Digital Science White Paper: A New ‘Research Data Mechanics’

Research metadata forms the information network that connects researchers, research institutions, funders, publishers, and research service providers together.

How well information flows across this community has direct implications on how well research activity can be supported, and fundamentally how efficiently we can move research forward.

Through highlighting six recent advances in research infrastructure, this whitepaper seeks to recast how we think about metadata - not as a series of static records, but as objects that move between systems and organizations.

By understanding the mechanics of how this occurs, we come closer to understanding our roles in the system, not just as consumers of information, but as research information citizens with responsibilities to the information with which we interact.