The ‘FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship’ were published in Scientific Data in 2016 and since then we have seen a number of efforts towards turning this vision a reality.

A few years later, and there is a call for bringing a coherence amongst the multitude of initiatives and enhancing engagement between the multiple-players in the research ecosystem. There is also a palpable need to learn from each other across discplines in the face of the mamoth volumes of data produced leaving researchers across the board in dire need for practical instrumentations to be able to effectively and approperiately handle the data thereby reducing both current and future generational loss of research output.

FAIRPoints event series aim to bridge the divide by bringing together; the research community- the ultimate user and producer of data, policy and decision makers- shapers of research practices, together with the broader research support populace- aides in the development of solutions towards better Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse.

At FAIRPoints, we aim to provide a platform for conversations to take place around realistic and pragmatic FAIR implementations and going a step further by capturing the discussion outcomes in the form of bite-sized material that is interconnected and interoperable, making it easier to explore. The community discussions serve to identify special topics of interests, particularly challenges, regarding FAIR and we invite speakers on those specific topics focusing their talks to address the top points that the community should know about, be prepared for, and respond to. These points are documented in a machine-readable, search engine optimized, and accessible guide in order to cultivate and facilitate access to “atomic” and composable compilation of use-cases, how-to-approaches and training material with a high-level view, focused on small “points” of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable content.

FAIRPoints, in the sense of “that’s a great point!” and in the geometric sense of composing many points to form a larger shape or a coherent and connected ensemble of knowledge that is quick and easy to use, reuse, review and understand.

Throughout the process, our goal is to include diverse voices, make FAIR accessible to a broader audience, connect and collect heterogeneous input from a global perspective, support equitable access, provide for many languages, and work towards compensating volunteer efforts.

Together with GoFAIR US, SDSC, AGU,SciLifeLab Data Centre, Access 2 Perspectives and AfricArXiv this event series aims to discuss, highlight, and share pragmatic solutions to making FAIR a reality from viewpoints that transverse geographic and domain areas in order to cultivate researchers’ engagement in FAIR on a global scale.