Connecting Data Stewardship to Research Projects

This implementation story describes MEMIC, the center for data and information management at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University in The Netherlands. The MEMIC team provides professional support for research data management (RDM) in the faculty as well as in the Maastricht academic hospital MUMC+. MEMIC employs data managers, data stewards (i.e. senior data managers), research software engineers, and data support staff, who work in four teams. The composition of a team, in terms of the balance of data stewards versus research software engineers, depends on the task. MEMIC’s Managing Director is convinced that the better the data, the better the aftercare and quality of the data in a repository, which in turn increases the potential for FAIR reuse. This requires close and ideally longer-term collaboration between support staff and research teams