Promoter of Data Archiving Award to Sami Borg

FSD has honoured adjunct professor Sami Borg (DSocSci) with FSD’s Promoter of Data Archiving Award. Borg is a political scientist at the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University. The award ceremony was held as part of the FSD seminar on 24 October celebrating FSD’s 20 years in operation. Borg worked as Director of FSD from 1999 until 2016. Sami Borg also had a central role in the development project in the 1990s preceding the founding of FSD.

The 20-year-old Finnish Social Science Data Archive commenced operations in January 1999 under Borg’s supervision. With Borg’s leadership, FSD has consolidated its position as a promoter of responsible open science both at the national and international levels. During his time at FSD, Sami Borg was broadly involved in the development of international collaboration within the European cooperation network preceding the current CESSDA ERIC, and he also held a position as the chairman of IFDO, the International Federation of Data Organizations.

Kuvassa Tietoarkistotyön edistäjä -palkinnon saaja Sami Borg.
The award Sami Borg received was a ukulele with an inscripted case. Photo: Tuomas J. Alaterä.

At the dawn of FSD’s operations, Borg travelled Europe to learn from other data archives and to seek out best practices as the basis of Finnish data archive work. FSD began sharing its practices and solutions early on and has been able to assist data archives that are starting out as well as other organisations promoting responsible open science.

After returning to his career in political science, Borg has continued to work on open research data by depositing datasets, for instance. He also continues to participate in the planning of Finnish data collection for the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP).

The Promoter of Data Archiving Award was first issued in 2009 to honour FSD’s ten years in operation. FSD issues the Promoter of Data Archiving Award to a person who has significantly contributed to the data archiving activities and objectives of FSD in the Finnish scientific community. The award is a personal academic acknowledgement in the form of an art object with a personalised engraving. The recipient may not be part of FSD administration or personnel at the time of issuing. The award is not issued at regular intervals.

Before Borg, FSD has issued the Promoter of Data Archiving Award to Hans Jørgen Marker (2016), Noora Ellonen (2013), Pentti Kiljunen (2012), Jukka Kultalahti (2011), Elina Haavio-Mannila (2010), and Leif Nordberg (2009).