National resources: Spain

Introduction

This page gives an overview of some of the data management resources in Spain. The target audience is the Spanish scientific community in the life sciences and their collaborators. The INB/ELIXIR Spain serves as a national node of the European ELIXIR infrastructure, offering guidance on research data management tailored to the Spanish scientific context.

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation has developed the National Strategy for Open Science (Estrategia Nacional de Ciencia Abierta), launched in 2023, which promotes open, equitable, and efficient sharing of research data across Spain. For researchers in Spain and their international partners, this strategy establishes the foundation for a collaborative and innovative research ecosystem where data is shared responsibly and transparently. The national strategy highlights Spain’s dedication to scientific progress while upholding ethical and legal standards in an increasingly data-driven world. In addition, a guideline on how to prepare a data management plan by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) can be found here.

Relevant initiatives

• Aporta: An initiative that aims to harmonize and efficiently take advantage of the synergies between ongoing open data projects. It seeks to always drive and coordinate actions being carried out by different levels of the administration, the private sector and academic field, according to an integrating governance model.
• Research Data Alliance (RDA) in Spain: This is the space dedicated to the activities, news and events of the RDA Spanish Node.
• E-science network: Inclusive initiative that combines efforts, shares information and aims to strengthen the position of Spanish institutions within the framework of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
• SOMMa Open Science group: SOMMa embraces Open Science to make research more collaborative, reproducible, and accessible, and to engage all levels of an inquiring society.
• CSUC support on Research Data Management: Guidelines supporting universities and research centres to adapt the management of their research data to the requirements of funding bodies following the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).
• Gaia-x Hub España: A regional initiative supporting the European Gaia-X project, fostering secure, federated data infrastructure and collaboration. It aims to align local efforts with Gaia-X standards and promote data-driven innovation in Spain.
• Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information: A declaration that advocates for the free and open sharing of research data and publications to promote transparency and collaboration in science. It encourages institutions and researchers to adopt open practices, enhancing accessibility to knowledge for global progress and innovation.

Aside of the national initiatives, there are also other territorial initiatives that can be found in this page.

Institutional policies on research data

Non-exhaustive list of research institutions with Data Management Policies in Spain:

• ESADE Research Data Management guidelines
• CERCA Data Management Strategy
• Autonomous University of Barcelona Institutional policy for open access to research data
• CRAI support on Research Data Management
• Univeristy of Girona Research Data Management Policy
• UPF Research Data Management
• Single portal UPC for Research Data Management
• UDL Research Data Management

Life science-specific infrastructures/resources

A collection of general and topic-specific resources has been compiled to help streamline data management practices and protect research data. These resources aim to boost productivity while ensuring research is conducted in a compliant, transparent, and reproducible manner.

Federated European Genome-phenome Archive (FEGA) Spanish node

The FEGA is the primary European resource for discovering and accessing sensitive human -omics- data consented for secondary use. The network comprises national repositories that ensure data remains in local jurisdictions while being discoverable through the main EGA portal and accessed across international borders in a federated manner. The Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB), as the ELIXIR node in Spain, and in collaboration with the EGA team at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), has established the Spanish Federated EGA node (ES-FEGA), primarily hosted at BSC facilities.

Spanish COVID-19 Data Portal

The Spanish COVID-19 Data Portal provides information, guidelines, tools and services to support researchers in utilising Spanish and European infrastructures for data sharing, in particular the European COVID-19 Data Portal. For those interested in ongoing large research projects in Spain, we have compiled a list of projects funded by major funding agencies.

The INB/ELIXIR-ES portfolio of resources

The Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB), renewed its Service Delivery Plan (SDP) in the second half of 2023. The renewed INB/ELIXIR-ES SDP is composed of 40 resources offered, developed and maintained by 24 groups in 12 institutions across Spain. This periodical assessment allows reviewing the current offer by the node and offer an up-to-date portfolio of resources to ELIXIR, directly impacting the Life Sciences community.

Tools and resources

Tailored to users in Spain

Developed and/or deployed by institutions and organisations in Spain.

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More information

Training

Contributors