On 15 April 2024, OSTrails hosted its first public webinar, bringing together over 100 participants from across the research community. The session introduced the project’s goals, early results, and ways to get involved in shaping how research planning, tracking, and assessment can be improved.

"This firstwebinar was an important milestone for us. After months of work, we were finally able to share early results and open the door for others to get involved."
— Elli Papadopoulou, Athena Research Center / OSTrails Deputy Coordinator

Plan-Track-Assess (PTA) Framework: Addressing the Silos in Research Data Management

Research today relies on many separate systems. The same information is often re-entered in different tools, and outputs are difficult to follow or assess. OSTrails addresses these issues by connecting workflows, reducing duplication, and supporting reuse and visibility of research outputs.

The project builds a unified framework that:

• Assists researchers in reducing repetitive tasks and improving data management.
• Supports institutions in ensuring compliance and facilitating data reuse.
• Enables funders and policymakers to obtain consistent and reliable metrics on FAIR and Open Science practices.

Elli Papadopoulou presenting the OSTrails toolkit.

Two Pilots, One Message: This Works!

Two pilot initiatives were featured during the webinar to show what the PTA Framework looks like when in action for different organisations:

• In the Dutch National Pilot, led by CWTS and SURF, institutions are working with dynamic Data Management Plans (DMPs) embedded in their systems, cutting repetition and improving coordination across teams. The pilot highlights the Netherlands’ diverse and decentralised research data management (RDM) landscape, and the need for machine-actionable (ma)DMP tooling that meets both broad Open Science goals and basic local administrative needs. The pilot focuses on aligning stakeholder interests at national and institutional levels—supporting researchers with domain-specific templates and administrators with integrated workflows that include RDM, privacy, and ethics reviews. It also explores different technical pathways to publish and connect maDMPs with other research outputs, including the use of Research Activity Identifiers (RAiDs) and links to local repositories or Zenodo.

Andrew Hoffman (CWTS) showcasing the Dutch National Pilot.

• In Photon and Neutron Science, researchers at ESRF are combining DMPs, metadata services, and FAIR assessment tools to better describe and evaluate their datasets.

Assessing and sharing datasets from ESFRIs using the PTA Framework, as presented by Renaud Duyme.

Those are only two examples of the twenty-four use cases through which OSTrails is testing and adapting the PTA Framework to streamline and automate processes.

From Design to Adoption: Supporting the People Who Make It Happen

The webinar also launched the OSTrails Mentorship Programme, which provides support for those already working on improving research workflows by helping them apply OSTrails tools in practice: IT staff, research support professionals, and policy officers.

Insights into the OSTrails training roadmap by Pedro Principe (UMinho).

Community Discussions

The discussion during the webinar showed strong interest in the work OSTrails is doing. Participants highlighted shared challenges like scattered tools, manual processes, and inconsistent planning, and welcomed the focus on making systems work better together. The event opened space for future collaboration and real-world application.

There were also many questions about how to get involved, especially through the OSTrails Mentorship Programme. The team shared resources on training opportunities, the mentorship call for mentees, and other upcoming events. As one participant put it:

“This is a great initiative—thank you for this mentoring programme.”

Check out the full webinar here.

Over the past few months, OSTrails hosted the first part of itswebinar series focused on the Interoperability Frameworks (IFs) being developed under theOSTrails Reference Architecture.As the foundation for interoperable research tools,this architecture responds to the research community’s growing need fortools that supportseamless collaboration and informationexchange. The three sessions covered theFAIR Assessments IF, theData Management Plans IF(DMP-IF), and theScientific Knowledge Graphs IF (SKG-IF),andbroughttogethernearly300participants in total.

“We are building on top of the DMP Common Standard from RDA by creating an application profile and API specification for DMP platforms, enabling interoperability, extensibility, and alignment with real-world needs such as policy compliance and support for diverse research outputs.”

- Marek Suchánek

Mainmessage.

The central message of the seriesis clear: interoperability and seamless knowledge exchange are essential for modern research. To improve transparency, efficiency, and sustainability across research workflows, digital tools and infrastructures must be able to work together across domains, platforms, and services.

Session Highlights

FAIR Assessments IF (previously FAIR-IF):Mark Wilkinson (UPM) introduced the FAIR Assessment Interoperability Framework, addressing the lack of coordination across assessment tools and inconsistent interpretations of FAIR principles. The framework proposes a component model that includes dimensions, benchmarks, metrics, tests, and algorithms. It supports interoperability and is designed to be embedded in tools such as DMP platforms to provide real-time, standardised feedback.

“We want to design and publish metrics and tests for a wider range of digital objects beyond data andincluding domain specific assessments.”

- Mark Wilkinson

DMP-IF:Marek Suchánek (CTU) presented DMP-IF as a solution to fragmentation and lack of machine-actionable in current data management plans. Building on the RDA DMP Common Standard, it introduces an application profile and a common API, enabling platforms to uniformly integrate with FAIR assessment tools, repositories, and SKGs while adjusting the by-design generic Common Standard for European research ecosystem. The framework supports policy compliance and diverse output types and will be supported by technical resources in the OSTrails Commons.

SKG-IF:Andrea Mannocci (CNR), introduced the SKG-IF and its importance in enabling cross-disciplinary research through semantic and technical interoperability. The session highlighted challenges posed by isolated knowledge graphs that lack structural or semantic alignment. Building on top of the RDA model, the SKG-IF provides a common data model, API specifications, and an extension mechanism to support alignment and integration across systems. These elements enable seamless data exchange and foster collaboration across diverse platforms and domains.

Why was it important for OSTrails? 

The webinar series provided OSTrails with a high-impact opportunity to present its core technical developments and engage with the broader community. The events helped validate the project’sdirection, and practical feedback surfaced, from inconsistencies in FAIR metrics to technical needs for DMP platform integration and SKG alignment. These insights are now shaping the ongoing refinement of each framework to better support real-world use cases.

“The SKG-IFisn’t magic.There’s no central implementation or governing body thatoperates a service or infrastructure to enable dialogue between different SKGs. That might sound reductive,but in essence, SKG-IF is a set of guidelines. Anyone who wants their SKG to be interoperable with others and compliant with SKG-IF must follow these guidelines.”

- AndreaMannocci

Why was it important for theResearch Community ingeneral?

The series enabled the research community to directly engage with emerging frameworks and provide input early in their development. Rather than duplicating existing standards, the frameworks aim to complement and extend them, addressing real barriers to automation, integration, and reuse by:

• Improving trust and comparability of assessments;

• Enabling dynamic, machine-actionable data management planning;

• Supporting semantic alignment and reuse of scholarly metadata.

In doing so, they contribute meaningfully to the broader aims of open science, infrastructure alignment, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Conclusions

The OSTrails webinars highlighted a shared need across the research landscape for more aligned, automated, and interoperable infrastructures. Each framework is helping to bridge gaps, whether in FAIR evaluation, data management automation, or SKG integration, and their development is being guided by community input. As they evolve, the IFs are poised to support a more open, trustworthy, and connected research ecosystem.

FurtherResources

Explore the full webinar series and access resources (recordings and slides)here.

Discover the documentation for the OSTrails Interoperability Architecture and its three Interoperability Frameworkshere.