Figshare South Africa Conference

Figshare recently hosted the Figshare South Africa User Conference, hosted in partnership with Stellenbosch University Library and Information Services. The event brought together research data management (RDM) specialists from across South Africa for insightful sharing of best practices, networking, workshops, and presentations focused on advancing the country’s data stewardship capabilities.

Figshare is a leading platform widely used in academia to store, manage, and openly share research data and outputs. At UCT, ZivaHub serves as the local instance of Figshare, providing researchers with a trusted space to securely host and share their work. ZivaHub is one of the select few institutional repositories that have been granted the CoreTrustSeal (CTS) certification, a mark of excellence and reliability in research data management.

The programme included workshops on data analytics with the Figshare API and the CoreTrustSeal certification process, where experts – including UCT’s Digital Scholarship Specialist, Dr Sanjin Muftic – provided practical guidance and hands-on experience.

The main conference included presentations from leading voices such as Dr Mark Hahnel, founder of Figshare and Vice President of Open Research at Digital Science, who shared insights from the influential State of Open Data report, shedding light on global trends and the evolving open data landscape.

Ms Nosisa Dube from the National Research Foundation delivered a keynote on the future of research assessment in South Africa, emphasising the importance of robust data practices to national research excellence. Dr Muftic also presented on the batch uploading of UCT’s Bolus Herbarium Collection to ZivaHub, showcasing how institutional data platforms powered by Figshare enable efficient and effective research data sharing.

The engaging sessions, panel discussions, and user showcases collectively highlighted key challenges, opportunities, and innovations shaping the future of research data management in South Africa.

The event reinforced the importance of a collaborative approach to sustainable data management where researchers are enabled to maximise the impact of their work, as well as a growing momentum behind research data management initiatives across South Africa, and UCT demonstrated its ongoing commitment to supporting researchers with robust data management infrastructure and expertise.