The NDS Pilot Program seeks to establish domain-specific data spaces to advance Canada’s research data ecosystem by fostering trusted, sustainable, and domain-driven approaches to data stewardship and collaboration. This new initiative is working with three successful proposals to pilot disciplinary-led approaches to research data. CRDCN’s success represents a significant boost for the social sciences and reinforces the Network’s role as Canada’s largest national research infrastructure serving social science researchers. 

The NDS pilot addresses the growing concern regarding the fragmentation of research data and the lack of coordinated mechanisms to build disciplinary capacity. Canada has an urgent need for a coordinated national framework to govern and steward research data, which was echoed in the Office of the Chief Science Advisor’s July 2025 report Towards a National Scientific Data Governance Framework. CRDCN’s Executive Director Natalie Harrower served as an advisory committee member for the report. 

By piloting National Data Spaces, the Alliance is aligning with international best practices being developed by the European Union and Australia to organize and support the digital research infrastructure, data and software requirements of research communities. This approach also resonates with the findings from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)’s data working group that data management is central to the functioning of all national research infrastructures, as addressed during the annual Major Science Initiatives workshop in 2025. 

“National Data Spaces are a cornerstone of the Canadian Research Data Platform, that will bring domain and disciplinary perspectives to form a connected and resilient national research data ecosystem,” says the Alliance in their announcement. 

About the Sensitive Social Science National Data Space 

With this grant, CRDCN will, over the next 26 months, convene communities of disciplinary researchers and data specialists and conduct the requirements elicitation and requirements engineering to design a repository and trusted research environment for sensitive social sciences data. This work will draw from and expand beyond the existing 2,500+ researchers from all provinces who rely on CRDCN as a national research infrastructure, and outline the research data lifecycle needs from deposit and curation, through discovery and managed access, to archiving and indexing.

This new undertaking builds on CRDCN’s 26-year partnership with Statistics Canada, which has seen the Network facilitate access, training and knowledege mobilization for academic researchers working with Statistics Canada’s massive, rich and diverse collection of microdata. The scoping for new repository–for sensitive social sciences data outside the scope of those provided by Statistics Canada–will outline a stewardship framework that seeks to complement, expand and consolidate what researchers are able to currently access through the Network. The Québec Inter-university Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS) is a key partner who will help to convene researchers in Québec, and deepen the bilingual framing of the national data space. As a clear use case, the project will focus on pilot data about education; this domain has been chosen to help test the requirements of working with provincial and municipal data, and also because education research attracts a range of disciplinary questions and methodologies. The Education Data Advisory Group is composed of leading scholars in education from four provinces and a range of disciplines: Elizabeth Dhuey (Economics, University of Toronto), Veronique Dupéré (Psychoéducation, Université de Montréal), Ted McDonald (Political Science, University of New Brunswick) and Simon Woodcock (Economics, Simon Fraser University). 

A central focus of this initiative is community building: bringing together researchers, data stewards, and institutional partners from across Canada to define a shared vision for a national social science data space. Ultimately, this project represents a critical first step toward establishing a national social science data space for Canada.

“We are honoured to have been chosen to pilot one of Canada’s first national data spaces, and pleased with the opportunity to highlight the value of social science research to Canadian society, economy and policymaking. The investigations that social science researchers make using statistical and administrative data address questions that affect the daily lives of individuals, families and businesses in Canada, and are fundamental to designing the programs and policies that seek to improve these lives. The process of convening a national data space – of learning from researchers and building infrastructure that helps advance their studies – is an excellent opportunity to strengthen research in Canada. We are fortunate to have an existing community of over 2,500 researchers to help us start this journey, and inform how we can provide a space for secure data deposit and access, ensure the long term sustainability of key datasets, and ultimately help researchers to answer complex questions,” says CRDCN Executive Director Natalie Harrower.

“As the longstanding host of CRDCN, McMaster supports this important step in strengthening Canada’s social science research infrastructure. Data-driven decision-making and ethical data management are central to our research strategy, and we welcome CRDCN’s growing leadership in this area,” says McMaster Vice-President, Research Gianni Parise.

CRDCN will host a webinar on April 14, 2026 to share more information about the project and opportunities for community engagement. Register now: https://crdcn.ca/events/introducing-the-national-data-space-for-sensitive-data-in-social-sciences/ 

About CRDCN  

The Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) is one of Canada’s Major Science Initiatives, headquartered at McMaster University. It is a premier research and training platform for over 2,500 researchers in the quantitative social and health sciences in Canada. The Network provides unique access to Statistics Canada data on 30+ campuses across the country to advance knowledge and inform public policy. 

About McMaster University 

McMaster University is Canada’s most research-intensive university and is consistently ranked as one of the world’s Top 100 universities. Together, our researchers, students and staff advance human and societal health and well-being, creating a Brighter World. 

About the Digital Research Alliance of Canada 

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) plays a central role in helping to advance the establishment of a researcher focused, accountable, agile, strategic and sustainable digital research infrastructure (DRI) ecosystem for researchers in Canada. The Alliance’s members include over 100 of Canada’s top universities, colleges, research hospitals and institutes, and other leading organizations in DRI.  

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The 2nd Canadian Open Science Conference will take place October 27–29, 2026, in Ottawa, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and partners from across the country to advance open science in Canada.

Building on the momentum of the inaugural conference hosted at Concordia University, this national gathering will provide a space for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and discussion on the future of open science and research transparency. The event will also include a dedicated day focused on metaresearch, with the goal of bringing together the Canadian community, mapping ongoing activities, and contributing to the development of a national metaresearch roadmap.  

More information will be shared in the coming months. In the meantime, please mark your calendars and feel free to circulate the poster within your networks.  

Save the date

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CRDCN is pleased to announce that Natalie Harrower, Executive Director of CRDCN, has been appointed to the Academic Advisory Board of the Global Research Initiative on Open Science (GRIOS), an international effort to strengthen evidence-based open science policy and practice.

GRIOS recently established its Academic Advisory Board following a highly competitive international selection process. Comprising 11 leading scholars from nine countries across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the Board held its inaugural meeting on February 19, 2026. The establishment of GRIOS marks a new stage in open science that is reflective about the overall aims and approaches behind the movement to more transparent, sharable research. GRIOS aims to generate actionable evidence that will support decision-making by research funders, universities, governments, and researchers. By synthesizing findings from existing studies across a range of open science topics, the initiative will help identify which approaches are most effective and where further innovation and policy development are needed.

Natalie Harrower’s appointment complements CRDCN’s strategic priority of supporting open science practices as they relate to sensitive data and social science research practices. “Through participation in GRIOS, CRDCN contributes to international efforts to better understand how open science policies can enhance research transparency, collaboration, and impact while maintaining strong standards for data stewardship and privacy protection,” says Dr. Harrower.

During its first meeting, the Academic Advisory Board worked with the GRIOS Steering Committee to review early findings from a commissioned literature study on open science and to identify priority topics for upcoming systematic reviews. The Board also established its work plan and timeline for the year ahead, with the first call for commissioned reviews expected to be released soon.

Helpful links:

• Learn more about GRIOS and its objectives: https://www.grios.org/
• List of GRIOS Academic Advisory Board members: https://www.grios.org/academic-advisory-board/
• Read about GRIOS inaugural meeting: https://www.grios.org/global-research-initiative-on-open-science-establishes-its-academic-advisory-board/

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The funded partnership, led by the University of Calgary and directed by economist Trevor Tombe, brings together 15 academic and policy organizations, including federal partners such as Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada, to generate long-term, policy-relevant research on productivity and economic growth in Canada. 

CRDCN is pleased to see strong representation from its research community within this initiative. Eight of the 17 co-applicants are RDC users, including two from CRDCN’s host organisation, McMaster University: Angela Zheng and Pau Salvador Pujolas Fons. The other six co-applicants within the CRDCN network are Audra Bowlus from Western University, Jean-Félix Brouillette and Benoit Dostie from HEC Montréal, Joseph Marchand from the University of Alberta, Jennifer Robson from Carleton University and Alex Whalley from the University of Calgary.  

RDC-affiliated collaborators include CRDCN Principal Investigator Mike Veall (McMaster University), Herb Emery (University of New Brunswick), Rob Gillezeau (University of Toronto) and Salvador Navarro (Western University). 

Secure access to Statistics Canada microdata through the RDC network will play an important role in supporting the rigorous, evidence-based research at the heart of this 15-year initiative. CRDCN supported SSHRC as they developed this new mechanism, and will further support the work of researchers in several ways, including identifying and working with relevant datasets, developing and implementing data management plans, and practicing open science in the context of restricted data.  

CRDCN congratulates the full partnership team and looks forward to supporting this ambitious, mission-driven collaboration as it advances evidence-informed economic policy and strengthens Canada’s productivity research ecosystem. 

Learn more: 

• SSHRC news release: https://www.canada.ca/en/social-sciences-humanities-research/news/2026/02/new-national-research-partnership-to-improve-canadas-productivity-receives-inaugural-grant.html 
• SSHRC Policy Innovation Partnership Grants program: https://sshrc-crsh.canada.ca/en/funding/opportunities/policy-innovation-partnership-grants/2025/competition.aspx 
• Full list of award recipients: https://sshrc-crsh.canada.ca/en/competition-results/award-recipients/2025/policy_innovation_partnership_grants.aspx 

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These outreach and engagement activities are essential components of trainees’ professional development, equipping them with the skills to communicate research findings effectively, build strategic partnerships, and contribute to evidence-based policy and practice. Participation in national and international knowledge mobilization events enables trainees to showcase research conducted at the Manitoba Research Data Centre (RDC), thereby increasing the visibility, impact, and productivity of our Centre.

A key opportunity supported through this fund is participation in the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) Annual Conference, which brings together researchers, faculty, students, and data leaders from across Canada. This event provides a national platform for sharing innovative research, strengthening collaborations, and exploring data-driven policy applications—further reinforcing the Manitoba RDC’s leadership in research excellence and knowledge translation

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CRDCN hosts a range of events that connect researchers, policymakers and partners across Canada, including research seminars, workshops, training and knowledge-sharing forums.  

Explora is the Alliance’s centralized platform for discovering digital research infrastructure (DRI) events and training opportunities across Canada. By indexing CRDCN events on Explora, we are increasing the visibility of our activities while supporting the Alliance’s efforts to strengthen coordination and collaboration across Canada’s research ecosystem. 

You can now find CRDCN events directly through the Alliance’s Explore platform here: https://explora.alliancecan.ca/content_providers/canadian-research-data-centre-network 

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The model reflects work advanced through international collaboration, following discussions held at the Lorentz Centre in Leiden, Netherlands, in July 2025. The workshop was organised by chairs from the Research Data Alliance Global Open Research Commons (GORC) Interest Group and International Implementations Working Group, with support from SURF. CRDCN’s Executive Director, Natalie Harrower, was among other key research leaders and contributed insights from the perspective of research infrastructures that support the use of sensitive or restricted data.  

The Global Open Research Commons model provides a flexible epistemic framework applicable across a wide range of settings. It offers a common typology for describing research commons and supports coordination and interoperability across a diverse ecosystem of digital research infrastructures. It enables individuals and organizations to reflect both theoretically and practically on their activities and needs.

Importantly, the model recognizes that research outputs and infrastructures vary widely in their degree of openness, including those that provide secure access to sensitive or restricted data, and it is already being used in practice for purposes such as enabling interoperability between commons and supporting internal organizational planning.

CRDCN is in the process of creating an organisational profile using the GORC model, which will be used to identify gaps and opportunities in organisational structure and operations.

Other helpful links:  

• The first version of the report is available here: Payne et al. (2023), The Global Open Research Commons International Model Report, Version 1.0: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17230153 

• More information on the Global Open Research Commons work within the Research Data Alliance can be found here: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/gorc-international-implementations-working-group-gorc-ii-wg/activity/ 

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Organised by CRDCN’s Executive Director Natalie Harrower, Concordia University Librarian Amy Buckland and Associate Vice-President Research Monica Mulrennnan with support from SSHRC (Matthew Lucas) and CIHR (Allison Bourgon), the event included an address from Prof. Eva Mendez, founding Board member of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (COARA). Participants collaboratively drafted several key principles, including the need to move beyond traditional metrics, adopt both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods, and ensure publicly funded research is made publicly accessible whenever possible. Research outputs, in this broader and more inclusive definition, are not limited to publications, but also include data, code, models and other elements that are key to understanding research findings and processes. 

The workshop concluded with a Call to Action identifying five priority areas for change: 

1. National Strategy, Policy, and Governance: Establishing a national coordinating body and unified strategy to embed Open Science and responsible assessment across the research ecosystem. 
2. Funding and Infrastructure: Investing sustainably in people, infrastructure, and digital sovereignty to support Open Science. 
3. Training and Capacity Building: Equipping researchers and students with the tools and knowledge to thrive in an open research environment. 
4. Evaluation and Metrics: Redefining research excellence through inclusive indicators that value diverse outputs and real-world impact. 
5. Collaboration and Communication: Fostering collective responsibility and coordination among researchers, institutions, funders, and policymakers. 

This Call to Action will be the subject of discussion at the 2025 Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC), at a session titled Responsible Research Assessment and Open Science Adoption, moderated by Natalie Harrower, at 3:00pm-4:15pm on Thursday 20 November. CSPC is the largest annual event that brings together academics and government to discuss science policy in Canada. 

The panel, featuring Amy Buckland (Concordia University), Kelly Cobey (University of Ottawa Heart Institute & DORA), Matthew Lucas (SSHRC), and Carole Jabet (Fonds de recherche du Québec), will explore how shifting assessment practices toward qualitative evaluation, diverse outputs, and societal impact can provide incentives to researchers to advance Open Science in Canada and align national approaches with global standards for open scholarship. 

As a publicly funded organisation, CRDCN is committed to good practices across its areas of involvement in the research ecosystem. For more information on CRDCN’s priorities, see the current CRDCN Strategic Plan 2024-2029.  

To read the Call to Action and more about the Concordia meeting, see : https://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/library/docs/2025-concordia-meeting-research-assessment-open-science.pdf 

To learn more about the Responsible Research Assessment and Open Science Adoption session at CSPC, see https://www.xcdsystem.com/cspc/program/FC9ql64/index.cfm?pgid=297&sid=6045 

For the full schedule of the 2025 Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC), see https://www.xcdsystem.com/cspc/program/FC9ql64/index.cfm?pgid=297&RunRemoveSessionFilter=1 

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Natalie Harrower, Executive Director of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN), was among the expert panelists who contributed to the development of the framework as part of an Advisory Panel to Dr. Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor of Canada. Dr. Harrower’s participation reflects CRDCN’s commitment to supporting researcher access to rich data sources that can be analysed in order to provide evidence for the development of policy and programmes. CRDCN is also working to support FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) practices aligned with the CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles, which guide ethical and effective data management and foster public trust in science. These principles are central to the newly released framework. 

The report responds to the growing need for robust data governance in the face of rapid digitalization and the rise of artificial intelligence. It outlines recommendations to make Canada’s scientific data more accessible, interoperable, and sustainable by promoting shared infrastructure and harmonized governance approaches. It also emphasizes that the true value of scientific data lies not only in its initial collection but in its reuse—driving innovation, enabling cross-disciplinary breakthroughs, and informing evidence-based policy. 

The framework offers tailored guidance for policymakers, researchers, and the public—highlighting how responsible data governance can maximize return on public investment in research while helping researchers to focus on their key investigations and impact, with the knowledge that that their data are secure and well-stewarded. Scientific data is a core asset for the discovery of solutions to issues both small and large that affect Canadian lives, from how to improve the delivery of a specific social service to a designated community, through tackling climate change.  

“The fact that this report recognizes data as a national asset and provides a framework for bringing data governance and practices closer to supporting that recognition is a key contribution to our thinking around the relationship between data, the scientific enterprise, and the improvement of daily life,” said Dr. Harrower. “National assets require national commitments, and national coordination, and if followed, the recommendations in this report will help to move Canada in the right direction.”  

CRDCN’s efforts to support a national approach to scientific/research data governance align with related efforts to support a more robust approach to sustaining national research infrastructures across all disciplines and domains. “In our current AI-focused, data-driven environment, data governance, stewardship and management are becoming domain-agnostic concerns with domain-specific requirements, so supporting research means sustaining the infrastructures that make it possible, which in turn requires a robust, consistent and best-practice approach to the data lifecycle,” said Dr. Harrower. 

The full paper produced by the advisory committee, containing detailed recommendations and implementation strategies, is expected to be released later this autumn. 

A podcast from CRDCN’s 25th Anniversary conference panel on research infrastructures, innovation and the centrality data, featuring Dr. Nemer, can be found here:

For more information on CRDCN’s strategic positioning in the research ecosystem, see the CRDCN 2024-2029 Strategic Plan in English or French 

For more information on the work of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor in relation to Open Science, see: https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/office-chief-science-advisor/open-science

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Last month, 25 international researchers and data experts gathered at the Lorentz Centre in Leiden, Netherlands, to explore how to better provide support for the implementation and scaling of Research Commons nationally and worldwide, using shared language, frameworks, and real-world models. Titled “Making the Global Open Research Commons Truly Global” and organized by the Global Open Research Commons (GORC) Interest and Working Groups of the Research Data Alliance, the workshop aimed to expand the discussion outside of existing implementations and refine the model for wider adoption.   

What is the Research Data Alliance? 

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) was launched as a community-driven initiative in 2013 with the vision that researchers and innovators can openly share and re-use data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society. 

The RDA’s mission is to build the social and technical bridges that enable that vision, accomplished through the creation, adoption and use of the social, organizational, and technical infrastructure needed to reduce barriers to data sharing and exchange. Scientists & researchers join forces with technical experts in focused Working Groups, exploratory Interest Groups and Communities of Practice. Individual membership is free and open to all. 

CRDCN’s Executive Director, Natalie Harrower, participated in the Lorentz workshop, in particular contributing insights from the perspective of research infrastructures that support the use of sensitive or restricted data.   

“The goal of the Global Open Research Commons group is to collectively create, disseminate, and maintain a model that provides a common language and typology for describing research commons, in order to enable different commons’ to work together, and to assist the development of best practices in organizational design and function. Participating in the RDA working group and the concentrated Lorentz workshop on this topic is part of a wider effort to highlight the work of the CRDCN to international peers, and to create relationships for the exchange of ideas. As the main national research infrastructure supporting quantitative social sciences in Canada, it’s important to stay abreast of international developments and to contribute to their shaping.” said Dr. Harrower. “Engagement with the larger research ecosystem, both national and international, is a key part of our current strategic plan” (See: EN https://doi.org/10.71548/v8np-3h63 | FR https://doi.org/10.71548/ceb9-2123 ) 

Workshop participants considered a variety of existing profiles of organizations that have adopted the model (e.g. SURF in the Netherlands and CSC in Finland), built new adoption profiles to test its resilience, and considered the goals and assumptions behind the concepts of “openness” and “the commons”. The diversity of commons, which include many large- and small-scale research infrastructures, was key to testing definitional boundaries.  

What is the Lorentz Centre? 

The Lorentz Centre is workshop center that hosts international scientific meetings, and is funded by the University of Leiden and the Dutch research council (NWO). In research data and open science communities, it is perhaps best known for catalyzing the development of the FAIR principles at a workshop in 2014. 

Participants from the GORC Lortentz workshop are currently finalising a paper that highlights the outcome of the workshop, which will appear on the CRDCN website.

Helpful Links:  

• A plain language guide to the model: Payne, K., Corrie, B., Crawley, F., Harrower, N., Macneil, R., Maxwell, L., Sansone, S.-A., Treloar, A., Woodford, C., Åkerström, W. N., & RDA GORC International Model WG. (2023). The Global Open Research Commons International Model Report, Version 1 (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00097  
• Current GORC working group at the Research Data Alliance: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/gorc-international-implementations-working-group-gorc-ii-wg/activity/ 
• Information on how to join the Research Data Alliance: https://www.rd-alliance.org/membership/individual-membership/ 
• Information on the Lorentz Centre: https://www.lorentzcenter.nl/site/index.php?pntHandler=WorkshopTemplatePage&pntType=ConPagina&id=2143 

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