Specific proposals

Principles

Proposal 1.1: Research, and concrete researcher needs, should be the basis for all decision making.
Proposal 1.2: A broad range of research-support services should be offered, with new services continually piloted.
Proposal 1.3: The platform must be available to the entire Canadian research community, with specific efforts to efficiently assemble the most appropriate resources to support new and existing communities.
Proposal 1.4: The structure of our federation partnership must reflect the reality of several funding partners.
Proposal 1.5: The services offered by the national platform must be interoperable, not merely identical.
Proposal 1.6: The federation should aim to achieve more than the partners could achieve separately.
Proposal 1.7: New training should continually be available for emerging hardware and operational tools.
Proposal 1.8: The federation should make use of best available tools for interacting with, and supporting researchers.

Governance Best Practices from Other Federations

Proposal 2.1: The federation partners, members, and funders must come to agreement on clearly-delineated roles and responsibilities of the central office and regional organizations.
Proposal 2.2: The central office Board should be provided the training and the support necessary to play their role in the federation.
Proposal 2.3: The central office and regional Boards should regularly meet to ensure alignment of governance.
Proposal 2.4: Members should be given the access and support they need to play an active role in the federation.
Proposal 2.5: Federation-wide decision making processes should be supported by all members of the federation.
Proposal 2.6: The federation should make it clear internally, to the research community, and to funders, the value of the federation, the delineation of roles, and the services provided by the federation.

Turning Principles into Operations

Proposal 3.1: Services provided should come with agreed-upon SLAs ensuring quality and interoperability.
Proposal 3.2: Services should be piloted, with definitions of success decided upon before the pilot.
Proposal 3.3: The central office should be responsible for nation-wide needs assessments and researcher satisfaction.
Proposal 3.4: The agenda should be managed by the central office, and consensus should be found or built around priorities.
Proposal 3.5: The central office should be responsible for the monitoring and enforcing interoperability and other SLAs on the platform.
Proposal 3.6: Responsibility for implementation and operations of researcher-facing services should generally belong to the regional organizations or an external partner.
Proposal 3.7: The federation must work closely with other digital infrastructure providers and research services organizations in service design, service delivery, and future planning.
Proposal 3.8: Each federation colleague must advocate on behalf of the federation as a whole and the federation’s researcher users to their funding partners and other external partners.
Proposal 3.9: A renewed federation should renew its relationship with the researcher community, emphasizing transparency, engagement, and accountability.

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