Let’s move together towards a FAIR data future in agriculture and beyond – sign the FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment now!
The FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment is published on Zenodo.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14925202
Preamble
Science and innovation advance when data and knowledge are openly shared.
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In response to the growing societal challenges of our planet, and in light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, trustworthy science increasingly requires the open sharing of well-documented and high-quality data and their provenance in an ethical manner. This requires a cultural and systemic shift that evolves current practices and promotes solutions for data sharing within and beyond the Agricultural Science domain. By collaborating as a community, we can drive this change forward together.
Agricultural Science disciplines encompass an interdisciplinary field that examines the complex processes of food production, ecosystem resilience, and resource management across multiple scales considering biological, bio-geo-ecological, and socioeconomic dimensions. In the face of unprecedented challenges—including climate change, biodiversity loss, and economic instability—scientific knowledge is crucial for improving global food security, ensuring sustainability, and enhancing livelihoods. Agricultural Science plays a central role in addressing these global challenges, driving innovation and promoting sustainable development.
The Agricultural Science community has already embraced many Open Science practices, including making diverse research outputs findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) for both humans and machines (as outlined in The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship). Equal emphasis should be placed on data management and analysis tools that enable data-driven methods. Efficient and effective use of research outputs, infrastructures, and funding ‒ along with appropriate reward systems and recognition of all research activities ‒ are essential components of Agricultural Science data practises.
FAIRagro, the consortium for Agrosystem Sciences within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), aims to be the central facilitator for research data management in the German Agricultural Science domain. As a community-driven initiative, FAIRagro advances FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management by providing open, efficient, and standardized access to agricultural data, research data services, and sustainable infrastructures. It fosters a cultural shift towards collaborative and quality-assured research data practices.
NFDI4Earth first published the NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment in September 2024. FAIRagro strongly supports this commitment and has therefore adopted it for its community to collectively promote a FAIR data future alongside other NFDI consortia.
This commitment will help to engage the FAIRagro community in shaping, promoting, and implementing the FAIRagro mission and agenda. In the long term, the results of this effort will also facilitate to drive the much-needed transformation in how research is evaluated, as expressed in the DORA and CoARA declarations.
FAIRagro invites institutions and organizations — including but not limited to universities, research institutions, infrastructure providers, professional societies, governmental authorities, and agricultural farms enterprises — as well as individuals from these stakeholders to sign the following statement of commitment and serve as lighthouses and ambassadors for advancing FAIR and collaborative research data management practices in agricultural sciences and beyond.
Signatories of the FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment pledge to support FAIRagro´s mission, infrastructures, products, and services. The signature of members and/or representatives of the Agricultural Sciences community is a public signal of agreement with the goals and values of the Commitment. By collectively supporting the Commitment, the signatories realise FAIRagro as a community of practice, taking into account the full range of expertise and all relevant user groups of Agricultural Sciences for a sustainable shift towards more FAIR and Open Research.
As signatories:
We commit to advance FAIRness and Openness in Agricultural Sciences and beyond.
- Commit to the mission of NFDI in bringing together research communities to provide data for the common good, and the role of FAIRagro as a facilitator of sustainable, collaboratively developed solutions in Agricultural Sciences.
- Support and uphold, where appropriate and possible, the principles and values outlined in existing Open Science declarations and statements.
- Be familiar with relevant data laws and acts, especially those related to agricultural data, in both national and European jurisdictions. These laws facilitate data sharing at both national and international levels.
- Give credit to all sources underlying our research findings and, whenever possible, credit is given through proper citations.
- Choose to publish Agricultural Sciences data in Agricultural Sciences domain repositories and other suitable research infrastructures that meet all four aspects of FAIR principles and consider the specific characteristics of Agricultural Sciences data.
- Strengthen FAIR and Open Data practices by supporting educational networks, robust training programmes, and the production of educational materials that promote transparency and accessibility of research outputs.
- Adopt Data Management Plans (DMP) as important tools for all research projects. These plans are invaluable for strategically planning data documentation, publication, and collaboratively monitoring data management activities. We seek and consider expert curation and guidance for them.
- Where possible, use open and permissive data and software licences that legally enable the envisioned free and open sharing of Agricultural Sciences data.
- Support and align scientific work with governing bodies and organisations that advance the underlying causes of this commitment.
We value data infrastructures and data experts.
- Recognise the vital role that Agricultural Sciences domain repositories and their curation services play in achieving and preserving the highest possible FAIRness and Openness in the Agricultural Sciences. As researchers, institutions, and funding agencies, we endeavour to ensure the sustainability of these repositories and other relevant research infrastructures.
- Adhere to and contribute to international standards for harmonising Agricultural Science data, metadata, data quality, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Support their implementation and development across research infrastructures in terms of barrier-free data exchange through FAIR Digital Objects, as this is crucial for effective interdisciplinary research and advancements in novel analysis methods such as Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning (AI & ML).
- Collaborate with the Data Steward Service Center (DSSC) and repository managers and leverage their expertise to make Agricultural Sciences research outputs transparent, machine-readable, interoperable, and re-usable in the long term.
Signatories
| Name | Institution | Orcid | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bartkowski, Bartosz | Assistant professor, Helmholtz Centre of Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig; Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg |  |
| Bosse, Sophie | ZB MED Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften | |
| Fluck, Juliane | | |
| Grygosch, Lars | Forschungszentrum Juelich | |
| Hoffmann, Carsten | FAIRagro Project Manager | |
| Kirchgessner, Oliver | FAIRagro | Julius Kühn-Institut | |
| König, Manuela | FAIRagro | Julius Kühn-Institut | |
| Kühnel, Stefan | Scientist | |
| Lachmuth, Susanne | Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) | |
| Lesch, Stephan | Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Head of Biodiversity Informatics | |
| Lotze-Campen, Hermann, Prof. Dr. | Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | |
| Möller, Markus | Julius Kühn Institute, Research Data Management Group | |
| Nüst, Daniel | Technische Universität Dresden | |
| Rey Mazón, Elena | FAIRagro Helpdesk Data Steward | Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) | |
| Sahwan, Wahib | FAIRagro Helpdesk | Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V. | |
| Scheuner, Carmen | FAIRagro | Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz | |
| Schmidt, Marcus | FAIRagro Helpdesk Coordinator | ZALF e.V. | |
| Selig, Marco | Data Lab Lead | |
| Sennhenn, Anne | FAIRagro | Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und Bioökonomie e.V. (ATB) | |
| Specka, Xenia | Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), head of working group “Data Infrastructures” | FAIRagro deputy spokesperson and project coordinator | |
| Stahl, Ulrike | Head of research data management team; Julius Kuehn Institute Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants Department of Digitalisation / Artificial intelligence | |
| Strauch-Davey, Annette | Universität Witten/Herdecke (Forschungsdatenmanagement) | |
| Svoboda, Nikolai | Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Head of ZALF RDM | |
| Vedder, Lucia | FAIRagro Helpdesk Data Steward |University of Bonn | |
| Weiland, Claus | Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research | |
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FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment
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Notice
The FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment is based on the ´NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment (1.0)` published by NFDI4Earth Consortium (September 2024), licensed under CC BY 4.0, available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10123880.
The FAIRagro Consortium has adopted this commitment and its 12 associated statements, with only minor adjustments to tailor the terminology from Earth Sciences to Agricultural Sciences, ensuring it resonates with and addresses the FAIRagro and respective agricultural research community.