On May 14-15 2024, Dublin City University hosted a workshop on Cost Action Sustainability as part of the the FAIRNESS Cost Action (https://www.fairness-ca20108.eu/). FAIRNESS is focused on improving both standards and interoperability between databases and sets of micrometeorological measurements that are part of research projects or observational networks established for special purposes such as agrometeorology or urban microclimate monitoring. The approach take by Cost Action members is to ensure that data creating during climate based research experiments can be designated as FAIR (https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/).

The workshop placed a special emphasis on the FAIR Micromet Portal which has been developed as part of the Cost Action’s activities (https://fairmicromet.eu/).  The opening session focused purely on Action Sustainability, with a primary focus on services and products, with 5 presentations: Continuation of the FMP (Mark Roantree); Communication and Sustainability (Claire Gallacher) WG2 Services, Products, Artifacts created over the lifetime of the Action (Mark Roantree), Action Transferable Activities (Branislava Lalic) and Funding (Mark Roantree). Most of the discussion centered on two primary deliverables from WG2: The FAIR Micromet Portal (FMP) and the services created around gap filling.

Michael Scriney presented an update on the latest functionality of the FAIR Micromet Portal followed by a discussion on new features which could impact positively on usability and sustainability of the FMP. Four areas for FMP expansion were identified: Metadata export to Zenodo; functionality to export FAIR data for manuscript submissions; Map-based search function to locate sites on a geographic basis; and on the Gap Filling assets and how the output from gap analysis could be captured in the FAIR Micromet Portal.

One of the liveliest sessions comprised presentations on 3 case studies. The first case study, presented by Anastasia Paschalidou, focuses on exploring the Impact of Particulate Matter on Respiratory & Cardiovascular Mortality. One of the Action’s main goals is to extend the study to look at air quality, health and economic impact.

The 2nd case study, presented by Ana Firanj Sremac covered a FAIRNESS Sustainability Tool. This rural, urban and forest research study exploits the FMP for the FAIR Data to be used in the study. 4 countries, Serbia, UK, Greece and Slovakia provide the dataset and research base for the case study.  As a result of the discussion, two additional partners (two new countries) will join the case study.

The final case study presented by Jelena Dunjić, focused on the issues of missing data. The discussion centered on Gap Filling Across Multiple Datasets. Also included in this discussion is the creation of a new network capturing a variety of sensors. As the case study has a single Action member, they are seeking the involvement of other members (countries) both for a comparative study and in the provision of generic methods such as gap analysis.

Insight researchers involved in the event:  Michael Scriney, Dinh Viet Cuong and Damhan Richardson