Innovation and adoption

Chemistry

In the greater environment of Open Science and data-driven approaches to global challenges, access to chemical information is critical for many cross-domain research areas. Representing chemical substances in structure form is one of the most critical functions in communicating chemistry, including sharing FAIR and machine-readable chemical data. However, data resources that index chemical structures lack standardised system-to-system interoperability, which can propagate errors when exchanging and compiling chemistry data. To meet this challenge, the Chemistry case study developed a prototype web service to confirm chemical identity and provide real-time feedback on the machine readability of chemical representation based on IUPAC standard rule sets and community best practices. Data resources, software and other services that reference chemical information can implement the specified protocols based on their existing or preferred technologies (e.g., toolkits, programming languages). Users often need to consider several data resources as a part of their everyday work. There are a number of scenarios where it is useful to navigate across distributed data resources using programmatic methods – for example, a global search for specific chemicals, cross-exchange of chemical information between data repositories, validation of converted or predicted chemical representations, or integration of distributed data for compiled meta-analysis. A consistent approach for chemistry resources to expose information about the chemical representations used in their system through a common protocol as outlined in ‘D3.3 Utility services for Chemistry Standards’ will facilitate navigation across these resources. Individual data systems providing their associations between the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI) and their record identifiers can foster data hubs that provide one-stop shops for links to all resources relevant to a chemical structure using InChI as the cross-link.

Nanomaterials 

The progression of the proposed extension of the IUPAC InChI to cover nanomaterials (and eventually also advanced materials) has been a key effort of the nanomaterials Case Study, and the submission of the formal proposal for adoption by the InChI Trust is the final step to achieve the initial version of the standard extension. Close collaboration with the InChI development team has been critical to ensuring that decisions made regarding the Nanomaterials InChI are consistent with those on the development pipeline for InChI itself. The NanoCommons User Guide and the WorldFAIR post-project sustainability activities will be important aspects of driving the adoption by databases, repositories and nanomaterials commercial providers of the Nanomaterials InChI. The convergence of the Nanomaterials InChI approach with the European regulatory approach of “nanoforms” and “sets of nanoforms” is another important driver for adoption, and a NanoOpinion on the final Nanomaterials InchI standard will be drafted for the European Chemicals Agency.  Demonstrator projects to implement the first standard version of the Nanomaterials InChI have also been identified, including the Horizon Europe funded projects MACRAME, PINK, INSIGHT and CHIASMA.

Biodiversity 

The Biodiversity Case Study is part of a large community-driven project to better model biodiversity data for science and policy relevance. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is leading the overhaul of the Darwin Core data standard used by thousands of institutions worldwide with a new GBIF Unified Data model. The WorldFAIR Case Study is a set of studies to test the model and get community input on directions and usability. GBIF, as a Global Biodata Core infrastructure, provides sustainability for this process which will take many years to complete. It is GBIF’s intention that when mature, or portions of it, are mature those components will be placed before the governance of the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) for review and ratification by the community that helped develop it.

Agricultural Biodiversity

The Case Study produced concrete guidelines on FAIR data best practices for sharing plant-pollinator interaction data, metadata, and other digital objects. At least three of the six pilot studies conducted during the WorldFAIR project will continue to promote the adoption of the resulting KERs, namely: the Brazilian Plant-Pollinator Interactions Network (REBIPP), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant pollinator interaction prototype data and database development and the collaboration between Colecciones Biológicas from the Universidad CES and SIB Colombia, which is Colombia´s GBIF node. 

The Global Biotic Interactions platform has added new functionalities to their services based on the work of this Case Study, i.e., the FAIR assessment in the data review report and the adoption of the Ecological Metadata Language for the datasets. 

The RDA Improving Global Agriculture Community of Practice (IGAD CoP) will promote and disseminate the WP outputs, also encouraging and promoting adoption of the results.  It is expected that the Biodiversity Informations Standards (TDWG) Biotic Interactions Interest Group will continue to disseminate and improve this case study’s results. Additionally, the interest group will work together with GBIF to promote their new data model for the biotic interactions module.

Ocean Science and Sustainable Development

The ODIS Architecture now includes interoperability norms and patterns developed through WorldFAIR described in ‘D11.1 An assessment of the Ocean Data priority areas for development and implementation roadmap’, ‘D11.2 New interoperability specifications and policy recommendations’, and 11.3, and has been adopted and implemented globally by more than 40 organisations, with more in development. Some of these organisations are single institutes, while others are continental-scale data aggregators. The ODIS-Architecture is built upon and interoperable with schema.org/JSON-LD conventions, already adopted and in use by tens of millions of computers on the Web. All members of the ODIS Federation are able to innovate within the ODIS Architecture, adding or enhancing interoperability patterns such that they are rapidly – and often automatically – deployed across the Federation via IODE’s coordination. Further, as a mechanism to sustain adoption and impact, the achievements in ODIS have resulted in the reconfiguration of the IODE’s programme components: Along with the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and Ocean Teacher Global Academy, ODIS is one of the IODE’s three pillar subcomponents, with other projects and activities federated under its interoperability norms. The innovations within cross-domain data sharing in the ocean community have led to new, global value for regional and national data coordination hubs such as the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) and the UK’s Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN). Other Horizon projects (whether ocean-focused or not) can leverage this progress to make the  UN ir data more FAIR on the global stage, as exemplified by the data flow being developed in MARCO-BOLO to support biodiversity reporting via the Global Ocean Observing System’s Essential Ocean Variable framework.