FAIR Data Champions
Be A Champion: Put FAIR into practice
FAIR data management does not emerge from infrastructure alone. It emerges where people take responsibility.
At NFDI4BIOIMAGE, we understand FAIR Data Champions as active members of the bioimaging community who make the FAIR principles visible, actionable, and operational in everyday research practice. To this end, we put emphasis on open, cloud-ready file formats such as OME-Zarr, and metadata in compliance with community-established standards, most notably REMBI, the REcommended Metadata for Biological Imaging.
Want to become a FAIR Data Champions yourself? Reach out, learn how to manage bioimaging data in compliance with the FAIR principles, and lead by example. We support this engagement through:
- Training materials and workshops
- Helpdesk and Data Stewardship support
- Community calls
- Hackathons
- Visibility through our communication channels
FAIR Data Champions promote and advocate for better research data management and support implementing FAIR in laboratories, core facilities, collaborative research networks, training programs, and international initiatives. They act as multipliers between: Research practice and infrastructure, community needs and standardization as well as local implementation and national strategy.
Who are our FAIR Data Champions?
A FAIR Data Champion is not a full-time postion. It is a role that anyone can take on. At NFDI4BIOIMAGE, Task Area Leaders, the networking coordinator, our Data Stewards, and many colleagues from our community act as FAIR Data Champions on regular occasions:
Making FAIR Visible at Conferences
Whether at Trends in Microscopy, the GBM Compact Symposium, ELMI, the EOSC Symposium (see image), or other specialized events, members of NFDI4BIOIMAGE regularly act as ambassadors for structured bioimage data management.
Typical activities include:
- Workshops such as “From Acquisition to Publication”
- Introductions to OMERO, BioImage Archive, and structured metadata
- Discussions on OME-Zarr and cloud-based workflows
- Consultation on data publication strategies
Here, we promote tools and best practices to adopt FAIR in the own every-day research work.
Advancing FAIR through standardization
FAIR Data Champions may also be directly engaged in international standardization efforts, driving forward the tools and formats that enable FAIR bioimage data handling, including:
- OME-Zarr / NGFF community calls
- Hackathons focused on advancing metadata standards (e.g., de.NBI BioHackathon)
- Implementation of RO-Crate in analysis workflows
- Contributions to NFDI-wide metadata recommendations
Our FAIR Data Champions bring requirements from biological imaging directly into technical specifications while ensuring that emerging standards are fed back into the community.
Embedding FAIR in everyday practice
FAIR Data Champions also operate at the local level by:
- Integrating metadata annotation into core facility processes
- Introducing OMERO into research groups
- Supporting Data Management Plan development
- Publishing datasets with DOIs
- Developing reproducible image analysis workflows
Many of these initiatives originate from concrete research projects and are later shared as best practices. Find help to manage your data in a FAIR way.
Enabling FAIR through training and early-career education
Many FAIR Data Champions are also educators who:
- Integrate RDM training into training curricula (e.g., for PhD students)
- Offer hands-on workshops on FAIR bioimage analysis
- Demonstrate how to use tools and platforms such as OMERO.
- Train trainers to act as multipliers
In doing so, they equip the next generation of researchers with robust data management practices from the outset of their careers.
Promoting cross-domain integration of FAIR workflows
FAIR Data Champions do not operate within disciplinary silos. They actively connect bioimaging workflows with broader research data infrastructures across domains.
In cross-consortial and cross-disciplinary contexts, such as collaborations with FAIRagro, NFDI4Health, DataPLANT, or other NFDI initiatives, FAIR Data Champions:
- Present bioimaging-specific FAIR solutions to non-imaging communities
- Align image data workflows with cross-domain metadata frameworks
- Contribute imaging use cases to domain-agnostic infrastructure discussions
- Integrate bioimage analysis tools into broader data ecosystems
- Foster interoperability between repositories, platforms, and standards
At events such as the Gatersleben Conference and other domain-spanning meetings, FAIR workflows for bioimaging are positioned within the wider landscape of research data management.