Building Community

With the goal of enabling a shared ownership of multidisciplinary microbiome data, the NMDC is establishing support for open science and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data across research teams, publishers, funders, and scientific societies/consortiums. We are working towards a sustainability plan that reflects the aspirations articulated in the Interagency Strategic Plan for Microbiome Research, and the inherent collaborative nature of microbiome research.

The NMDC welcomes anyone working with microbiome research data to be part of the NMDC. In brief, anyone that works with microbiome data is a member of the NMDC community. If a member of the community cites or contributes data to the NMDC, they become a Collaborator, with credit and attribution for each contribution. Champions and Ambassadors have a more formal engagement with the NMDC, outlined below.

NMDC Community

The NMDC community includes everyone working in, on, and around microbiome data. The cross-cutting nature of microbiome research, from environmental sciences, agriculture, and energy, to human, natural, and built environments, creates a diverse community united by a common challenge – the need for seamless data discovery, exploration, and access. In order to develop inclusive solutions to address this common challenge, the NMDC will work closely with each community to learn and better understand specific needs and questions being explored across the diverse array of microbiome research.

NMDC Collaborators

An NMDC Collaborator is anyone who has contributed data to the NMDC and/or cited data that were discovered, explored, and accessed through the NMDC.

NMDC Champions

NMDC Champions understand and appreciate the value of well-curated data, and are willing to advocate for the importance of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) microbiome data. Meet our current NMDC Champions!

Learn more about the Champions program→.

NMDC Ambassadors

NMDC Ambassadors are members of the microbiome research community who speak on behalf of the NMDC mission and vision to a broader audience. The purpose of the NMDC Ambassador program is to provide training and support for early career researchers who are motivated to engage with their respective research communities to lower barriers to adoption of metadata standards.

Learn more about the Ambassador program→.

Research Teams

The NMDC seeks to empower the broader research community to engage with and participate in the data curation, discovery, and analysis process by:

• Hosting community data curation jamborees
• Hosting meta-analyses data challenges
• Engaging with and collecting continuous feedback from the community for the iterative development of the NMDC UI/UX, software needs for the NMDC standardized workflows, and expansion requests for the NMDC metadata standards.

Scientific Societies and Consortiums

Through partnering with professional organizations, the NMDC has the opportunity to reach a broad array of researchers, educators, policymakers, and industry collaborators in the microbiome sciences. Current partnerships are focused on data standards and community engagement. These societies and consortiums also play a key role in the NMDC Ambassador program by providing representatives, sharing communications, and enabling NMDC activities to reach the broader microbiome community.

Funders 

A long-term goal of the NMDC is to become integrated in the data management plans of proposals across government agencies and philanthropic funders that support microbiome research.

NMDC User Personas

Not sure how to engage with the NMDC? Check out these user personas to see if one aligns with your goals, and explore how the NMDC can help at every stage of the research process