Spotlight on: Sergi Aguiló Castillo
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?
During my bachelor’s in Bioinformatics, I realised that what I enjoyed most was not the data analysis itself, but the preprocessing and preparation of data. So, I really liked ensuring data quality with the correct standards and models. This interest guided my choices for internships and jobs, where I focused on improving data quality and findability. For me, research data management and data stewardship are the natural next steps, allowing me to continue working with data quality standards and interoperability, following the FAIR principles and always keeping an Open Science mind.
What is an activity/task of your role that you find yourself looking forward to?
As I currently work in the field of rare diseases and plan to continue doing so for many years, I would love to contribute by improving data interoperability. Achieving this would help researchers to combine data from the largest possible number of patients, which will impact research in rare diseases. Now, this is a challenging task because the benefits of making data FAIR-compliant are not always well understood, and it requires significant time and resources. However, I am confident that in the near future, we will be able to dedicate the necessary effort to solve these barriers and make it a reality.
What is something unexpected that you can offer help with, if a colleague reaches out to you?
I can provide support on the technical aspects of research data management. For example, I can help you FAIRify your data and talk with IT teams or data controllers to establish the right architecture, standards, and models from a technical perspective. This includes ensuring compliance with FAIR principles and implementing solutions.
What do you think your community of research data professionals is missing?
I believe our community is missing stronger connections with legal and regulatory teams, as data governance and compliance are critical when working with health data. Additionally, we need more professionals with a solid technical background who can guide institutions in implementing FAIR principles effectively. Also, if we want to attract and retrieve talent, we need to establish clear career paths and recognitions for what we do.
What is a topic you would want to collaborate on with others?
I would love to collaborate in strategies to implement FAIR principles in health data for research. Including developing workflows, tools, and guidelines that make FAIRification easier for institutions and researchers.
How would you like to see your current field of work evolve in the next 5 years?
I would like to see research data management become an integral part of every research project from the very beginning, rather than something addressed at the end. In the next five years, I hope FAIR principles will be widely adopted as a standard, fully supported by institutions with clear policies and resources. Most importantly, I expect that the current reluctance to share data, often due to fear or uncertainty among clinicians, will be overcome through better governance, trust-building, and secure infrastructures. This will allow more hands-on collaboration with data controllers, working directly with the data to implement solutions rather than spending endless meetings just figuring out how to share it.
Get in touch with Sergi Aguiló Castillo on: LinkedIn
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