White Paper: Interim report reference

This White Paper sets out commonly agreed definitions on activities of consortia within NFDI. It aims to provide a common basis for reporting and reference regarding selected questions of cross-consortial relevance in DFG’s template for the Interim Reports. The questions were prioritised by an NFDI Task Force on Evaluation and Reporting (formerly Task Force Monitoring) as a result of discussing possible answers to the DFG template. In this process the need to agree on a generalizable meaning of terms commonly used in the context of NFDI, and reporting in particular, were identified from cross-consortial perspectives. Questions that showed the highest requirement on clarification are discussed in this White Paper. As NFDI evolves, the Task Force will likely propose further joint approaches for reporting in information infrastructures. While each of broad relevance, the questions addressed relate to substantially different aspects of consortia’s work. They are thus also structured slightly different

NFDI4Ing - the National Research Data Infrastructure for Engineering Sciences

NFDI4Ing brings together the engineering communities and fosters the management of engineering research data. The consortium represents engineers from all walks of the profession. It offers a unique method-oriented and user-centred approach in order to make engineering research data FAIR &ndash; findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable. NFDI4Ing has been founded in 2017. The consortium has actively engaged engineers across all five engineering research areas of the DFG classification. Leading figures have teamed up with experienced infrastructure providers. As one important step, NFDI4Ing has taken on the task of structuring the wealth of concrete needs in research data management. A broad consensus on typical methods and workflows in engineering research has been established: The archetypes. So far, seven archetypes are harmonising the methodological needs: Alex: bespoke experiments with high variability of setups, Betty: engineering research software, Caden: provenance tracking of physical samples & data samples, Doris: high performance measurement & computation, Ellen: extensive and heterogeneous data requirements, Frank: many participants & simultaneous devices, Golo: field data & distributed systems. A survey of the entire engineering research landscape in Germany confirms that the concept of engineering archetypes has been very well received. 95% of the research groups identify themselves with at least one of the NFDI4Ing archetypes. NFDI4Ing plans to further coordinate its engagement along the gateways provided by the DFG classification of engineering research areas. Consequently, NFDI4Ing will support five community clusters. In addition, an overarching task area will provide seven base services to be accessed by both the community clusters and the archetype task areas. Base services address quality assurance & metrics, research software development, terminologies & metadata, repositories & storage, data security & sovereignty, training, and data & knowledge discovery. With the archetype approach, NFDI4Ing&rsquo;s work programme is modular and distinctly method-oriented. With the community clusters and base services, NFDI4Ing&rsquo;s work programme remains firmly user-centred and highly integrated. NFDI4Ing has set in place an internal organisational structure that ensures viability, operational efficiency, and openness to new partners during the course of the consortium&rsquo;s development. NFDI4Ing&rsquo;s management team brings in the experience from two applicant institutions and from two years of actively engaging with the engineering communities. Eleven applicant institutions and over fifty participants have committed to carrying out NFDI4Ing&rsquo;s work programme. Moreover, NFDI4Ing&rsquo;s connectedness with consortia from nearby disciplinary fields is strong. Collaboration on cross-cutting topics is well prepared and foreseen. As a result, NFDI4Ing is ready to join the National Research Data Infrastructure.</p