As part of the EOSC project family the FAIRsFAIR - Fostering Fair Data Practices in Europe - project aims to supply practical solutions for the use of the FAIR data principles throughout the research data life cycle. The FAIRsFAIR project runs from March 2019-February 2022. FAIRsFAIR Work Package 7 “FAIR Data Science and Professionalisation” aims to develop resources and build communities that support the uptake of RDM and FAIR practice within higher education curricula. To achieve these objectives, the present report aims to build a foundation for the identification of existing practices and needs of higher education institutions. Both a web-based questionnaire with 90 responses and two focus groups with a total of 50 participants were conducted between September and November 2019 as basis for the report. The research covered several dimensions of research data management at HEIs relevant for the implementation of FAIRsFAIR WP7, as well as WP3 “FAIR Data Policy Practice” and WP6 “FAIR Competence Centre”. These dimensions included: Institutional research data management policies Support services for research data management Competence development of students and graduates Universities and EOSC FAIRsFAIR support for universities This is the draft version of the deliverable not yet approved by the European Commission.