Science is rapidly digitalising. Research is increasingly being conducted through (large-scale) data analyses that are shared among groups of researchers. Virtually all scientific disciplines are therefore increasingly reliant on a well-functioning digital infrastructure.
In 2018, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science asked NWO to provide advice on the necessary investments in the digital research infrastructure. This led to advice and further elaboration in the so-called Implementation Plan for Investments in Digital Research Infrastructure. The Implementation Plan is coordinated by NWO, working closely with SURF, the ICT cooperative for higher education and research, and the eScience Center, the national centre for the development of (advanced) research software.
The Implementation Plan has four objectives:
- Sharing data according to the principles of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and Open Science.
- Locally and via a federated digital infrastructure at (inter)national level.
- Making research data easier to analyse by using more powerful computing capacity, greater storage capacity, and new technological developments.
- Better utilising developed software by making it more known and accessible.
Some examples of results from the Implementation Plan include the acquisition of the Snellius supercomputer, the establishment of Digital Competence Centers (DCCs), and the support provided by research software engineers from the eScience Center to researchers.
Our evaluation in the autumn of 2022 showed that the cooperation in the Implementation Plan went well. The results of the Implementation Plan contributed to the objectives and were appreciated by the research community. We also found that the Implementation Plan had been expanded with several objectives that had not yet led to visible results, and that the various parties (including SURF, eScience Center, and the DCCs) offered support to researchers alongside each other. Our recommendations included making sharper choices in the future on how to monitor the development of the digital infrastructure and prevent overlap in support for researchers.
NWO's Advisory Committee on Research Digitalisation further studied the evaluation report and published a reflection on the evaluation. NWO's board presented the report and the Advisory Committee's reflection to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science. In the managerial response, NWO's board announced that they would immediately address four points: monitoring and accountability, mapping the landscape, stakeholder-wide dialogue on the tier landscape, and initiating dialogue on a federative model for offering services/expertise. For the Advisory Committee's reflection and NWO's managerial response, see the (NWO news article).
