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Webinar on GDPR literacy

8--2019-_-2-


The occasion: The series of the Greek and Cypriot NOADs webinars on Open Science aim to keep the academic and research community in Greece and Cyprus up-to-date and in sync with European developments and trends as well as support their open research endeavours.

The need for GDPR literacy: The webinars have proven to be a good practice also for getting a better understanding of national community needs. Of the most popular areas where researchers, innovators and libraries seek advise is the General Data Protection Regulation, widely known with its abbreviated term, GDPR. For researchers, this means knowing their rights and following best practices for managing personal and sensitive data produced or used during their research activities. For innovators and Universities, it means developing an effective data protection framework, ensuring proper documentation of roles, activities and services specifications of data management within their organisation. For libraries, it means supporting researchers in their data activities and the University in ensuring best communication of and compliance with its framework.

To have a better insight of the aforementioned, a dedicated webinar on GDPR took place on 09 March 2019 with presentation given by legal expert Dr Prodromos Tsiavos, Legal advisor for Athena Research Center and OpenAIRE.

The webinar was structured in 3 parts showcasing:

  • Research concepts, for management and application of pseudonymisation and anonymisation processes for statistical data and clinical trials; for the development of organisational registries containing personal information; for open (governmental) data stored in public databases.
  • Participation in European projects and tenders, for providing successful Data Management Plans.
  • Conferences/ Events, where data protection is seen in the form of consensus.

Things to consider: GDPR was set in force in May 2018. Since then, most organisations (private and public) have adopted a policy to align their data management and protection processes with the EC. It should be noted that the primary need for GDPR was - and is - data protection, but most importantly maximisation of data flow in the EU.

What became apparent during the presentation was that data documentation should start in the very beginning of the research lifecycle to inform about how data are collected, handled, stored and for how long they are preserved.

The rights of the data subject were explained and the different roles identified within a data management workflow of an organisation were given equal attention. These roles concern the administration of the given institution, the Data Protection Officer (where applied) and staff who act according to the rules set/ defined by their organisation.

What is next? Participation to the webinar preceded expectations, counting 120 professionals from all over Cyprus, Greece, and other parts where there is representation of greek speaking researchers such as Germany and the UK. Hence, the team will be organising another webinar on GDPR, giving the opportunity for more people to join while also covering more specific aspects of data protection.

On 9 May, the Greek and Cypriot NOADs will hold a webinar on "Data Stewardship" with invited speaker Marta Teperek, who will talk about the role and responsibilities of data stewards, inform about challenges and share successful stories of the Data Stewardship Programme that she is coordinating at TU Delft. Esther Plomp, data steward of the faculty of applied sciences, will be assisting Marta in an interactive session.

For more information about the "Data Stewardship" webinar and to subscribe, please visit https://www.athena-innovation.gr/en/events/openaire-webinar-data-stewardship.


Check out blogposts of past webinars here.


On behalf of the Greek and Cypriot NOADs

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