About LCRDM

The National Coordination Point Research Data Management facilitates a national strategy for research data management in the Netherlands. Close cooperation with education and research institutions is crucial in this regard.

The LCRDM forms the link between policy and solution.

The federation of universities (VSNU) expressed the need for a compact and action-oriented coordination point Research Data Management to SURF. SURF has taken on a coordinating role in the process of helping RDM take steps towards achieving its goal as part of the SURF-innovation programme Open Science.

For further elaboration of solutions, LCRDM has sought to connect with other RDM groups in the Netherlands, like the UKB Work Group Research Data (for support), the SURF expertise centres, DTL and Go FAIR (for services) and the NPOS (for policy implementation).

Universities, University Medical Centres, Universities of Applied Sciences and research institutes have considered the question of Research Data Management (RDM) for some time. Many valuable initiatives each contain part of the answer.

If we share this know-how, we can add up the answers and so bundle our strengths and integrate Research Data Management in the daily practice of scientific research. This will promote the usefulness, sustainability and integrity of research causing it to excel. Optimal management and use of data will lead to new research questions and create opportunities for scientific breakthroughs.

The National Coordination Point Research Data Management (LCRDM) is a national network of experts in the field of research data management (RDM).

The LCRDM forms the link between policy and solution. Within LCRDM, experts work together to put RDM subjects on the agenda that are too big for one institute to tackle and need a national plan of action.

LCRDM brings together research support services, policy makers, ICT specialists, managers of diverse research institutes and research funding organizations. The LCRDM coordinates and facilitates the collaboration between the various RDM stakeholders.

The goal of the LCRDM is to make RDM a self-evident part of education and research practice in the Netherlands.

To promote the exchange of expertise, a LCRDM website (lcrdm.nl) has been set up with accompanying wiki platform. The LCRDM also organizes national network meetings about all kinds of RDM topics.

Updates on LCRDM activities:

July 2018
February 2019

An advisory group has been set up with the start of the new working method (see below). The main task is to give further direction to national cooperation in research data management. One of the means is to prioritize, in consultation with the network, issues in need of attention.

Advisory group

If you as RDM expert see the importance of contributing to a national collaborative project, join the pool of experts. Get in touch with LCRDM coordinator Ingeborg Verheul at
ingeborg.verheul@surfsara.nl.

If you have questions or proposals with regard to RDM that require a national approach, please mail them to LCRDM. We will hold a pitch among our network with the aim of forming a small task group that can quickly work out the issue in question. 

From 2015-2017 the LCRDM facilitated five national working groups that worked on the development of five key aspects of RDM policy. For the results see the Guidelines above.

Read more about the new working method of the LCRDM in the LCRDM implementation plan 2018.

In the slipstream of the 2016 Dutch EU chairmanship, the LCRDM, SURFacademy, the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the Erasmus University organized the conference Designing & Shaping Open Science – one of the spearheads of the EU chairmanship was ‘open science’. The chairmanship also yielded the 'Amsterdam Call for Action'. This was the run-up to the National Plan Open Science (NPOS).

The LCRDM contributes to several ambitions of the NPOS: read more on the LCRDM wiki platform.

A recent development are Open Science communities.