What is the FAIR partnership, and to what does it refer?

The FAIR partnership refers to a set of principles that guide the management and stewardship of digital assets to make them Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). These principles were developed to support the reuse of scholarly data and to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of research.

Here are the steps to understand the FAIR partnership:

1. Findable: The first step in (re)using data is to find them. Metadata and data should be easy to find for both humans and computers. Machine-readable metadata are essential for automatic discovery of datasets and services.

2. Accessible: Once the user finds the required data, they need to know how they can be accessed. This includes the necessary protocols for the digital object identifiers. Even when data is no longer available, it is crucial to know about its existence and understand why the data has been generated.

3. Interoperable: 'Interoperable' refers to the ability of systems and services that create, exchange and consume data to have clear, shared expectations for their interaction and communication. Data should be easily integrated with other data. In addition, data should use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles. Data should also include qualified references to other data.

4. Reusable: The ultimate goal of FAIR is to optimise the reuse of data. To achieve this, metadata and data should be well-described so that they can be replicated and/or combined in different settings.

In summary, the FAIR partnership is a set of guiding principles to make it easier for machines and people to discover and use data. These principles are crucial in the world of research, where the sharing and reuse of data are becoming increasingly important.