Research Data Management: a Data Scientist's Persepctive

Saskia Lawson-Tovey - Data Scientist, School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester

I am a data scientist in the Centre for Musculoskeletal Research here at Manchester. Though I guess data steward may be a better representation of what I do. I engineer databases, curate data, and apply the FAIR principles to research into musculoskeletal diseases, like arthritis, for both children and adults. I work on both national and international projects and am also linked to the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.

In 2021, I was lucky enough to be awarded an ELIXIR-UK FAIR Data Stewardship (DaSH) Training Fellowship. ELIXIR-UK is the national node of ELIXIR, an intergovernmental organisation bringing together life science resources across Europe, including data and software. This fellowship is an opportunity to create research data management (RDM) training resources and be part of a national effort to embed RDM practices in UK life-science research institutions.

Among other training initiatives, each fellow creates ‘bites’ of content; short 3-5 minute videos that cover RDM concepts in the fellows’ field. I have an expertise in REDCap, so collaborated with Research IT at Manchester to create more training resources, which can link to the new REDCap service launched as part of the Research Lifecycle Programme’s Project Y. My playlist of REDCap RDM bites can be found here.

The DaSH fellowship also opened up new opportunities for me and my career development. I have had opportunities to join in wider ELIXIR initiatives, such as the ELIXIR-UK Data Management working group or co-delivering a workshop in the Netherlands. (P.S. anyone working with data in the life sciences can get involved with ELIXIR!). I have gained experience working in an open-source, collaborative community and, after connecting with ELIXIR-UK joint lead Professor Carole Goble, will be conducting new research at Manchester around RDM, FAIR, and sensitive health data.

In my experience, data stewardship is often overlooked, yet without high-quality data, we cannot conduct high-quality research. Not just high-quality data, it needs to be findable and available to those who need it to avoid duplicating efforts and to reproduce research results. All whilst respecting the boundaries of data protection and ethics. It is great to see Manchester investing more time and money into RDM and open science as a whole – I am excited to see what happens next!