Building a FAIR image data ecosystem for microscopy communities

Abstract

Bioimaging has now entered the era of big data with faster-than-ever development of complex microscopy technologies leading to increasingly complex datasets. This enormous increase in data size and informational complexity within those datasets has brought with it several difficulties in terms of common and harmonized data handling, analysis, and management practices, which are currently hampering the full potential of image data being realized. Here, we outline a wide range of efforts and solutions currently being developed by the microscopy community to address these challenges on the path towards FAIR bioimaging data. We also highlight how different actors in the microscopy ecosystem are working together, creating synergies that develop new approaches, and how research infrastructures, such as Euro-BioImaging, are fostering these interactions to shape the field.

Keywords: Bioimaging; Community; Data management; FAIR; Metadata.

Fig. 1

Six facets of FAIR bioimaging data (data generation, data management, data analysis, data sharing, data reuse, and FAIR dissemination) alongside the approaches and tools currently under active development by the bioimaging community. Further improving all of these areas still requires three overarching elements (awareness, incentives, and rewards) to move toward the ultimate goal of FAIR bioimaging data