The term FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable und Reusable) Datawas coined by the FORCE11-Community for sustainable research data management in 2016. It is the main goal of the FAIR principles to promote professional management of research data in order to make them more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. The FAIR principles were adopted by the European Commission and integrated into the Horizon 2020 funding guidelines.

The FORCE11 website provides a list of these far-reaching principles. Initiatives like GO-FAIR have developed implementation guidelines for the FAIR principles for research data and the criteria derived from them.