(Published on 08.11.2021) The directorate of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) e.V. association will be funded by the federal and state governments with a sum of 17.5 million euros from 2022 to 2028. The decision on funding was made by the Joint Science Conference (GWK) at its meeting on 22 October.
The NFDI Directorate coordinates the organs of the association, provides support with regard to cooperation across consortia and represents the association externally. The office is directly connected. As a central hub, it is the contact point for internal and external enquiries. Currently, in addition to the Directorate, consisting of Director Prof. Dr York Sure-Vetter and Commercial Director Eva Lübke, ten employees work in the Karlsruhe office.
Considering the large number of institutions involved in NFDI, coordination plays an extremely relevant role. Today, 194 institutions are already involved as members of the association, 19 funded consortia are active and four interdisciplinary sections have been launched. In addition, NFDI is involved in international projects such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) or FAIR-Data Spaces.
“We are pleased that the GWK has agreed to fund the directorate for 17.5 million until 2028,” says Eva Lübke. “As a large-scale infrastructure project, NFDI depends on permanent funding to enable sustainable research data management.” Especially in the field of human resources, planning security is extremely important in order to recruit and retain specialists.
York Sure-Vetter also sees the decision as a very positive signal. “The funding commitment until 2028 strengthens us in our projects and symbolises to us after one year of activities that NFDI is on the right path thanks to a lot of commitment and networking.”
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