Last autumn two TDCC projects started, FAIR4ChemNL (with the PeerTube channel\nand doi:10.61686/XVYQV45374) and FAIRify for metabolomics data\n(doi:10.61686/CSGIP04334). But I haven’t written much on either yet and what the role is our research group in these projects.
\n\nLet’s start with what the TDCC actually are: they are Thematic Digital Competence Centres:
\n\n\n\n\nThe Thematic Digital Competence Centres (TDCCs) are network-based initiatives set up by NWO and the Dutch academic\ncommunity to broker investments into research data management projects. The three TDCCs are national and discipline\nbased, with one pillar each for the Social Sciences & Humanities (SSH), Natural and Engineering Sciences (NES) and\nLife Sciences & Health (LSH). The networks will help formulate and facilitate projects designed to promote the adoption\nof open data, software and research practices, alongside the development of the necessary expertise.
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So, where initiatives like GO FAIR had centers of competencies (the implementation networks),\nthey did not have funding for them. This was a main reason why the Chemistry Implementation Network (ChIN,\ndoi:10.1162/dint_a_00035) did not take off.\nThe TDCCs do not provide a lot of money, but enough to support disseminating expertise and promote some key ideas.
\n\nThe idea is that combined with other efforts, it strengthens the level of FAIR in the Dutch research community.\nI have to say, this is much needed, as the level of FAIR data in journal publications is so much to wish for,\nand still mostly absent.
\n\nThe FAIR4ChemNL project already had a networking activity during the writing of the proposal, the workshop already\nback in 2024 that I blogged about earlier\n(see also this report).\nThe FAIRify project is coordinated by the group that was key in the Netherlands Metabolomics Center (NMC), now the\nBeneLux Metabolomics Center. During a postdoc at the NMC during my Wageningen\ndays, we already did a lot of FAIR competency building with the MetWare project.
\n\nThe TDCC-NES organized a networking event in August last year,\nthe 2025 TDCC-NES Col-Lab Retreat. I am late with\nreporting on it, but there simply was too much project management that took priority. The meeting was in the\nwonderful Dutch town Schoorl, and the location is great for collaborative meetings. I had been there a year\nearlier for an Open Science Retreat and was happy to go back.
\n\nDuring the unconference-style meeting various topics were discussed\nin breakout groups, and because of the two TDCC projects, I was particularly interested in the Metadata and interoperability\ntopic. Partly because this is how we can make eletronic lab notebooks automatically push metadata to\nregistries (and Rory Macneil was also in Schoorl,\nof RSpace/ResearchSpace which already integrated with various open\nplatforms), and partly because I wanted to continue explore nanopublications\nwith Christian Meesters, which could be the envelope to distribute\nthe metadata. For the last, I was looking at the Java library for nanopublications\n(see this PR.
\n\nThe idea that ELNs automatically share metadata about experiments is something that is attractive.\nIt would require no involvement from the researcher, would be fully automatic, and drive interest\n(users, peer reviewers) to experiments and experimental data. Something that is still absurdly hard\nis to do a search for experiments that measured the melting point of some chemical. How\nawesome would it be if ELNs would automatically register chemicals from the experiment in,\nfor example, PubChem.
\n\nWe had the idea of applying for a Lorentz Workshop, but the earliest deadline was too early, but\nmaybe it is time to pick up that idea again. Interoperability standards already exist, like\nthe aforementioned nanopubs, but also RO-Crates that are also studied by Jente Houweling\nin the VHP4Safety project (see this Data tab for a preview).
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