPS and LENS. In Germany the user representatives of KFS (Komitee Forschung mit Synchrotronstrahlung) and KFN (Komitee Forschung mit Neutronen) initiated the DAta from PHoton and Neutron Experiments –DAPHNE4NFDI– project in which users and facilities are collaborating to make data FAIR and is building upon the groundbreaking work of the PaNOSC and ExPaNDS projects.
The European users’ organizations ENSA and ESUO in collaboration with the DAPHNE4NFDI consortium are developing a “white paper” addressing the topics and implications of FAIR data and Open Data policy for the European PaN community. This is occurring via joint meeting at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland from November 13th to November 15th, 2023.
The purpose of the first part of this meeting is to involve the users via their national representatives in ENSA and ESUO to get as wide as possible an input and discuss the issues from differing national user communities’ perspectives.
The second part of the meeting will consist of firstly a joint meeting of the two European Users organizations to exchange on topics related to the planning of the role and tasks of the organizations under NEPHEWS, a recently granted Horizon Europe (HE) project for Transnational Access (TNA) to the facilities and for twinning activities mainly for researchers from the Widening countries.
Furthermore, ESUO will hold its 19th General Assembly meeting on the 15th of November (the detailed agenda of this part of the meeting will be communicated to the ESUO national delegates in due time).
We are all looking forward to participating with ESUO and ENSA delegates in these objectives together with DAPHNE4NFDI personnel at PSI. See you there!