The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is an international member-based organisation focused on the development of infrastructure and community activities aiming at reducing barriers to data sharing and exchange, and accelerating data driven innovation worldwide. It mobilizes researchers, scientists and data science professionals working in multiple disciplines, domains and thematic fields and from different types of organisations across the globe.

This special collection collects and gives visibility to research results and outcomes stemming from RDA activities. It includes papers describing the latest results of RDA working groups or interest groups that have recently produced an output, including recommendation and associated use cases that could highlight the added value of RDA work in the data related fields.

The scope of the special collection is to become a point of reference for experts from the international community that are committed to directly or indirectly enabling data sharing, exchange, or interoperability. The aim is to promote the work carried out and bring the results obtained to the global data expert community.

The publishing of this collection is supported by the RDA Europe 4.0 project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 777388.

Guest editors:

Leonardo Candela, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy

Donatella Castelli, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy

Emma Lazzeri, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy

Paolo Manghi, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy