Research Data Alliance (RDA)

Abstract

The RDA is an international community-driven initiative dedicated to creating open and interoperable data sharing practices and standards. Its vision is researchers and innovators openly sharing data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society.

Main Contributions:

Metadata Standards Framework: Guidelines for ensuring metadata interoperability across repositories.

Persistent Identifiers (PIDs): Standards for uniquely identifying datasets and research objects (e.g., DOIs).

Overview

Country	International
Start date	2013
Annual Budget	n/a
Responsible organisation(s)	Academic cooperation
Target group(s)	Researchers, data scientists, and data managers.
Policy instrument type	technical standards

Background

The RDA works through Working Groups, Interest Groups, and Communities of Practice to address data-related challenges and develop best practices. It makes outputs and recommendations from Working and Interest Groups publicly available, guiding data-sharing practices and infrastructure development.The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a research community organization started in 2013 by the European Commission, the American National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Australian Department of Innovation. RDA is financed through grants from its constituent members’ governments. As of May 2021, the RDA has over 11,000 individual members from 145 countries.

Objective(s)

To build the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing of data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society.

Public access URL

http://www.rd-alliance.org/

All tags

• Teachers
• Open technical standards
• Academic cooperation
• Established researchers
• Students
• Research support staff
• Junior researchers
• Standards and certification for technology development and adoption
• International
• Higher education institutes
• Technical Standards & Practices
• 2013
• Public research institutes

This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Member countries of the OECD.

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.

© OECD 2025

   Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. By using this work, you accept to be bound by the terms of this licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Attribution – you must cite the work.

Translations – you must cite the original work, identify changes to the original and add the following text: In the event of any discrepancy between the original work and the translation, only the text of original work should be considered valid.

Adaptations – you must cite the original work and add the following text: This is an adaptation of an original work by the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this adaptation should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Member countries.

Third-party material – the licence does not apply to third-party material in the work. If using such material, you are responsible for obtaining permission from the third party and for any claims of infringement.

You must not use the OECD logo, visual identity or cover image without express permission or suggest the OECD endorses your use of the work.

Any dispute arising under this licence shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Arbitration Rules 2012. The seat of arbitration shall be Paris (France). The number of arbitrators shall be one.