(Published on 21.09.2022) Research data is a valuable treasure that can be used to gain new insights. Through their further utilisation and linkage with other data, innovations, economic growth and scientific progress can be accelerated. Both science and business have realised this.
In order to fully exploit the potential of data, trust between the various actors is needed as well as practicable technical and legal requirements. Representatives of the Association German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) had an open exchange on this topic on 20 September.
Mario Brandenburg – Parliamentary State Secretary at the BMBF – introduced the event and encouraged a common path to enable high-quality access to data and high-quality data itself. After all, more and more findings and innovations are based on already existing data. This applies to both science and industry. However, existing potentials cannot be fully exploited at present because the lack of cross-disciplinary standards, unanswered legal questions and competitive reservations about data sharing prevent comprehensive and easy access to data.
In keynote speeches and a lively panel discussion, hurdles, positive examples and other aspects of data sharing were examined from the perspective of science and industry, and common ground and points of contact were explored. There was agreement that cooperation between industry and science in the area of research data is long overdue.
Guests included the board of the NFDI Association – Prof. York Sure-Vetter and Eva Lübke – and from the HGF of the BDI – Iris Plöger – as well as the spokespersons of the NFDI consortia Dr. Andreas Förster (NFDI4Cat), Prof. Peter Pelz (NFDI4Ing), Prof. Erhard Hinrichs (Text+), Prof. Juliane Fluck (NFDI4Health), Prof. Florian Stahl (BERD@NFDI) and the company representatives Dr Hendrik Hahn (Evonik), Maximilian Veith (Trumpf) and Stefan Vilsmeier (Brainlab).
The BDI and NFDI will work on follow-up formats to intensify this cooperation and remain in dialogue.
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