Mirror mirror on the wall who is the FAIRest of them all?

The FAIR data concept has perhaps surprisingly gained much more traction within the commercial and industrial chemical sectors than in the academic environment. We will discuss why this is the case and what systems are needed to support the academic roll out of FAIR data. As a concrete example we will report on the drive at the University of Southampton, for FAIR data outputs, along with meeting other funder and institutional demands on the way research outputs are curated. We will discuss our answers to one of the most frequent questions from colleagues, which is ‘so exactly what do I need to do to comply?’ In this context the importance of the University intuitional services (for example the library, computing service, graduate college) along the journal publishers’ requirements, and the load placed on graduate students, to achieving a high standard of FAIR outputs will be discussed.