AccelNet Implementation Phase 1: Tools for Addressing Cultural, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the CARE Principles for Research Data Ecosystems

Today, the vast majority of Indigenous Peoples’ data are held by non-Indigenous entities that continue to produce knowledge across fields of medicine, public health, genomics, earth sciences, and the social sciences. However, Indigenous data are often organized into Western classification and naming systems that not only disconnect such data from the Indigenous contexts that give them meaning but also make it difficult for Indigenous Peoples to find their data. Indigenous data are any data, information, and knowledge that impact Indigenous Peoples at individual and collective levels, including: (1) information about lands, skies, waters, and more than human relations; (2) data about Indigenous Peoples and their communities; and (3) knowledge such as oral histories, languages, belongings, and cultural information. This project will establish and grow the international CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) Network-of-Networks (NoN) with the goal of fostering responsible and respectful knowledge exchange, training, and connections globally for researchers who collect, use, and store Indigenous data. The CARE NoN will forge international-scale collaboration among the Global Indigenous Data Alliance, five national/regional Indigenous Data Sovereignty networks (US, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Sapmí in Norway, Sweden, Finland), and three international Indigenous Data Governance collectives (the NSF-funded Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science, the Equity for Indigenous Research and Innovation Coordinating Hub, and the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance), promoting Indigenous leadership and design for Indigenous data futures. It is critical for the CARE NoN to develop targeted mechanisms and tools that will reveal biases in data collection, storage, and circulation, then intervene with solutions to advance science in service to communities. The CARE NoN will develop and drive (A) innovation, (B) ethical and responsible science, (C) technology theory around collaborative and participative international research, and (D) social science theory. Expected outputs from the CARE AccelNet NoN will inform digital design, research ethics, data governance, and data responsibility for Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data Governance across multiple domains. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.