DataPLANT participates in Accounting4NFDI

Sat Feb 28 2026

DataPLANT is involved in the preparation and proposal phase for an initialization phase of another Base4NFDI service: Accounting4NFDI. This project has now formally started and DataPLANT is actively participating.

Accounting, in a broader sense, refers to the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating (economic) information in order to enable well-informed decisions. It means systematically recording, analyzing, and presenting effort-related activities of an entity or institution in a way that is usable for all stakeholders, so that decisions can be made on this basis. Accounting is often the third “A” in Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting: the first identifies users, the second grants them access or assigns resources, and the third enables tracking of users’ resource consumption.

For DataPLANT, accounting is one of the prerequisites for sustainably sharing services: Data management and publication services such as the ARChub should not only be offered to a often small and closed group of users, but nationwide and beyond the original scope of our NFDI consortium. Previous restrictions — some of which have already been overcome — include:

• External users are often not authenticated (this is solved in DataPLANT for a long period already)
• Additional resource demands arise (devices, hardware, licenses, etc.) that are not budgeted on the provider side (Freiburg for the reference instance)
• There is no funding available for the additional personnel effort required for consulting, support, and training of user groups beyond core DataPLANT

However, with IT services such as the ARChub, significant economies of scale quickly emerge, so that expanding the offering to third parties often not only improves the service but also makes it more sustainable and stable. The additional effort is then typically much lower than what a fragmented service landscape would cost. Accounting can help overcome this hurdle by creating transparency and supporting feedback and reporting. It complements initial planning for resource allocation and management with corresponding feedback.

It can also serve as a tool for (automated) reporting components, as the associated efforts can be transparently matched to specific users and their projects. Like IAM4NFDI, Accounting4NFDI should also become part of the overall NFDI architecture.