The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean is providing a unique opportunity for the identification of Research Data Management (RDM) issues faced by organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A workshop on RDM is underway today at ECLAC Caribbean’s headquarters in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The event can be followed via Webex for interested participants not resident in Port of Spain.

The workshop will provide an avenue for the Caribbean to learn about the “LEaders Activating Research Networks” (LEARN) project (http://www.learn-rdm.eu/), and to share experiences in respect of RDM.

We live in the age of a ‘data deluge’, where digital technology enables us to store petabytes of data and to make that available for sharing as open data. Sharing data has the potential to revolutionise the way that researchers work. It avoids costly duplication in the collecting of data and enables research collaborations across the world which otherwise would not be possible.

The purpose of LEARN is to promote the Roadmap for Research Data Management produced by the League of European Research Universities (LERU), and to develop a coordinated wide-ranging e-infrastructure across national boundaries.

The LEARN community in Latin America and the Caribbean, led by ECLAC, aims at providing a forum where experiences and best practices can be shared amongst individuals and organizations interested in Research Data Management. A series of workshops has been organized to this end as well as to gain feedback from workshop attendees for a new Toolkit of best practices.

Individuals and organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean are invited to fill out the LEARN Readiness survey (http://goo.gl/forms/m6PGJ34tGr) which allows institutions to self-assess their readiness in Research Data Management.