Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) hosted the fourth edition of the FAIR Data Fair on Thursday 18 June. The event was organised by the CSUC together with research centres from the region, including the Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica (ICAC), the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), the IRB Cat Sud, the Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA) and the Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ).
The meeting brought together around 150 professionals from the academic and scientific community and has become a benchmark forum for sharing experience, knowledge, and best practices in research data management and the application of FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).
In this context, the ICIQ reaffirms its commitment to open science and responsible data management. Since 2025, the centre has had its own Open Science Policy, which promotes transparency, open access to scientific results, and the reuse of research data, thereby contributing to more accessible, efficient, and collaborative research.
The event opened with an inaugural lecture by Josep Perelló Palou, Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Universitat de Barcelona. This was followed by the round table “Research data management in the region: what do we have and what is missing?”, in which Professor Núria López, ICIQ group leader, participated alongside representatives from other institutions within the Catalan research system.
During the debate, the main challenges still facing the scientific community in terms of data management were analysed, as well as the need for tools, infrastructures, and policies that facilitate data preservation, sharing, and reuse.
Participants in the debate © CSUC
ICIQ’s contribution to the FAIR Data Fair was also reflected in the participation of Professor Carles Bo as a member of the event’s Scientific Committee, where he helped define its strategic and scientific directions. In this context, Bo highlighted that: “Data do not interconnect themselves: people interconnect them. Moreover, infrastructures are needed to interconnect them, and it is also people who create them.”
This perspective highlights the importance of developing tools that enable data to be transformed into shared knowledge. A notable example is ioChem-BD, a platform developed by the three computational research groups at the ICIQ, which has become a reference infrastructure for the organisation, preservation and sharing of computational chemistry data.
As a new feature, this year’s edition included a flash presentation format, in which 13 researchers from different centres shared experiences and case studies in short, dynamic talks. The initiative was very well received by attendees for its ability to present real examples of FAIR principles implementation in a clear and accessible way.
The event concluded with a reflection on the future challenges of data interoperability and the evolution of open science. The closing remarks were delivered by Núria Benítez from the Open Science Unit of the CERCA Institution and Mireia Alcalá from the Research, Learning and Open Science Area of CSUC.
La entrada ICIQ took part in the FAIR Data Fair 2026 se publicó primero en ICIQ.