Abstract: One of the grand challenges of data-intensive science is to facilitate knowledge discovery by assisting humans and machines in their discovery of, access to, integration and analysis of scientific data. And the FAIR principle (discoverable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) is a set of guidelines aimed at improving the openness, transparency and reusability of scientific data, by providing clear guidelines that help ensure all data and associated services in the emergent “Internet of Data” will be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, not only by people, but notably also by machines. This paper introduces the principle of fair, including its background, main content, implementation steps and relevant cases, in order to promote the progress of scientific data management and sharing work in China.

Key words: FAIR principles, Scientific data, Data-intensive science, Data management and sharing, Data opening, Data reusing