The National Research Data Infrastructures (NFDI)

The various specialist consortia of the National Research Data Infrastructure have the task of systematically accessing, sustainably securing and making available the databases of science and research and of networking them (inter-) nationally. Thus, they represent an important role in the research data management of many scientific institutions. More information can be found here from the German Research Foundation (Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). In 2020, the NFDI association was also founded, which reports on the consortia and further developments.

In the three application rounds, consortia were selected to ensure coverage of the scientific disciplines within the NFDI: from cultural, social, human and engineering to life and natural sciences. The following consortia are funded:

1. Round (start of funding October 2020):

  • DataPLANT: Plant research data
  • GHGA: German Human Genome–Phenome Archive
  • KonsortSWD: Consortium for the Social, Educational, Behavioural and Economic Sciences
  • NFDI4Biodiversity: Biodiversity, Ecology and Environmental Data
  • NFDI4Cat: NFDI for sciences related to catalysis
  • NFDI4Chem: Chemistry consortium for the NFDI
  • NFDI4Culture: Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage
  • NFDI4Health: NFDI personal health data
  • NFDI4Ing: NFDI for Engineering Sciences

2. Round (start of funding October 2021):

  • BERD@NFDI: NFDI for Business, Economic and Related Data
  • DAPHNE4NFDI: Data from PHoton and Neutron Experiments for NFDI
  • FAIRmat: FAIR Data Infrastructure for Condensed-Matter Physics and the Chemical Physics of Solids
  • MaRDI: Mathematical Research Data Initiative
  • NFDI4DataScience: NFDI for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
  • NFDI4Earth: NFDI Consortium Earth System Sciences
  • NFDI4Microbiota: NFDI for Microbiota Research
  • NFDI-MatWerk: National Research Data Infrastructure for Materials Science and Materials Engineering
  • PUNCH4NFDI: Particles, Universe, NuClei and Hadrons for the NFDI
  • Text+: Language and text-based research data infrastructure

3. Round (start of funding January 2023):

Graphic showing all NFDI consortia across four main categories: natural sciences, life sciences, engineering and humanities and social sciences.

 

In addition to the consortia, there are cross-cutting issues that are treated as separate sections. These are:

Graphic of all NFDI sections with the number of member organizations and people.

In cooperation with the Service for Research Data Management at FSU Jena an Overview for the NFDI-Consortia was created. Also the contact persons are listed there.

On the NFDI YouTube channel you can also find a playlist of all previous ToolTalks and of all previous InfraTalks.

In an InfraTalk, consortia present their work. In addition, exciting research data management topics are on the agenda, for example on legal issues, education and training or common standards. Specific tools and services that are used or (further) developed in the NFDI community are presented in the ToolTalks. Questions, feedback and objective discussions are absolutely welcome in these talks.

Even though there is no official overview of all the services offered by the NFDI consortia and sections, the NFDI-N(HAW)igator (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13973397), which emerged from the FDMScouts.nrw funding line, is a first step in this direction. The document, originally conceived by Eva Eilert and Martin Reiter for advising scientists at Universities of applied sciences (HAW in German) in NRW, provides orientation and impressively illustrates the breadth of infrastructures and services.

The latest version is available as a concept board: https://app.conceptboard.com/board/n8ur-rpq3-tx1f-q20d-kfb5