The Importance of Demand and Environment for Defining and Establishing the Role of Data Stewards

Data stewardship is now a central part of FAIR research data management. Although various types of positions called data stewards have been created at academic institutions over the last years, no demand-oriented, formal model of data stewardship and the associated roles exist so far. This workshop report presents the outcomes of the panel discussion “The Importance of Demand and Environment for Defining Data Stewardship” held at the International FAIR Convergence Symposium 2020. It starts with the description of the situation at four structurally diverse research data management centers and their individual perspectives on the idea and role of data stewards. Despite efforts to define the profile of a data steward, the role is still new and the individual position profiles have not yet converged on a coherent job description, which is showing that local demand and environment are still more defining for specific positions than a generalized data steward role.