Landesinitiative NFDI – a Central Point of Contact for RDM for Higher Education Institutions in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of activities regarding RDM in Germany including the national political context as well as initiatives on federal state level. The knowledge about Germany's federal system, which also entails the autonomy of the federal states regarding the higher education system, is fundamental to understand the different approaches towards RDM in Germany. The state initiatives of Thuringia, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Hesse are described to compare them to the state initiative (Landesinitiative NFDI) of Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW). The aim of the initiative in NRW is to initiate the collaboration between institutions, to link current RDM activities in NRW and to prepare the local institutions for the participation in a National Research Data Infrastructure (Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur, NFDI).

Research data management systems and the organization of universities and research institutes: A systematic literature review

“…Again, the involvement of users and the orientation on the research process are essential to decide about new infrastructure (Blask and Förster, 2020; Willaert et al, 2019). To use resources as efficient as possible, the sample proposed that HEI should collaborate and share services as well as infrastructure (Grasse et al, 2018; Schmidt and Dierkes, 2015).…”

“…It can be expected that the collaboration between institutional units which had not collaborated before will be challenging at the beginning. Another form of collaboration, already mentioned within the component "technology," can take place among HEI to use resources as efficient as possible (Grasse et al, 2018;Henderson et al, 2014;Pryor, 2014a;Sánchez-Solís and Budroni, 2015) and to learn from the experiences of other HEI (Hamad et al, 2021).…”

“…Buys and Shaw, 2015;Faniel and Connaway, 2018;Hoorn and Domingus, 2015;Piracha and Ameen, 2019;Sesartic and Töwe, 2016;Zondergeld et al, 2020). The collaboration between HEI were discussed as option to keep the additional needed resources as low as possible and to meet the requirements of RDM (Grasse et al, 2018;Henderson et al, 2014;Pryor, 2014;Sánchez-Solís and Budroni, 2015). Furthermore, it is possible to learn from the experiences of other HEI (Hamad et al, 2021).Partnerships on an international level could help universities in countries with a lower maturity level for RDM to evolve their full potential (Mohammed and Ibrahim, 2019).…”