Last Friday it was my pleasure to present RDA at the national French  RDA meeting organised in Paris at the MENESR (Ministère de l’Education Nationale, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche).
The meeting aimed to increase French involvement in the RDA processes as well as to receive feedback from French players on getting involved in RDA and how RDA could embrace activity in France further.
Attendees (~30) came from many diverse fields including Humanities, Climate, Physics, Astronomy, Agriculture, Oceanography, Networks, and Health. Some were data practitioners, and others at organisational management level in French research and funding agencies.

RDA presentations were given by Francoise Genova (member of the TAB and RDA/Europe) on the RDA in general, and Herman Stehouwer (member of the secretariat and RDA/Europe) on participating in working groups, interest groups, and plenaries.
Furthermore, all participants were encouraged to present a short talk on what they could do in RDA and why.
Some of the themes that where mentioned multiple times were finding data, describing data, managing data, making data more interoperable.
Many speakers also proposed people from their organisations to actively contribute to specific groups.

Feedback to the RDA that emerged from the meeting was mostly focussed on the website, which is to be expected since this is the public face of the RDA for newcomers.
Specifically, it was felt that it was very important that the current, and past, case statements and charters that are open for community review be prominently displayed on the landing page.
Furthermore, the description on the website of the working and interest groups and the associated processes should be clearer.
Finally, once output is produced, this should be also displayed prominently on the website so that it is easy to find.

Looking back on the meeting I can say that it was a very practical meeting.
People focused on how to get involved, and on what they need from RDA in order to collaborate effectively and efficiently. Participation in RDA P4 was also discussed.

This was the second in a series of French RDA events (the first one was held on April 28^th, also at the MENESR). Further meetings and dates will be announced in due course. Participants were interested in a debriefing meeting after RDA Plenary 4.