Two weeks and counting! What seems like a whirlwind has passed by in a flash. Today I take a moment to reflect on my first two weeks as DataCite’s Executive Director and share some of my initial impressions.
My first week at DataCite had me on my way to Edinburgh to attend FORCE2019. This was an excellent opportunity to engage with members of our community and team. During the week, what really struck me was the commitment and passion that exists throughout our community. As Nelson Mandela once said “A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world a better place we so passionately dreamt of.” Although in a different context, this is true for the DataCite community. Collectively we can make a fundamental difference in Open Science and Open Data.
The following week I caught a train to Hannover, Germany where I met with Britta Dreyer (DataCite Business Manager) and Irina Sens (DataCite Executive Board Member). It was an opportunity for me to learn more about where DataCite began, our governing statutes, and the operational functions of our organization.
It is important to align with our core principles and founding vision, to understand why DataCite exists and what we as a community are working towards. Jan Brase (DataCite’s founding Executive Officer) wrote in his blog post earlier this year, “the goal of the project was to look at ways to establish an infrastructure to assign identifiers to scientific datasets to make them citable.” This vision remains true for DataCite today. We continue to provide an open sustainable infrastructure to register citable DOIs for research data and other research outputs which is available to all disciplines.
Our collective success will be achieved through commitment, collaborative teamwork, engaging community, creative thinking, and professionalism. As the close of 2019 approaches, I plan to focus on consolidating our community engagement, establishing a clear path to sustainability, and developing a clear strategic plan for 2020.
Finally, I am honored to be able to call the DataCite team members colleagues. Our team has an exceptional level of commitment and passion for serving our community. I look forward to working with the team and community in the coming years. I have no doubt that together we will continue to grow from strength to strength.
