(Published on 22.12.2023) More consortia (26), more members (279) and more face-to-face events: 2023 was a year of growth for NFDI. Thanks to new formats, the research data community has become even better connected. Moreover, the first three NFDI-wide services were launched.
The further development of the network was central to NFDI this year. Unlike in previous years, more events and meetings were organised in person. A major highlight was the first edition of the Conference on Research Data Infrastructure (CoRDI) in September. With this conference, NFDI created a new exchange format for the research data community and brought together more than 700 people. The event also generated a lot of positive feedback outside of NFDI. If you would like to revisit the conference, you can find extended abstracts of all presentations in the Proceedings of CoRDI, which are over 500 pages long. The Members Assembly and the Consortium Assembly were also organised around the CoRDI in person for the first time.
The NFDI Association also presented itself with various NFDI consortia at external events, such as the Herrenhausen Conference in April, the International Data Week in Salzburg in October and the Digital Summit in Jena in November. Digital participation was not overlooked either. For example, NFDI was a partner at Love Data Week (we will be there again in 2024) and organised various online workshops on topics such as data literacy and standardisation.
Social media also plays a key role in networking and the flow of information. To reduce dependence on large, centrally controlled platforms, NFDI launched its own Mastodon instance at the beginning of the year. The instance https://nfdi.social/home is managed by a team of moderators from various consortia and is openly accessible.
Funding for seven further consortia in the third round began in March. FAIRagro, NFDI4BIOIMAGE, NFDI4Energy, NFDI4Immuno, NFDI4Memory, NFDI4Objects and NFDIxCS
cover a broad spectrum of expertise and have been excellently integrated into the existing network of organisations.
The consortia of the first and second funding rounds are able to report more and more success stories and service offers. (A new focus area will be created on www.nfdi.de in the coming year).
Together with the seven new consortia, the network of consortia, Base4NFDI, has also been launched. Base4NFDI aims to offer services to support research data management in NFDI across various disciplines, data types and existing infrastructures. The basic services are intended to be usable NFDI-wide. The basic service IAM4NFDI (Identity ad Access Management) has already received funding approval for a two-year integration phase. The PID4NFDI (Persistent Identifier Service) and TS4NFDI (Terminology Services) services are currently in the initialisation phase. These basic service applications were prepared in particular by the Common Infrastructures and (Meta)data, Terminologies, Provenance sections. The sections of the NFDI Association are currently working on submitting further applications for basic services. In addition, the sections have written statements, organised workshops and promoted joint topics in their working groups. Industry Engagement was the most recent section to be set up in the association on 22 March and will coordinate the cooperation between the NFDI and industry.
We are delighted that so many qualified, committed stakeholders have accompanied us throughout the year and contributed to the success of NFDI.
We are already looking forward to 2024 and are excited to see what success stories we can share with you.
We wish you a festive season and all the best for the new year!
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Statement on the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s (BMBF) key issues paper on the Research Data Act
The Consortia Assembly of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) welcomes the objective of the BMBF’s Key Issues Paper on the Research Data Act (FDG) to improve access to scientific data in general. It has adopted a statement on this subject.
Funding for new basic services for Jupyter notebooks, data management plans and knowledge graphs
The basic service initiatives Jupyter4NFDI, DMP4NFDI and KGI4NFDI have submitted applications for funding. At its meeting on 12 April, the Consortia Assembly (KV) of the NFDI Association voted in favour of funding the three applications. This means that the projects can start their first phase (initialisation phase) in the near future. The funding will be provided via Base4NFDI.
New chairs elected for the Consortium Assembly
The Consortium Assembly of the NFDI Association elected new chairpersons at its meeting on 12 April 2024. Prof Dr Christoph Eberl (NFDI-MatWerk), Dr Barbara Ebert (NFDI4Biodiversity) and Prof Dr Stefanie Weidtkamp-Peters (NFDI4BIOIMAGE) will hold the chairmanship for the next two-year term of office as a cooperative team.
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