Data Steward Stories: Dr James Steele

Data Steward Stories: Dr James Steele Issue Date: December 12, 2025 Aims of the Data Steward Stories series • To reflect the variety of skills required in roles involving Data Stewardship; • Acknowledge that people working in Data Stewardship roles may not officially have that title and often do this work outside of their official roles; • Support sharing of resources describing the career trajectories for people intending to move into roles involving Data Stewardship; and • Developing a space for the community to share their experiences in building these skills. Speaker Bio James Steele has extensive experience of handling data in the academic, public and private sectors; he not only runs his own company providing consultancy services to support research best practice but also works full time as the Head of Research at MacroFactor. James earned his PhD in Clinical Exercise Science before joining Solent University as a lecturer in Applied Sports Science. Alongside teaching, he held the role of Research and Innovation Fellow and was later promoted to Associate Professor in 2016. Throughout his academic career, James promoted research integrity, eventually becoming Solent’s Local Network Lead for the UK Reproducibility Network. James has actively supported researchers in practices such as open data, pre-registration, and pre-print archiving, with a focus on supporting ECRs to develop these skills. In 2024, James transitioned from academia to become Head of Research at Kieser Australia, a company focused on evidence-based strength training programs. This role introduced him to new types of datasets beyond those commonly used in academia, while he continuedto advocate forreproducible research andtransparency in scientific practice. In this session, James will share insights into how his commitment to evidence-based decisions and research integrity has shaped his career trajectory. Session Summary Research quality was the main driver for James’ interest in data. However, James didn’t anticipate getting involved with data when he planned his career; originally he considered going into finance but became interested in sports and exercise science so studied this at Solent University, being part of the first intake for this course. James took advantage of being in the early cohorts, which was the opportunity to get involved with lecturer’s research projects, where he came to appreciate the skills involved with collecting data that is relevant to addressing research hypotheses. James continued in the field with a PhD in clinical exercise science, where he started to question how researchers collect and analyse data. This coincided with an increased interest in academia in methodological reform, alongside an acceptance of open science principles in the research sector amidst ’reproducibility crises’. After his PhD James moved forward in academia whilst unconsciously aligning himself closely with good data practices. James recognised that he had a skill set that was increasingly in demand and effectively started consulting for other researchers within his organisation, with a key message to put data at the centre of the research process from the very beginning. This happened for a couple of reasons: the organisation he was based at wasn’t a research active institution, requiring a degree of self-sufficiency from the researchers; and James wanted access to bigger and better datasets to support his research, so started collaborating internally to his organisation and externally with industry to create better quality research. James capitalised on having an in-demand skill set and increased his external collaborations by splitting his work in academia with a role in ukactive, a not-for-profit health, leisure, and exercise organisation as the principal investigator for their Research Institute. He began to recognise that a large part of his role was Data Stewardship, with data security considerations of how to handle and use datasets responsibly. James took advantage of these challenges to apply himself to new data problems, such as tools to support surveillance systems for exercise referral programmes, where patients can access local exercise schemes to promote good health. As a result of this issue, a database was built to understand outcomes and progress for these schemes and make longitudinal data available for evidence based policy and research. During COVID James’ work with ukactive wound down, but opportunities for independent consulting forData Stewardship appeared whilst he was still spending histime in academia. James started consulting with industry partners on operational survey design and data analysis, alongside the continued growth of his own research group in academia and leading on a research methods module in the undergraduate delivery at his institution. In 2024 James was in the middle of redesigning this module, to promote students creating registered reports for group projects via Octopus and PCI Registered Reports for version control of research and increased reproducibility, when the financial crisis hit the Higher Education sector and James was made redundant. Though it was difficult at the time, James now recognises this as a blessing in disguise. Due to his reputation for high-quality Data Stewardship, James was able to easily transition to an industry setting. He moved to a company that needed Data Stewards to embed good data practices which answered business driven research questions through consideration of data needs. A year later, James moved to a company called MacroFactor as Head of Research, where his projects have focused on improving customer experiences through good data practices; by facilitating improvement of the app’s back end database, the captured data is used more effectively. However, James has also been able to maintain externally-facing ’traditional’ research. However, he is still working on his consultancy business, and, at the moment, his work is split between empirical research and evidence synthesis. In the latter role, James has found that data management in areas such as meta-analyses and systematic reviews is problematic and that data to support findings is often not readily available. As such, James stays active in the metascience community to provide a voice adding to calls advocating for good data practices. Q&A Summary Q: How did you recognise that you had a skill set that was in demand? A: It was simultaneously a conscious and unconscious decision. James gained traction in the area of advising on Data Stewardship because he was interested and he was able to show that he was good at supporting others. Being approachable helps and once you realise that people are coming to you for support, you realise that there will be others who will want that support too. Q: How did you find moving into consultancy, given that there can be different terminologies used, depending upon setting? A: After redundancy, James had the option of being self-employed and expanding his consultancy or looking for employment with industry collaborators. He wasn’t keen on advertising his own skills to build up a consultancy but recognised the value of keeping that consultancy active in the background with academic collaborators. In building up his consultancy role, James valued protecting his reputation and was honest - upfront about level of rigour, protected his reputation by putting data management front and centre from the beginning of every conversation. Terminologically it wasn’t a huge barrier; James wanted to use a clear, ubiquitous language to make sure that expectations were clear. This was critical as so much ofData Stewardship is translation; you need to figure out what the research question is and work out the needs of the data to support that research question. Q: In your work as a consultant did you ever get imposter syndrome? If so, how did you deal with this when as a Data Steward you’re meant to be the expert? A: James felt that imposter syndrome can be a useful driver as it makes you recognise there’s always something you can learn. He often used that lack of comfort as an opportunity to learn something and to provide context to your skill set. What can be more important in Data Stewardship is not necessarily your knowledge but the ability to communicate. Q: Often in Data Stewardship there can be an ’Us vs. Them’ issue, where researchers don’t recognise that Data Specialists such as librarians have the skills to support high quality research. What are your thoughts on how to address this? A: James feels that researchers may not realise that they don’t have the requisite skill set until they start working with people who do have that skill set. Ultimately, James feels that there needs to be a cultural shift to promote situations where researchers discuss their needs with research enabling staff. There are two ways of doing it: Grassroots and top-down approaches, both of which are needed. For the former, cultivating advocates on the ground to promote discussions between research enablers and researchers. With the latter, organisations need to introduce and enforce policy to encourage consultation by researchers with Data Specialists. James noted that in industry this can be easier to navigate - it is accepted that people have defined skill sets and that they should be consulted in their area of expertise. About CaSDaR The Careers and Skills for Data driven Research (CaSDaR) initiative is a 4-year UKRI funded project which aims to address this gap by helping to define the role of Data Stewards within the UK research landscape and advocating for their recognition and representation across institutions. We plan to complete these goals by connecting existing networks that support and elevate Data Stewardship in the UK, coordinate with international networks to ensure that activities for Data Stewards in the UK remains in line with global progress in this area, and to provide funding for case studies that demonstrate the crucial role that Data Stewards play in the continued development of the UK research ecosystem. If you would like to hear more then please check our website , join the CaSDaR mailing list to keep up to date, follow us on LinkedIn, and email [email protected] for more details. This initiative is funded by the UKRI under grant number [UKRI739].