Vision and Mission

What RESILIENCE Stands For (Mission & Vision)

The mission of RESILIENCE is to serve research by improving access to digital as well as physical data on religion and to advanced tools, training, existing research infrastructures and expertise for new, digital, and data-oriented research on religion on a global level.

RESILIENCE facilitates high-quality research to improve knowledge on and understanding of religion. For this purpose, RESILIENCE brings together scholars and professionals, and facilities catalyzing new competencies, knowledge, approaches, and impact within the scientific domain of research on religion. It also establishes a system of permanent exchange with users on all levels of research experience and it orients its services strictly to user needs across Europe.

RESILIENCE is composed of a digital environment and a physical network of facilities whose size, mission and role may vary according to their specificities. The RI has always been and is enriched by such a variety of institutions, which offers a good balance of management flexibility, professional experience, operational complexity and scientific competence.

RESILIENCE strives for open and FAIR access to digital and physical resources from Europe and beyond and offers researchers the use of valuable distributed data, tools, training, and services via a single point of access (virtual) as well as by discovering collections and having meetings with experts through on-site visits.

With RESILIENCE, researchers in the many fields of research on religion can profit from the numerous movements of ideas, opportunities and innovations that surround the research community, such as new and more accessible technologies and data shared on the basis of Open Science principles; the adoption of digital tools to strengthen inclusiveness and leverage human interaction; the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions to find and produce answers and knowledge, and the most recent trends and evolutions of training and education.

Finally, RESILIENCE is committed to clarity in its objectives and overall goals. To this end, the governance bodies are called to periodically reassess their goals within their team as well as with advisors.

For Whom RESILIENCE is

RESILIENCE primarily serves the research community of Religious Studies, which is conceived here as the full range of scientific disciplines that enable the study of religion. With its experts and the support to peer-researched, data-oriented knowledge on religion, it also serves societal actors, including religious communities, governments, decision makers, individuals, and institutions.

How RESILIENCE operates

RESILIENCE innovates: it creates new methods, instruments, tools and services to better support research on religion. It makes use of tested and cutting edge information technologies and stimulates the usage of new technologies in research on religion.

RESILIENCE gives access: it offers one point of access to the many sites and institutions of research on religion in Europe which are willing to share resources, data and technologies. It especially connects institutions and facilities which have a strong competence and experience with digital and data-oriented research methods and which have rich resources for research on religion.

RESILIENCE enhances collaboration: through regular meetings with the stakeholders, its management and governance rules, and a dedicated collaboration policy, RESILIENCE strengthens collaboration within existing partnerships and reaching out to new potential partners.

RESILIENCE builds on the community: it puts in action a communication plan, enabling the research community and other stakeholders to learn about the RIs activities and developments, as well as the opportunities it offers, and shares information about the community’s research initiatives. Two-way and open communication is key to attract stakeholders to the RI, to learn from them and to transform their input for the benefit of the whole research community.

Value Proposition of RESILIENCE

Improved and more equal infrastructural conditions for all researchers on religion in Europe

Among researchers in Europe a geographic, linguistic and economic diversity can be observed. Researchers in less favorable positions can be hampered in conducting excellent research. Research on religion is a widely distributed field of study in Europe, and access to data, experts in the field and research institutes is often a challenge for researchers. To address these challenges, RESILIENCE delivers the following value.

Access to data, services, resources and expertise is enabled (FAIR, Open)

In the short term:

• The RESILIENCE Open Data Policy aims to empower the move of research on religion towards openness, supporting researchers in making their research data available for (re)use by applying the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), allowing the maximum realization of the data potential for the present and future researchers.
• TNA (Transnational Access) programme to gain direct, fast, and effective access to collections, supported by experts
• Single point of access to data, resources and expertise. ReIReSearch, the unified discovery environment of RESILIENCE, offers researchers on religion a single point of access to a growing number of collections held by academia, libraries, archives and heritage institutions.
• Machine Actionable Data Management Planning. Support is offered to the research community in becoming literate about Research Data Management with a Data Management Plan template, and to apply best practices in data management.
• Training the new generation of Religious Studies researchers in Open Science. RESILIENCE assists researchers to comply with the FAIR principles by offering them specific training sessions and a place for depositing research outputs in a dedicated RESILIENCE Zenodo community.
• Creating a RESILIENCE training framework of model programmes with tools and methods for designing and implementing effective, high quality online and on-site training on RESILIENCE services, enabling the acquisition and dissemination of competencies for excellent research on religion.

In the long term:

• Interoperability between RESILIENCE tools and services and with the wider European ecosystem of research infrastructures is provided so data can easily flow between systems for further processing, analysis and visualization.
• A growing number of services, tools, and training materials are available to support our user community in working with physical and digital collections.

Enhancement of studies on religion

In the short term:

• Connecting people, leading to new collaborations and research projects.
• Offering access to known collections and highlighting lesser-known collections.
• Existing tools are adopted for usage in the domain of Religious Studies. RESILIENCE focuses on user engagement, introducing them to services, data resources and training materials created by the wider SSH and global scientific community.
• New collections are made accessible according to FAIR principles.

In the long term:

• Support to interdisciplinary, multinational research teams to use RESILIENCE resources.
• Providing a federated access to a distributed and growing set of collections and expertise.
• Involvement of digital natives in the digital turn of Religious Studies.
• Expertise about religion is recognised as pivotal in decision and policy making.
• New technologies are continuously adopted and/or developed by the community.
• Research centers are connected and are able to easily share their methods, tools, resources with the scientific community.
• Increased usage of Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence technologies to collect and elaborate data.

PDF

Here you can download a pdf containing the above text.

RESILIENCE is an acronym for: REligious Studies Infrastructure: tooLs, Innovation, Experts, conNections and Centres in Europe.

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