Ten NFDI helpdesks are intensifying their collaboration with the Geo-Chem-Life Science Helpdesk Cluster in order to provide researchers with interdisciplinary support.
The Helpdesks of the NFDI Consortia have an important role: They are the first point of contact for researchers who need support in managing their research data – from the selection of suitable repositories to data protection issues.
Initially, the subject-specific helpdesks operated largely separately by discipline. In May 2024, ten representatives of geoscientific, chemical and life science NFDI consortia met in Bremen to discuss closer cooperation in user advice. The meeting marked the birth of what is now an active collaboration. A joint workflow for forwarding anonymised enquiries was established.
This dynamic and collaborative form of co-operation has now also been formally consolidated: In a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the ten consortia – DataPLANT, FAIRagro, GHGA, NFDI4Biodiversity, NFDI4BioImage, NFDI4Chem, NFDI4Earth, NFDI4Health, NFDI4Immuno and NFDI4Microbiota – have committed themselves to a long-term network. Under the title Geo-Chem-Life Science Helpdesk Cluster, an interdisciplinary support service for researchers with interdisciplinary concerns is being created.
The aim of the cluster is to make the initial contact between the scientific community and the NFDI more tailored, to pool resources efficiently and to make expertise from different disciplines flexibly accessible. Each consortium contributes human resources and nominates at least one person to actively participate in the network. Other consortia from neighbouring research areas are invited to join the cluster.
The text of the MoU can be found on Zenodo:
Memorandum of Understanding of NFDI consortia from Earth-, Chemical and Life Sciences to support a network called the Geo-Chem-Life Science Helpdesk Cluster, Version 1 (Bernard, L., Brück, M., Busse, C., Engel, J., Eufinger, J., Ewert, F., Fluck, J., Förstner, K., Fürst, J., Gauza, H., Getzlaff, K., Glöckner, F. O., Hunold, J., Koepler, O., Krooß, K., Lindstädt, B., McHardy, A. C., Mehrtens, H., Rey-Mazon, E., … Wetzker, C.), 2025. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15065070
This news article is an shortened version of an article by NFDI4Biodiversity. You can find the original with further information here: https://www.nfdi4biodiversity.org/de/news/helpdesk-cluster/
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