Advancing the discussion on sustainable financing

Tue Jun 15 2021

DataPLANT got involved into furthering the discussion on sustainable financing via it’s co-founding project BioDATEN. In Baden-Wuerttemberg the science data center activities are coordinated by a working group which held a meeting on business models to discuss options to establish sustainable support of research data management. Here, the insights of the NFDI and the state of considerations got presented by the DataPLANT speaker.

The increasing complexity of requirements necessitates stronger management of a university’s research data management (RDM). In order to cope with the increasing variety of tasks and to ensure a close exchange into the faculties and institutions, the area of RDM should be strengthened. A central task for RDM is to extend it to the entire institution. It is the only way that the university as a whole can credibly represent its commitment to the public and to sponsors and establish binding standards and concepts. Strategic considerations include recommendations that should be made to future research and collaborative projects in the various disciplines. Such projects typically require support in the various aspects of data management and technical infrastructure.

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As presented at NFDI-Talks online series a conceivable approach for the future would be to apply for funding for support services in personnel or infrastructural form for newly submitted research proposals, as is already done in some cases in the INF subprojects in CRCs. This makes it possible to deal with partial positions - small projects cannot always apply for full positions for data management, for example. Likewise, sustainability and continuity of the experts employed in the RDM can be ensured. DataPLANT could bundle various part-time funding that is provided either on a project-by-project basis or on a permanent basis. One variation is to create positions that map these part-time funding. Additional benefits of a coordinated link to the NFDI include the creation of a central point of contact for questions related to the RDM of the individual working groups. This should ensure a professional exchange across faculty and project boundaries. Likewise, this organizes the qualification of all participants in the field, supports the implementation of central guidelines of the various funding agencies. DataPLANT also offers regular (online) meetings and training sessions to ensure the flow of information between stakeholders. These meetings could also be divided by topic. In addition, this helps to document current problems and solutions in suitable platforms such as the DataPLANT Hub.