News

LA Referencia, RedCLARA and the Research Data Alliance United States (RDA-US) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that formalizes their relationship. The organizations will seek the establishment of the implementing principles of openness, consensus, inclusivity and harmonisation to build a social and technical infrastructure that enables open sharing and re-use of research data between regions to improve communication, to facilitate the exchange of resources, and technical capabilities.

Rebecca Koskela, Executive Director of RDA United States, considered that this alliance will allow Spanish-speaking people to have access to the knowledge that has been generated about access to data: “We are very happy we have this memorandum. Having in RDA more countries and more people in Latin America, and even the speaking Spanish countries in Europe is very good.  And to be able to translate the materials to different languages  makes it much more accessible to so many people. Convincing policy makers how important access and sharing to open data is the whole purpose of the Research Alliance, we can work together on this”. 

Bianca Amaro, president of LA Referencia, pointed out the importance of this joint work: “ I think that signing this MoU is very important for the Latin American region, and I would dare to say that this is equally important for all of us, we can work closely. We have a lot of work to do together”. 

Finally, Luis Eliécer Cadenas, Executive Director of RedCLARA, discussed the need for unions like these to remain for a long time: “ I agreed with Bianca and Rebeca on the relevance of open data and the values related to open science.  I think this is the beginning of a long standing relationship. I am happy to see LA Referencia is close to those initiatives and it is helping us to build these capacities to handle data in the right way, Latin American countries will take advantage of this”. 

Some of the primary lines of action of this memorandum will include: 

• Facilitating national and transnational engagements, including the incorporation in Interest Groups and Working Groups or the creation of these to address data-related issues critical to LA Referencia and RedCLARA research community and the public at large.
• Promoting the organization of events and training to support the adoption of best practices in research data management across Latin America and Spain.
• Supporting the development of shared services and common standards, including policy development, capabilities and infrastructure interoperability requirements.

For more information on the work of LA Referencia, please visit https://www.lareferencia.info/

For more information on the work of RDA-US, please visit https://us.rd-alliance.org/