I am a Senior Librarian at Kyambogo University, the second Public University in Uganda. In my 30 years of professional experience, the 2026 RDAP (Research Data Access & Preservation) Summit was the first I attended virtually and was greatly enriching. This year’s theme, “Practical, Personalized, Impactful: Research Data in the Real World” was at the heart of every session and hallway conversation I managed to attend.

The presentation by Andrew Johnson and Renaine Julian on FAIR Facilities and Instruments: Recommendations for Adoption of Research Instrument, Platform, and Facility Persistent Identifiers, was intriguing for me. I had never anticipated that persistent identifiers can be used this far. However, the most inspiring was a presentation by Dr. Miranda Reyes, who presented the case of community data steward from the Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network. She challenged us to ask, “Who owns the question?” Arguing that researchers often extract data from communities and then decide what problems to solve. Instead, she advocated for flipping the script: let communities define the questions, then build data systems around those needs. I had never thought about data creation as an act of relational accountability rather than just technical management. That session alone shifted my entire perspective on how I should teach graduate students.

What I enjoyed were the informal lighter talk and laughter about the coffee, dogs, cats and horses creating a sense of bonding despite being far apart. What surprised me were the confessions of data managers admitting past failures including projects where robust repositories were built but no community actually used them. Instead of shame, the confessions sparked successful collaborative problem-solving. I realized that “building on experience” means honoring both successes and mistakes. The most helpful session for my goals was the presentation by DataCite which encouraged me to pursue membership for my University since I am at the centre of establishing a Multidisciplinary Journal. The membership shall help our university to access the services and be able to provide persistence identifiers for not only journal articles but also the related data which we intend to preserve, contributing to improved research visibility and impact. I plan to pilot these in our University in the course of the next financial year 2026/2027. 

My mentor played a crucial role in encouraging me and supporting throughout the conferences and I am highly indebted to RDAP for the sponsorship and Dr. Ali Krzton-Mentor. I left the Summit better and with a renewed commitment to promote RDAP locally.