News & Blog

CaSDaR is committed to promoting recognition for individuals who fulfil Data Stewardship activities within their role, often going above and beyond in this capacity, and to providing an evidence base of what Data Stewardship look like in the UK research ecosystem. Our Data Steward Stories sessions provide an opportunity to share these with the community and empower individuals to seek recognition for their work. In this Data Stewards Stories session, Dr James Steele provided an overview of his career in supporting data stewardship from a holistic perspective, from navigating research dissemination to the appropriate use of statistics. James also shared insights into how his commitment to evidence-based decisions and research integrity has shaped his career trajectory. 

CaSDaR is pleased to announce this webinar on the 26th February 2026 at 11.00-12.00 GMT, held in collaboration with Loughborough University, NPSA and HEECA. We think this is a fantastic opportunity to introduce trusted research (TR) and begin to touch on how you, as repository and data managers, already are or could be involved in TR as part of your work. This webinar aims to support you by recognising and highlighting the critical role and value you hold in delivering world-leading institutional research, whether this be ensuring compliance and mitigating security risks, dealing with commercial data, and much more.  

In mid December 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza was invited to present on Data Stewardship, Electronic Lab Notebooks and Ethical AI at the SCI Event: The Art of the Possible: Data, Digitalisation & AI in Practice. In her presentation, Samantha explores the importance of creating truly re-useable FAIR data principles through effective stewardship and practical digital solutions. Highlighting national initiatives such as CaSDaR and PSDI, the talk outlines emerging support structures for responsible, data-driven research. A case study from the University of Southampton illustrates lessons learned from implementing an Electronic Laboratory Notebook in the School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering. The final aspect of the talk discusses ethical AI in academia, emphasising transparency, reproducibility, and the responsible adoption of new technologies to build a trustworthy, AI-ready research ecosystem.

CaSDaR is committed to promoting recognition for individuals who fulfil Data Stewardship activities within their role, often going above and beyond in this capacity, and to providing an evidence base of what Data Stewardship look like in the UK research ecosystem. Our Data Steward Stories sessions provide an opportunity to share these with the community and empower individuals to seek recognition for their work. In this Data Stewards Stories session, Dr James Steele provided an overview of his career in supporting data stewardship from a holistic perspective, from navigating research dissemination to the appropriate use of statistics. James also shared insights into how his commitment to evidence-based decisions and research integrity has shaped his career trajectory. 

In mid December 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza was invited to present on Data Stewardship, Electronic Lab Notebooks and Ethical AI at the SCI Event: The Art of the Possible: Data, Digitalisation & AI in Practice. In her presentation, Samantha explores the importance of creating truly re-useable FAIR data principles through effective stewardship and practical digital solutions. Highlighting national initiatives such as CaSDaR and PSDI, the talk outlines emerging support structures for responsible, data-driven research. A case study from the University of Southampton illustrates lessons learned from implementing an Electronic Laboratory Notebook in the School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering. The final aspect of the talk discusses ethical AI in academia, emphasising transparency, reproducibility, and the responsible adoption of new technologies to build a trustworthy, AI-ready research ecosystem.

Louise Saul presented the CaSDaR initiative to the computing infrastructure community at Computing Insights UK 2025. CaSDaR was represented on the main stage and in the breakout rooms. On the final day of the conference, CaSDaR presented alongside other UKRI funded Network+ groups in the sessions ‘Overview of the NetworkPlus Programme’ and in the breakout session ‘From ExCALIBUR to DRI, linking the UK’s compute programme’. The latter session was run by the Computational Abilities Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) Network+. In this presentation, we gave a high-level overview of the aims and remit of the CaSDaR, describing our key deliverables activities for the next four years, alongside describing the current state of play for Data Stewards.

In early December 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza was invited to present on CaSDaR and Data Stewardship at the University of Manchester Research Data Conversations (RDC). In her presentation, Samantha told her own "Data Stewardship Story", speaking about her journey from computer scientist, to web scientist, to masquerading as a chemist, into leading large-scale initiatives that place people at the heart of data processes, explaining how data - and more importantly the importance of the human effort to produce high quality data - has been central to all of her research and community endeavours.

In November 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza and Dr Louise Saul attended the the Building a comprehensive and coordinated training landscape for dRTPs Workshop. This event was organised by STEP-UP and was aimed towards organisations involved in developing, delivering, or investing in skills training for research software, data, and computing infrastructure professionals.

We were excited to launch CaSDaR's first Funding Call, aimed at supporting Data Stewards across the UK research landscape. This was launched via an online webinar on the 5th November. In this webinar we described the development of the project grants, provided more detail about both grants, and gave an overview of the application and review process. We also allocated time for questions about these grants; these were not recorded however are available as an FAQ page on our website. 

In November 2025, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza and Dr Louise Saul attended the Understanding dRTP Training Landscape Workshop. This event was organised by CHARTED, DisCouRSE, and SCALE-UP to collaboratively build a comprehensive view of the current training landscape for digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs) and to understand the dRTP ecosystem in the UK.  

Just before All Hallows Eve, Dr Samantha Pearman-Kanza presented a warning spooky tale about the pitfalls of not stewarding your data properly at Lab Innovations 2025. She presented a tale of caution, reflecting on the "end based nature" of the FAIR Principles, explaining why FAIR alone can’t banish the ghosts of poor data practices, and how many of the issues with FAIR data occur at the creation/collection stage.

In October 2025, Dr Louise Saul was invited to present on CaSDaR at the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) Congress 2025. Louise Saul presented on CaSDaR, alongside SHAREing and CHARTED. She described the aims and deliverables of the project in the workshop ‘Knowledge Exchange is a Piece of CAKE!’ run by Computational Abilities Knowledge Exchange (CAKE). 

On the 14th October 2025, our Coordinator Dr Louise Saul delivered FAIR Data Training for one of our project partners - the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN). This was a Train-the-Trainer event, so attending individuals were supported to design and deliver a training session that met the specific needs of their institution, including developing learning objectives and designing activities to support their learners, whilst promoting good practice.