Revisiting the roles and responsibilities of Research Data Management supporting units at Leiden University

Abstract Since its establishment, the Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at Leiden University Library has been pioneering Open Science practices, focusing particularly on data management and open access publishing. Initially, the activities of the CDS were aimed at supporting researchers directly. However, Leiden University has recently attracted a considerable number of faculty-embedded data stewards. This paper reflects on the changes in stakeholders that this expansion of the RDM supporting units entails. In 2015, an institution-wide programme was launched at Leiden University to foster effective data management practices (Verhaar et al., 2017). One of the aims of the programme was the implementation of the research data policy. To do so most effectively, active collaboration was sought with scholars in all the faculties, who were leading several pilots in their function as data management pioneers. Since then, the CDS has continued to support researchers and PhD candidates directly, through domain-specific trainings, helpdesk support, quick guides, et cetera. Nowadays, the activities of the CDS are integrated with a matrix of support services offered by the university. This matrix brings together existing support services throughout the research cycle, such as grant support and privacy and information security support, organized in thematic and disciplinary networks (Yeomans, 2019). In the course of 2022, the composition of the network of stakeholders involved in RDM support changed significantly. On a national level, impulse funding was made available for universities to strengthen their research data management support activities. One of the outcomes of this was the arrival of embedded data stewards in each faculty. Although the dimension of their appointment, as well as the expected tasks, vary per faculty, all data stewards operate in close contact with the researchers and are considered the first line support for the faculty’s research community. With this shift in stakeholders of the RDM support that the Centre for Digital Scholarship offers, a need for reorientation of the activities of the center arises. While the faculty-embedded data stewards take on some of the support activities by engaging directly with the researchers, the CDS as a central hub within the university library, is uniquely placed to take an analytic approach towards data management practices at the faculties and leverage that knowledge to improve the services on a university level. In this paper, we will reflect on this transition from first line support for researchers, to a 2nd line structure. We will present the ambitions that the CDS has, as well as the challenges that come with this process of change. We will particularly highlight the community management activities that are currently being build, and argue how that corresponds with a broader take on changes in engagement with the library’s communities