What are FAIR?

FAIR stands for:

Findable – (research should be findable by both humans and machines)
Accessible –  (research should be available)
Interoperable – (research should be described through accepted standards, formats and vocabularies)
Reusable – (research should be usable by others)

The FAIR principles have initially been mostly linked to research data but are now a central part of the work with open science, both internationally and at Swedish universities.

What does FAIR mean to me as a researcher?

General

• The FAIR principles affect the research process from start to finish.
• Many research funders, such as the Swedish Research Council, Forte and the EU's Horizon Europe, require that research data be managed according to FAIR.
• Based on the different principles, there are different things to consider, see the headings below.

Findable

• Research results should have so-called persistent identifiers (PIDs), so that they can be easily found. Examples of PIDs are DOI, ISBN, etc.
• The description of the publication or data, so-called metadata, should be clear, structured and machine-readable.
• Publish in trusted databases and repositories

Accessible

• 
  Research data can have different access levels, but metadata should always be accessible, even if the data itself cannot be shared openly (e.g. in the case of sensitive personal data).
• Ensure that data is accessible by using open, commonly used and machine-readable file formats that can be opened with standard or open source software.

Interoperable

• Data and metadata should use accepted standards, formats and vocabularies so that they can be combined and used together with other data and by different systems.
• If the researcher has an ORCID ID, this should be stated in the publication or with the data.

Reusable

• Clear documentation about the research to enable reuse.
• Information about licenses, e.g. Creative Commons, and conditions for how the research can be used by others.
• Good data management throughout the data lifecycle, e.g. clarity about who manages your data if you change workplace.

More information

• The FAIR principles (Swedish National Data Service)
• FAIR principles (Go FAIR)