FAIR Station Project

Field stations and marine laboratories (FSMLs) sit at a critical intersection in the research lifecycle: the point where data collection, operational logistics, and research practice converge. While FSMLs play a central role in enabling place-based research, the tools that support them typically focus on access and logistics, with limited ability to capture, track, or connect downstream research activities and outputs. As a result, institutions, researchers, and local communities lack reliable ways to discover, assess, and demonstrate the long-term impact of research conducted at these sites.

FAIR Station is a multi-year initiative to design, build, and pilot a next-generation, open-source platform that extends existing reservation management systems into a comprehensive environment for managing research activity across its full lifecycle. By embedding best practices for research data management, metadata capture, and downstream stewardship directly into operational workflows, FAIR Station aims to support FSML administrators, institutions, and researchers in tracking research outputs, improving interoperability, and strengthening long-term data stewardship with minimal additional administrative burden.

The project builds on the existing Reserve Application Management System (RAMS), which currently only supports reserve visits across the University of California system. FAIR Station will evolve RAMS into an open-source platform, hosted by the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) and made available to the broader global field station community. The project is led by the UC Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library (CDL) and the University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS), with fiscal sponsorship and administrative support provided by Code for Science & Society (CS&S). Funding for this position is provided by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.