Spotlight on: Andrés Felipe Ramos Padilla
Every other week, the Thematic DCCs and the Data Steward Interest Group (DSIG) put the spotlight on one research data steward working in the Netherlands, to stimulate knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning.
What drew you towards the research data management field?
The possibility to help other researchers to improve the way of working with their data, not only at the end of a project but also in the design and intermediate phases.
What is an activity/task of your role that you find yourself looking forward to?
Always be open to talk with researchers of what Open Science and FAIR data mean for them now and in the future.
What is something unexpected that you can offer help with, if a colleague reaches out to you?
Think out of the box, sometimes we focus much in specific problems and we enter in a loop where creativity and innovation is not a priority. Sometimes is good to stop and then try to think out of the box to offer the best help to your colleagues.
What do you think your community of research data professionals is missing?
Clear support and recognition from internal and external structures. We do important work for others and that is not always recognized. Things are changing in the last years (e.g. SURF research support awards).
What is a topic you would want to collaborate on with others?
Reproducibility! It is well know in some domains that reproducibility (same data + same analysis = same result) is important for scientific research. However, the work pressure or "publish or perish" harms the goal of sustainable science, and spreads the feeling that quality is less important than quantity. Training in reproducibility and how to achieve it may play a great role in the upcoming future.
Could you point us to a resource, learning platform, tool or similar which you find useful or inspirational?
For me the Turing Way handbook was a "eye opener" when I was a student. These sort of guides and tools are important to show how small steps can lead to important changes to do better science/research.
Get in touch with Andrés: LinkedIn |ORCID
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