The WorldFAIR project held a series of successful workshops between July and October 2022 to introduce and complete FAIR Implementation Profiles (FIPs) with eleven case study work packages.  This process culminated in a plenary meeting of the WorldFAIR case studies, “FIPs in WorldFAIR: What have we learnt?” which took place as part of the FAIR Convergence Symposium in Leiden on 25 October 2022.
 
The WorldFAIR project is a major global collaboration between partners from thirteen countries across Africa, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America.  WorldFAIR advances implementation of the FAIR data principles, in particular those for Interoperability, by developing a cross-domain interoperability framework and recommendations for FAIR assessment in a set of eleven disciplines or cross-disciplinary research areas.
 
The WorldFAIR case studies have been carefully chosen to provide maximum impact. The objective of each case study is to develop an interoperability framework for their discipline or interdisciplinary research area. They are clustered in connected groups in order to maximise scope while retaining a critical mass of activity and allowing learning and cross-fertilisation of ideas. Collected from CODATA and RDA activities and partnerships, the case studies include leading organisations in a range of research areas, supporting the creation of outputs with global impact.
 
The FIPs approach consists of a set of questions about practice in relation to each of the FAIR principles.  It is supported by an online tool, the FIPs Wizard. One of the potential benefits of this approach is the creation, as ‘nanopublications’ of a set of FIPs and FAIR Enabling Resources, coded in RDF, which can be read by machines, visualised, and analysed. With use, the creation of more FIPs and FERs will furnish a resource which can potentially give great insights into FAIR practices.
 
At our plenary workshop during the FAIR Convergence Symposium, six of the case studies presented and reflected on the process of constructing their FIP, specifically what they learned from the process; whether using FIPs helped describe practices around FAIR; whether the FIP helped identify any gaps or areas which would benefit from further attention; ways in which the FIPs methodology and the tools around it can be improved; and the identification of next steps.  Arofan Gregory (CODATA) then reflected on the implications of these observations for our work on the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework, a major output of WorldFAIR.

We are grateful to Leah McEwan, Ian Bruno and Stuart Chalk (Chemistry); Iseult Lynch and Thomas Exner (Nanomaterials); Steve McEachern and Hilde Orten (Social Surveys); Maarten Trekels and Debora Drucker (Agricultural Biodiversity); Bapon Fakhruddin and Jill Bolland (Disaster Risk Reduction) and Beth Knazook (Cultural Heritage) for their insights.
 
WorldFAIR forms the core of CODATA’s contribution to the International Science Council (ISC) Action Plan Project 2.1, Making Data Work For Cross-Domain Grand Challenges.  WorldFAIR runs for 24 months from 1 June 2022 and is funded by the European Commission through its Horizon Europe Framework Programme, project call HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-01, grant agreement 101058393. Project website: https://worldfair-project.eu.