National Research Data Infrastructure

Data forms the foundation of every scientific discipline. Without sufficient data, research and knowledge acquisition are impossible. Yet how can we use technology to make this data available, transparent and traceable for everyone while at the same time complying with legal and ethical standards? A nationwide alliance of universities, research institutes, computing centres, museums, libraries, archives and academies is in the process of tackling this enormous task. The aim is to establish a National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The federal and state governments have granted annual funds of up to €100m for ten years for the project, in which 26 consortia are participating. Researchers from h_da have taken on a leading role for the humanities and social sciences, among other disciplines.

By Astrid Ludwig, 25.2.2025

All researchers and scientists are surely familiar with the dilemma. Where can I find data to supplement, corroborate or possibly disprove my research work? How do I obtain this information, how and where was the data collected – and am I even allowed to use it? Marc Rittberger, Professor of Information Management at h_da’s Faculty of Media and a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF) in Frankfurt, recalls a prominent case and an example of how things should now be different: “20 years ago, for example, the data from the PISA study was not accessible to everyone,” he reports. And this despite the fact that it was an international study conducted by the OECD, which assessed the level of performance and education in schools in its member countries. In this particular instance, things have, of course, meanwhile changed, but the national and international world of research data still often resembles tangled undergrowth in which the search for and use of important knowledge is often rather arduous and lacks transparency.

This is a situation that the consortia working on the National Research Data Infrastructure and researchers at h_da want to change, at least on a national level in Germany. “Better infrastructure also means better access to research,” says Stefan Schmunk, Professor of Information Science and Digital Library at h_da, summing up the initiative. “Data is of fundamental importance in all scientific disciplines. How do I handle data and how do I develop standards for its collection and use – these are questions that have kept us busy for decades,” he says. This applies not only for universities, research institutes and educational institutions. For computing centres, museums, archives and libraries, too, these are elemental questions that have become even more urgent and complex since the onset of digitisation.

That is why, among other stakeholders, the German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures (RfII), which is based in Göttingen and also advises politicians and the scientific community as an expert panel, has been working on these topics since 2014. Since 2019, the federal and state governments have financed the establishment of the megaproject “National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI)”, in which funds of €100m are to be invested each year up until 2030. It is one of the largest funding initiatives of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). “We are leading in this area worldwide,” says Professor Schmunk. In 2020, an office and an association were set up in Karlsruhe specifically for the network, of which over 300 organisations are now members. “We have to make science and research fit for the future,” says Schmunk.

26 consortia – each with 40 to 50 staff from different institutions – are involved in setting up the NFDI. Professor Stefan Schmunk and his colleague Professor Marc Rittberger have been working extensively on data curation and transfer for many years. h_da is playing a leading role in four consortia that are concerned with the humanities, but also with the engineering sciences. According to Schmunk, this is rather unusual: “h_da is one of the few universities of applied sciences in Germany that is making a substantial contribution and involved as an applicant in a number of consortia.”

Stefan Schmuck and his colleague Marc Rittberger are members of these consortia. Stefan Schmunk has headed the “NFDI4Memory” consortium at h_da since 2021. “We want to involve experts in the science of history and memory institutions in the handling and use of data as well as develop needs-based services for research and teaching,” he says.  Professor Rittberger and his team are responsible for the topic of education in the “KonsortSWD” consortium, which is developing a nationwide infrastructure for research data for economics and the social, behavioural and educational sciences throughout Germany. For the two scientists from h_da, establishing this network is their main goal. They want to help set up a research-oriented infrastructure for the scientific disciplines mentioned above. “It’s not enough to have a repository and simply store data in it. We need to give scientists analytical access to it via various tools and instruments. And we need to ensure that they have the necessary skills to use them. This can only succeed if universities and other higher education institutions, libraries, archives and museums work together,” says Schmunk.

For Schmunk and Rittberger, archiving research data more efficiently is of the essence – and it needs to be done in such a way that the data is also traceable and verifiable. “We have to overcome boundaries in terms of content and disciplines,” says Rittberger. For example, structured interviews for a study need to be designed in such a way “that they are still understandable ten years later for people who did not work on the project.” In addition, research data must become more easily findable and visible than to date. Rittberger gives the example of a study on multilingualism in the classroom and how school students handle language. That this study even exists is not yet adequately known, he says.

There are many aspects that the huge NFDI project must take into consideration. “Data protection plays a major role,” say the two researchers. Especially in the area of education, for example, when it is a matter of data related to school students. Here, it is very important to pay attention to anonymising the data conscientiously and to a high level of data security. The data mix is also complex. Astrophysics, for example, accumulates and stores vast data streams from space; the humanities and the social sciences, on the other hand, generate highly complex datasets consisting of different types of data, for example. In times of digitisation, these are supplemented by other formats, such as photos, text messages, sound or film, but also data on digital usage. Among his other activities, Stefan Schmunk has been involved in expanding the inventory of the love letter archive entitled Gruß & Kuss (“Greetings & Kisses”). “The heterogeneity of the data is inexhaustible and ranges from graffiti to letters, audio recordings, WhatsApp messages and emails.” The question here is, how do I bring all this together and make it accessible?

The general question is: Which data should be stored in the first place? According to Marc Rittberger, there are around 2,000 professors at universities and other higher education institutions in the educational sciences alone, who supervise thousands of Bachelor’s and Master’s students every year. Rittberger says that low-threshold solutions for data curation and archiving need to be found here. This alone shows just how complex the task is. Similar questions equally arise in the other two consortia in which h_da is involved – for the engineering sciences and cultural studies.

There is, however, another aspect that is keeping the two h_da scientists occupied: the vast amounts of data generated on the internet, on platforms such as X, Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp, or when using Apple or Microsoft products. “In most cases, this data no longer belongs to us, but it is a wonderful basis for research projects, for example in the humanities.” That is why Schmunk and Rittberger believe that making this data accessible should be regarded as a social issue. “We can’t just leave this to the commercial interests of multinational corporations.”

According to Schmunk and Rittberger, the National Research Data Infrastructure initiative is currently unique worldwide. “We are leading the way in the European context, and other researchers and countries are often envious of our project,” says Rittberger. Their two sub-projects have already produced some initial results on researchers’ expertise and usage behaviour. While “NFDI4Memory” has examined the digital skills of researchers working in history, the team in Professor Rittberger’s sub-project has developed a Standardised Data Management Plan (“Stamp”) for educational research. Both consortia are working hard to establish the NFDI network by 2030. However, it will take many years beyond that to promote it, further develop it and make it sustainable, says Schmunk. “We need to find a permanent solution.” However, many students, doctoral candidates and research associates are already working within the consortia. “And that is the best form of sustainability for this initiative,” says Professor Rittberger.