Data access and handling is of paramount importance in large research infrastructures like ALBA. Our instruments, each time equipped with better detectors, produce large amount of complex data that users need to process and manage to get profit from their experiments.

Initiatives like EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) and ExPaNDS (European Open Science Cloud Photon and Neutron Data Service) have gathered different research infrastructures to work together and find common solutions regarding data management. They all are in agreement with the Common European Data Spaces, a strategy launched by the European Commission to establish a common framework for sharing, using and protect data.

Following the European Commission directives, the data produced at our facilities need to comply with the FAIR principles, that is to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Integrating these principles means generating rich metadata to better describe and reuse data, manage access through a consistent and reliable platform, promote open formats and common standards and foster the reuse of data for the whole scientific community.

Under this spirit, the ALBA Synchrotron has launched a new data portal to enable users access and annotate their data while they are doing an experiment and once they have finished, by connecting remotely.

ALBA is now the custodian of the data generated at the different beamlines, ensuring their access to users for a minimum period of 5 years. They can retrieve their data any time, accessing the portal through their personal accounts at https://data.cells.es

Other relevant features of the data portal are the possibility to visualize and annotate data while acquiring them (through an elogbook). A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) generator provides a persistent and unique reference for the whole experiment and optionally for groups of chosen datasets. For some techniques (e.g. macromolecular crystallography), the portal offers extended Laboratory Management Information system (LIMS) capabilities to follow the different data acquisition and processing steps.

After the embargo period (currently 3 years), data will become open, making possible to be reused by the whole scientific community. In this context, data generated at ALBA will be searchable from federated platforms such as the European Photon and Neutron Open Data Search Portal or B2FIND.

This new portal, named ICAT, is now in production for LOREA beamline and the rest of beamlines are being progressively added. By the end of 2024, it is expected to deploy it for four additional beamlines.