The long-term availability and usability of research data are increasingly at risk. Funding instability, infrastructure fragility, governance gaps, and political volatility have exposed systemic vulnerabilities across the data preservation and stewardship ecosystem. Resilience depends on more than preserving individual datasets.
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Overview
The long-term availability and usability of research data are increasingly at risk. Funding instability, infrastructure fragility, governance gaps, and political volatility have exposed systemic vulnerabilities across the data preservation and stewardship ecosystem. Resilience depends on more than preserving individual datasets. It requires sustained investment in the people, organizations, governance arrangements, and infrastructure that allow data to remain discoverable, usable, and continuously available.
Phase I of this project built a clearer understanding of these challenges and identified shared priorities for action. ORCA conducted 18 key-informant interviews, complemented by desk research, with funders, repository leaders, technologists, archivists, librarians, researchers, community-based data stewards, and other key actors across the data resilience ecosystem. The resulting report, Data Resilience Interview Synthesis and Candidate Pilots, identified several recurring challenges and opportunities across the ecosystem.
In Phase II, ORCA is moving from identifying vulnerabilities to testing practical responses. Pilot candidates will be refined at an in-person workshop before co-designing, implementing, testing, and evaluating a select set in live environments. The goal is to generate practical evidence about what works, for whom, and under what conditions to strengthen coordination, investment, and resilience.
Target Communities
This work is intended for organizations and individuals involved in the stewardship, preservation, use, and governance of research data, including:
Research data repositories and infrastructure providers
Librarians, archivists, and data stewards
Researchers and research institutions
Funders supporting research, infrastructure, and public-good data
Government and public-sector data organizations
Community-based data stewards
Technology and private-sector partners
Policymakers
Goals
Strengthen the resilience of research data infrastructure by identifying and testing approaches that address vulnerabilities in preservation, stewardship, and continuity.
Sustain the people and organizations behind data stewardship, recognizing that resilient data systems depend on expertise, institutional capacity, and durable organizational arrangements as well as technology.
Improve the usability and discoverability of data, addressing the gap between making data technically available and making it genuinely reusable.
Advance continuity planning, including the ability to maintain data collection and access during periods of institutional, financial, political, or infrastructural disruption.
Explore distributed approaches to resilience and equity, including the potential contributions of state, local, and community-based infrastructure.
Develop stronger governance models for an environment in which public, nonprofit, academic, and private-sector actors increasingly share responsibility for research data.
Generate practical evidence that can inform broader adoption, investment, and coordination across the data resilience ecosystem.
Outputs
Phase I
18 key-informant interviews with funders, repository leaders, technologists, archivists, librarians, researchers, community-based data stewards, and other ecosystem stakeholders
Desk research synthesizing existing evidence and approaches
Data Resilience Interview Synthesis and Candidate Pilots, identifying recurring challenges, as well as candidate intervention opportunities
Phase II
Validation and refinement of candidate interventions
Co-design of a focused set of pilots with implementation partners
Implementation and testing in live environments
Evaluation of pilot results and conditions for success
Practical evidence and recommendations to support adoption of resilient data practices more broadly
How to Get Involved
ORCA is seeking to engage organizations and individuals who can help validate, co-design, implement, test, or learn from the emerging pilots. Potential contributions could include:
Sharing expertise, experiences, or lessons from existing resilience efforts
Helping assess and refine candidate pilot concepts
Serving as an implementation or research partner
Providing relevant infrastructure, data, technical capacity, or organizational expertise
Supporting evaluation and learning
Helping identify pathways for scaling promising approaches
Connecting ORCA with additional organizations, communities, funders, or practitioners whose perspectives should inform the work
Contact Julieta Arancio at julieta@orcaopen.org.
Current and Prior Funders
Dana Foundation
Portfolio to Protect Science
David and Lucile Packard Foundation (Grant # 2026-79021)