Radical collaboration during a global health emergency: development of the RDA COVID-19 data sharing recommendations and guidelines

• Published in: Open research Europe Vol. 1; p. 69
• Main Authors: Pickering, Brian, Biro, Timea, Austin, Claire C., Bernier, Alexander, Bezuidenhout, Louise, Casorrán, Carlos, Crawley, Francis P., David, Romain, Engelhardt, Claudia, Mitrea, Geta, Mochmann, Ingvill Constanze, Nagrani, Rajini, O'Brien-Uhlmansiek, Mary, Parker, Simon, Wang, Minglu, Castro, Leyla Jael, Cournia, Zoe, Dharmawardena, Kheeran, Diallo, Gayo, Dillo, Ingrid, Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra, Gururaj, Anupama, Gutam, Sridhar, Harrower, Natalie, Jonnagaddala, Jitendra, McNeill, Katherine, Mietchen, Daniel, Pienta, Amy, Polydoratou, Panayiota, Tovani-Palone, Marcos Roberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, UK F1000 Research Limited on behalf of the European Commission 2021; F1000 Research Limited
• Subjects: Business administration; Emerging diseases; Human health and pathology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Infectious diseases; Life Sciences; Santé publique et épidémiologie; COVID-19; global health; Research Data Alliance; epidemic; radical collaboration; pandemic; public health; data sharing
• ISSN: 2732-5121; 2732-5121
• DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.13369.1

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic required a rapid and effective response. This included ethical and legally appropriate sharing of data. The European Commission (EC) called upon the Research Data Alliance (RDA) to recruit experts worldwide to quickly develop recommendations and guidelines for COVID-related data sharing. Purpose: The purpose of the present work was to explore how the RDA succeeded in engaging the participation of its community of scientists in a rapid response to the EC request. Methods: A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed among RDA COVID-19 work group members. A mixed-methods approach was used for analysis of the survey data. Results: The three constructs of radical collaboration (inclusiveness, distributed digital practices, productive and sustainable collaboration) were found to be well supported in both the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the survey data. Other social factors, such as motivation and group identity were also found to be important to the success of this extreme collaborative effort. Conclusions: Recommendations and suggestions for future work were formulated for consideration by the RDA to strengthen effective expert collaboration and interdisciplinary efforts.