The Research Data Alliance (RDA) was launched as a community-driven initiative in 2013 by the European Commission, the United States Government's National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation with the goal of building the social and technical infrastructure to enable open sharing and re-use of data.

RDA meets every six months in the Plenary meetings, exciting and productive events that bring together a unique community of data scientists, librarians, computer scientists, and domain scientists. Plenary meetings are special working events that really help move the community forward in creating tangible deliverables that improve data sharing across disciplines, technologies, and countries.

Photo by Unsplash, licensed under CC0 license

Next meeting will be held in Helsinki, from 23 to 25 October, will focus on how Data Makes the Difference and registration is still possible at this link.

With this theme, the meeting addresses the extensive potential of research data in

• improving decision making,
• tackling grand societal challenges, and
• engaging citizens in the creation of knowledge and betterment of society.

Data has enormous and diverse potential to change how we work, make decisions and empower citizens. The 14th RDA plenary will explore the extensive ways data can make the difference by bringing together diverse group of experts from all around the globe. During the plenary we will share and learn together and advance our abilities to use data in making a positive impact in the world to tackle its complex challenges.

The Plenary is co-hosted by Research Data Alliance Finland, CSC - IT Centre for Science, Aalto University, University of Helsinki, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, and Finnish Meteorological Institute.