Our Story

The Journey to FAIR Station

Over the past decade, we have worked on different aspects of this challenge. With the FAIR Station initiative, we are turning our attention upstream to platforms researchers already use to engage with field stations.

Our work has focused on enabling change at scale by working within existing research workflows. When systems align, they support lasting and meaningful change.

  1. Station IDs

    Place-based PIDs

    Supporting discovery, access, and reuse of environmental data across a distributed landscape, grounded in the realities of field-based research.

  2. FAIR Island

    DMPs meet RAMS

    Collaborating to strengthen the connective tissue of the research ecosystem to move infrastructure and practice into place-based research environments.

  3. FAIR Samples

    DMPs meet RAMS

    Identifying the field station reservation process as a strategic point of engagement where data management can be introduced earlier in the research lifecycle.

  4. FAIR Station

    Open platform

    Expanding into end-to-end data collection workflows and integrating existing sample management systems with the broader research ecosystem.
Research vessel travelling across open water

Partnering to Connect the Research Lifecycle

The goal is to build on this foundation of prior work to create open, extensible infrastructure that can be adopted, adapted, and integrated by a broader community. By building on this foundation, UC Nature and the California Digital Library aim to create infrastructure that serves the University of California while contributing to the broader field station and research data communities.

UC Nature manages the University’s reserves, field stations, and marine laboratories, supporting research, teaching, and stewardship across a diverse network of places and communities. California Digital Library provides digital library services that support scholarly communication, preservation, and research data management, including infrastructure that helps connect and make research outputs more discoverable. Together, UC Nature and the California Digital Library are building open, connected infrastructure for field-based research through a new multi-year collaboration.

Our work builds on the Reservation Application Management System (RAMS), developed by UC Nature. RAMS manages access, reservations, and research activity across UC’s network of 42 reserves, field stations, and marine laboratories. That investment reflects decades of knowledge from reserve managers, researchers, staff, and systemwide leadership. The goal is to evolve this foundation into an open, extensible platform that can be adopted, adapted, and integrated by a broader community.