FAIR-in-action Bridge: building the practical tools RDM professionals need

Research Data Management professionals across the UK often face the same problem: plenty of FAIR guidance exists, but very little that is ready to pick up and use. FAIR-in-action Bridge is a BioFAIR Pathfinder project that addresses exactly that gap, co-creating reusable materials that help RDM professionals turn FAIR principles into everyday institutional practice.

The project is led by the coordinators of ELIXIR-UK RDM Club, a national community of over 300 RDM professionals across ~60 UK research-performing organisations. The starting point is a straightforward diagnosis: the missing middle layer between FAIR policy and practical implementation. Evidence gathered through structured interviews with RDM leads at 11 universities and ongoing RDM Club discussions identified three consistent barriers – access, cultural, and practical – that currently prevent FAIR adoption from taking hold locally.

FAIR-in-action Bridge will tackle the practical and cultural barriers directly by co-creating two playbooks:

1. How to approach FAIRification
2. How to communicate and advocate for FAIR

The playbooks will draw on the expertise of the project co-leads, who collectively bring deep experience across RDM training, FAIR implementation, community building, and life sciences research infrastructure.

But most importantly, content will also be shaped through a series of contentathons – focused, facilitated co-creation workshops open to RDM Club members and anyone in the UK working in RDM or adjacent roles, including allied networks such as UKRN,  CaSDaR.

These sessions will ensure the playbooks reflect real institutional experience, not just established guidance. Established resources, including RDMkit, FAIRsharing, FAIR Cookbook, WorkflowHub, existing FAIR Games, and the NIH FAIRication Framework, which will be translated into facilitator-ready activities, template slide decks, scripts, talking points, and local adaptation placeholders that RDM professionals can pick up and use without starting from scratch.

The playbooks will be tested and refined through in-person rollout events at six UK research-performing organisations, grouped into two clusters: mature RDM teams who will validate and refine the materials, and emerging or specialist teams who will test usability in lower-capacity settings.

Each rollout doubles as live implementation testing and hands-on capacity building for local RDM professionals, increasing the likelihood of sustained reuse after the project ends.

All outputs will be published openly and indexed in well-established resources such as RDMkit, TeSS, the FAIR Cookbook, FAIRsharing, and published on Zenodo.

Sustained reuse beyond the project is anchored in the RDM Club itself, which operates as a permanent national community of practice and will include standing agenda items on playbook adaptation, troubleshooting and new versions.

For further details, visit the project page, join the RDM Club or contact the leads at rdm-coordination@elixiruknode.org