Interview with Jan Bjaalie on data sharing policies

The interview was conducted by Richard Nakamura and Maryann Martone and also featured Carole Goble and Susanna-Assunta Sansone from ELIXIR. Both EBRAINS and ELIXIR were recently chosen to be part of a consortium which will build the first version of the future European Health Data Space.

The interviewees were asked to give their perspectives on data sharing in the European Union compared to the United States. Bjaalie highlighted the European Commission’s history of funding large research projects with a strong data-sharing component: “Europe’s policy on research infrastructures may have some advantages in terms of creating sustainable mechanisms for FAIR sharing of data and tools for analysis.”

Bjaalie also spoke about the impact of EU policies on EBRAINS. “One of the most evident examples of how EU policies influences data sharing is seen in the EBRAINS Data and Knowledge services” he said. “This service for FAIR sharing of neuroscience data is so far mostly populated by the research produced by the EU Human Brain Project, largely because the data sharing was a strict requirement in this project. Since the service was introduced in 2018, more than 1,500 researchers have contributed nearly 1,300 datasets.” He added: “An increasing number of investigators from other projects and also from outside Europe are starting to use this service.”