National Research Data Infrastructure
Data are the basis of an increasingly digital science. Digital methods in the collection, analysis and linking of data offer great opportunities for research and are making an ever greater contribution to gaining knowledge. There is also great potential in the subsequent use of data, which, however, often remains unused because data are not sufficiently accessible or not available.
Dealing with data is complex and makes subject-specific approaches inevitable due to the heterogeneity of the research processes and data. Therefore, there are no universal solutions and only the scientists themselves can decide what infrastructures and services are suitable in order to meet the different requirements of the subject domains.
The relevance of data as the basis for sustainable science and the difficulty of finding interdisciplinary solutions has also been recognized by politics. Commissioned by the Joint Science Conference (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz, GWK), the Council for Information Infrastructures therefore proposed the establishment of a National Research Data Infrastructure (Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur, NFDI) in 2016. Funded by the federal and state governments, this is currently being created as a nationwide competence and infrastructure network that is intended to ensure the provision and indexing of research data for science.