Sven Stafström is Director General of the Swedish Research Council. He has a long background in academic leadership. He has served as acting Dean at Linköping Institute of Technology, Director of the National Supercomputer Centre and Head of the Department of Science and Technology at Linköping University. In 2010 he became Secretary General of the Swedish Research Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences. Since 2014 he is Director General of the Swedish Research Council. Stafström is governing board member of Science Europe and the Swedish delegate in the European Science Advisors Forum (ESAF). Stafström received his PhD in theoretical physics from Linköping University in 1985. In 2000 he became professor in Computational Physics at the same university. His main research interest relates to charge transport in carbon based materials for applications in photo-voltaic devices and light emitting diodes.

Title: National coordination of open access to research data
Abstract: Open access to research data means that data collected and/or created during the course of research shall be published with free access via internet. Since 2017, the Swedish Research Council has had the task of coordinating the national work of introducing open access to research data. The task is based on the 2016 research policy bill (2016/17:50), with the goal for the transition to open access to research data to be fully implemented by 2026.

In this presentation I will describe the Swedish Research Council’s coordination assignment and how it is carried out in continuous collaboration with relevant actors at both national and international levels. The aim is to drive policy at a strategic level, as well as to support the practical implementation of the transition to open access. Concerning the practical implementation, we are using our funding instruments to support a number of activities aimed at creating the infrastructure needed for open access. We have also formulated a list of criteria for research data to be considered FAIR and a guide for their implementation. Another important result of our work is the development of a common template and a digital tool/service for data management plans. This was based on a template by Science Europe, which was translated and adapted by the Swedish Research Council and the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF).