How Synergies Between Institutional & Community Data Stewards Drive FAIR Data Adoption in AgroSystems Sciences

Data stewardship is crucial for advancing FAIR principles in agricultural research, yet the scope of the role varies significantly. This poster shows lessons learned and explores synergies between an institutional data steward embedded in a, data-rich, cross-domain and multi-partner project (AVATARS) [Arend et al., 2022] and a community-driven one, focused on broad Research Data Management (RDM) capacity building for large research data infrastructure network (FAIRagro) [Sennhenn et al., 2026]. The institutional steward focuses on practical, ground-level implementation: designing data flows, running dry-run tests, utilizing digital twins and PIDs to track samples from field to lab, providing regular trainings and troubleshooting operational bottlenecks. Conversely, the community steward operates a helpdesk as part of a data steward team, providing domain-specific RDM guidance, workshops, and developing Open Educational Resources (OER). Despite differing daily operations, synergies exist between these roles, forming a critical feedback loop in agrosystem sciences. The institutional steward’s hands-on solutions for complex data tracking provide real-world use cases that enrich the community steward’s knowledge-base and training materials. Reciprocally, the community steward’s overarching guidance on standards and legal compliance ensures institutional projects remain interoperable. Both positions bridge the gap between infrastructure and human capacity, translating technical implementation into community-wide RDM adoption. References: Arend, D., Psaroudakis, D., Memon, J.A., Rey-Mazón, E., Schüler, D., Szymanski, J.J., Scholz, U., Junker, A. and Lange, M. (2022), From data to knowledge – big data needs stewardship, a plant phenomics perspective. Plant J, 111: 335-347. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.15804 Sennhenn, Anne, Anderson, James M., Boße, Sophie, Hoffmann, Carsten, Kirchgessner, Oliver, König, Manuela, Leroy, Benjamin, Lindstädt, Birte, Mazón, Elena Rey, Sahwan, Wahib, Schmidt, Marcus, Singson, Lea Sophie, Svoboda, Nikolai, Vedder, Lucia and Stahl, Ulrike. "The community engagement and empowerment cycle: FAIRagro’s framework to foster cultural change towards FAIR RDM practices in agrosystem science and beyond" Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics, pp. 20250049. https://doi.org/10.1515/jib-2025-0049