[abstract]
Canadian research libraries have a strong record of success in obtaining funding for collaborative national or provincial projects which support research and innovation. Canadian data librarians have been active in providing institutional support and similarly collaborating on a regional and national level. Characteristic of these initiatives is that they are invariably ‘bottom up’ and require determined consensus building among disparate institutions. The Canadian National Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CNCDI) initiative will build on these successes. Led by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, we have been consulting with potential partners to create a proposal to demonstrate the feasibility of our goal: to build a national infrastructure to support the innovative re-use of data created through publicly-funded research. The project will build on and enhance the existing patchwork of data management services and infrastructures in Canada to create a comprehensive, integrated network of data repositories capable of supporting Canadian research across all disciplines far into the future. In this presentation, I will discuss the demonstrated need, and the vision and model we are developing, as well as the approach we have taken to building support for this proposal and opportunities and challenges in the current academic, economic and political environment.
