I joined the Energy Data Centre (EDC) one of UKERC’s capabilities on the 16 March 2020, working for Dr Jim Halliday (UKERC Co-Director), based in the Technology Department of the Science and Technology Facility Council.
This new role was a move within Science and Technology Facilities Council to the Technology Department, but remaining on the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory site. I have worked at RAL since 1988, while my employer may have changed from the Science and Engineering Research Council to STFC through a couple more name changes, my career has been centred around the discovery of information in support of scientific research and open access to publications, data and software.
My role at the EDC covered operational management with a remit to develop and innovate the service. As part of my clearout, I came across my introductory UKERC blog post, and I am using the aspirations laid out in there to reflect on the changes in the service and team.
The examples picked out below do not cover everything that the team achieved, there wouldn’t be space for it in a short blog, but were chosen to show how we have developed against my original priorities:
To raise the EDC’s profile in the wider data management community:
We have promoted the Energy Data Centre and its content through a variety of professional networks, including the Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research network launch, the Energy-focused Cross Consortia Engagement Meeting and sharing expertise with the Digital Preservation Coalition.
Data management planning and increasing research data content from UKERC researchers:
Working with our colleagues in UKERC, we supported the publication of research data and publicised the outcomes in UKERC Phase 4 collection. We provided additional guidance on the EDC portal. We cooperated with colleagues in CREDS to run a workshop exploring the issues for researchers in Energy Consortia to share their data, and shared our experiences with our colleagues through a poster at the International Digital Curation Conference in 2025 entitled Supporting Whole System Energy Researchers with Data Management Planning since 2004
EDC ‘technically good footing’
We implemented a series of updates to the user interface to make searching for data and grey literature publications easier which were announced in these blog posts: Enhanced Energy Research Data Discoverability and Improved publication discovery. We updated information on the licenses to help with reuse. We reviewed the energy consumption of the service, the report is available: An investigation into the impact of service policies on the energy consumption of the Energy Data Centre.
Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable data
The EDC team were supported by mentors from the FAIR-IMPACT project to review how the EDC was supporting depositors to comply with FAIR. We shared the outcomes of this with a poster at iPres conference entitled Supporting FAIR and Forever: experiences in revising the Energy Data Centre’s policies and used the Data Infrastructure for National Infrastructure project to do some forward thinking about FAIRness and trustworthiness captured in the FAIR API report and the Reviewing the Energy Semantic Artefacts Landscape
Research software
We wrote specific guidance on Research software credit and ran a UKERC/DINI workshop to explore specific issues for sharing data for energy modellers which was summarised in this report.
I am proud of the activities undertaken in the last six years and believe that the application of my professional skills and expertise has made a difference to the service. I also made new colleagues within the friendly UKERC community and has a better understanding of whole systems approach to energy research. Energy research has a direct impact on everyday life, and the importance of generating and using energy wisely cannot be underestimated.
Peter Holt, who has been the Technical Lead for the EDC since November 2020, will be taking on the leadership role for the Energy Data Centre. This widens his remit from concentrating on the technical development and operation of the service, using his research software engineering skills, to having an overview of all aspects of the service development. I leave the EDC in safe hands and look forward to seeing it continue to develop and support the energy research community.
Contact Peter at peter.holt@stfc.ac.uk, and EDC service support from EDCmanager@stfc.ac.uk.