Scope (What we fund):

The Global Access Fund will allocate funding to projects in the following areas:

1. Outreach  and engagement activities to support increasing awareness and adoption of global and local solutions and connect to community initiatives, such as:

• Capacity building to deliver training to research administrators and librarians on open infrastructure and service fundamentals (DOIs, metadata, APIs), implementation (e.g. DataCite API integration in repository and other systems, metadata curation) and demonstrating value of the connection to local infrastructure services to the community.
• Events (Webinars, workshops, virtual communication campaigns) to promote open infrastructure, discuss and amplify participation and adoption strategies and plans leveraging local initiatives.
• Outreach resource development to deliver content (videos, social media content, podcasts, tutorials, etc.) that documents use cases, success stories, benefits of DataCite infrastructure in local/regional contexts, including materials in innovative formats and languages other than English.

2. Open Infrastructure development and integration to enable and increase the adoption of DataCite infrastructure and related services, such as:

• Repository, publishing and other system development and implementation to allow organizations to integrate DataCite APIs and metadata 
• DataCite API integrations to connect local and national systems with the DataCite Registry
• Development of new tools and systems to obtain additional value from DataCite infrastructure (e.g. visualizations, statistics tools, metadata enrichment tools, CRIS systems, etc.). 

3. Demonstrators

As part of the program and with funding from the Global Access Fund, we’ll seek to identify and incubate three demonstrators across the regions. The three demonstrators can be in the following areas.

• Leveraging and implementing open international infrastructure services for the benefit of local communities. Awarded projects should create opportunities for the local communities to take advantage of DataCite infrastructure to boost visibility of their research outputs and resources.
• Leveraging and/or establishing open local infrastructure services and communities. Under this theme, we would like to enable local organizations to connect existing local solutions to global infrastructure, to enable communities that currently do not have access to these global infrastructures to connect into the global research ecosystem.
• Facilitating indigenous knowledge sharing. There are currently many challenges surrounding indigenous knowledge recognition. Indigenous data and collections can be difficult to find, mislabeled, not properly attributed, not searchable; PID infrastructure can help enable recognition for indigenous knowledge. Beyond accessibility, the focus in this area is to fund projects that support Indigenous data sovereignty through DOI registration and metadata.

Eligibility (Who can apply):

• Representatives of non-profit stakeholders within the research ecosystem (e.g. research institutions, associations, NRENs, government bodies, service providers, etc.) based in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia can apply. Applicants should be authorized to apply on behalf of their organization (legal entity).
• Applications are open to both DataCite member and non-member organizations.
• Preference will be given to applications from countries classified as lower or middle-income.

Funding 

The following funding levels are available for individual projects in each of the three areas:

• Outreach activities: up to 10,000 EUR
• Infrastructure development: up to 20,000 EUR
• Demonstrators: up to 50,000 EUR

Access to DataCite services

In cases where access to DataCite registration services is needed as part of the proposal, we will provide access to the organizations which are awarded grants for the duration of one calendar year. This access will enable them to leverage DataCite’s infrastructure and services to enhance the visibility and accessibility of their research outputs. Please note that access to services does not constitute membership. Applicants are required to submit a sustainability plan as part of their proposal, outlining how they plan to continue accessing these services following the funding period and preserve the metadata of outputs for which they will register DOIs.

Application process and support

To apply for funding, applicants should complete this form. For further information you can check our FAQs. You can also register for one of our upcoming webinars. During these sessions, we will share more about the Global Access Fund goal, scope, application, and evaluation process. There will be plenty of time for Q&A.

If you can’t attend the sessions or need additional support, you can contact our Engagement Specialists:

• Arturo Garduño-Magaña, Latin America
• Bosun Obileye, Africa
• Mohamad Mostafa, Middle East & Asia

Global Access Fund Committee

The following community members form the DataCite Global Access Fund committee:

Mohamed A. Ba-Essa (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia) 

Helena Cousijn (DataCite, Netherlands)

Britta Dreyer (DataCite, Germany) 

Maria Lucia Lizarazo Rivero (Universidad del Rosario, Colombia)

Salvatore Mele (CERN, Switzerland)

Jamie Wittenberg (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)

Timeline

• Call for proposals launch: September 1, 2023.
• Application due date: October 15, 2023.
• Award decision: December 2023.
• Awarded projects duration: January 1 – December 31, 2024.

Selection process 

The selection and evaluation process for GAF funding consists of three stages:

1. The first stage consists of the GAF committee reviewing all proposals and taking a decision on which ones are eligible to be sent out for external review. 
2. At the second stage, two reviewers from different regions will review the proposal based on predefined evaluation criteria. 
3. Based on their reviews, the GAF committee will decide which proposals will be advanced to the DataCite Board for funding.

Successful applications that pass all three stages will receive an award notification. Applicants whose applications are rejected will receive feedback from the committee.

Reporting and project outputs

Awardees commit to attending a call with DataCite staff every other month throughout the duration of the project to discuss progress and exchange ideas with other awardees. 

Awardees commit to writing a blog post, final report and to participating in a webinar to showcase the process and impact of the project.

All project outputs are expected to be made openly available under a relevant license. 

Awardees will need to report how they use the allocated funding. All invoices and receipts need to be kept and DataCite reserves the right to audit during or after the project.

Recipients will be expected to adhere to DataCite’s ethics standards.