Cross-Institution Research-Data Federation Steward — Applied Science

The mandate

The foundation’s recurring board question is how to make member laboratories contribute reusable research data without rewarding volume, weakening legitimate embargoes or transferring stewardship cost unfairly. Proposed federation measures count datasets and downloads, while scientific teams dispute whether metadata, method, calibration and negative results are sufficient for another institution to reproduce or responsibly reinterpret the work.

The adviser will reserve two days each month for chair preparation, member challenge and review of infrastructure or grant papers, and attend four Scientific Infrastructure Committee meetings. An urgent view on a disputed access suspension, integrity concern or material funding condition is expected within two Belgian business days. Investigation of individual researchers or formal grant assessment is expressly outside cadence.

The appointment runs for twelve months from February 2027. In month ten, the board will evaluate whether member representatives can apply the federation principles to the next funding cycle without continuing support. A single six-month renewal may be considered by full-board vote, but cannot be presumed, delegated to management or created by carrying forward unused days.

The steward exercises influence only and has no line authority, executive responsibility, grant vote, research-integrity jurisdiction, data-controller role or platform approval. Advice will expose consequences and frame choices; member institutions retain decisions over release and use. The foundation must not represent the appointment as independent scientific validation, ethics review or delegated investigation.

The adviser may hold three other appointments if disclosed and non-conflicting. Work for member institutions, commercial research platforms, major grant bidders or competing federations requires case review. A role involving the same unpublished results, contested authorship or procurement may require recusal; where access could confer scientific or commercial advantage, the board may decline the appointment altogether.

Why the board wants this voice

Directors understand research funding and institutional governance but lack experience operating federated data beyond policy and pilot infrastructure. Member scientists understandably defend disciplinary norms, while platform teams promote technically measurable adoption. The board needs a neutral practitioner who can connect reproducibility, legitimate control, cost and contribution incentives without dictating scientific method.

What you will own

• Press the board to define reusable contribution through method, calibration, provenance, uncertainty and negative-result evidence rather than dataset count.
• Test whether access, embargo and withdrawal rules protect legitimate research interests without allowing indefinite withholding after public funding commitments.
• Challenge federation measures that mistake downloads, copies or catalogue entries for scientifically responsible reuse and reproduced findings.
• Shape contribution and funding principles around stewardship effort, disciplinary difference, data sensitivity, infrastructure use and evidenced downstream value.
• Probe accountability when member institutions retain data-control decisions but foundation funding or common services shape practical access.
• Frame board responses to contested attribution, irreproducible reuse, compromised calibration and requests to withdraw a depended-upon dataset.
• Coach committee members to separate scientific validation, research integrity, data stewardship and infrastructure performance in their oversight records.

Candidate qualifications

• Governed research-data federation across universities, laboratories, public agencies or industrial research partners with distinct legal and scientific interests.
• Designed stewardship and contribution measures that recognised reproducibility evidence and disciplinary context rather than rewarding raw dataset volume.
• Resolved access, embargo, attribution or withdrawal disputes without claiming authority over member institutions’ scientific or legal decisions.
• Understands persistent identifiers, provenance, method capture, calibration, computational environment and uncertainty needed for responsible research reuse.
• Advised funding or foundation boards while keeping infrastructure governance separate from scientific peer review and integrity investigation.
• Maintained conflict boundaries across research institutions, platform vendors, grant applicants, publishers and commercial users of shared data.

Non-negotiables

• Able to attend four Brussels meetings in person while maintaining two remote advisory days in each month of the term.
• Will disclose institutional appointments, grants, platform relationships, commercial research interests and involvement in relevant funding bids.
• Accepts that the role cannot award grants, investigate researchers, approve platforms or assume any member’s data-controller responsibility.
• Must bring an operating federation record; open-science advocacy or repository leadership within one institution alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a federation measure you changed because dataset volume did not represent reproducible or responsible reuse.
2. 49 words maximum. Which institutional, grant, platform or publishing relationships would require disclosure to this foundation?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you handle withdrawal of a flawed dataset already used in another member’s published analysis?