(Published on 11.07.2023) The development of the NFDI portfolio for basic services is progressing with two further projects. The Consortia Assembly (KV) of the NFDI Association decided in its meeting on 7 July to fund two basic service applications.
In a one-year initialisation phase, a service for the NFDI-wide provision of persistent identifiers (such as DOI) as well as a service to support the description of data through uniform terminologies will be funded.
Both proposals were able to convince the 26 consortia represented in the KV. The funds are provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) via Base4NFDI.
PID4NFDI (Persistent Identifier Services for the German National Research Data Infrastructure)
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) that permanently refer to a document or data (e.g. ORCID iDs for authorship or ISBN numbers for books) are central to FAIR research data management.
However, the demand for PIDs for different resources leads to diverse requirements: Various disciplines and NFDI consortia have different levels of maturity in PID implementation. Initial analyses of NFDI consortia use cases, requirements and plans have shown that these and other challenges need to be addressed by NFDI as a whole.
PID4NFDI will address these challenges and design the work programme to build an NFDI foundation service on proven PID infrastructures. The PID4NFDI consortium is composed of key stakeholders from the national and international PID service provider community.
In the initialisation phase, case analyses, requirements engineering and concept development will lay the foundations for further phases. The results of the first phase can already be used, but also flow seamlessly into future development and integration activities. In the technical implementation, PID4NFDI will promote the adoption of PID infrastructures and service providers and develop and operate NFDI-specific services only when needed.
TS4NFDI (Terminology Services 4 NFDI)
Terminologies play an important role in semantically linking research data across disciplines. Data described with terminologies can be understood and used across different sources and disciplines. This significantly improves their reusability.
Currently, NFDI consortia are working with terminologies of varying maturity and design. These terminologies are used in various services and tools to annotate and link research data. To this end, Terminology Services (TS) have been developed to publish, provide, describe and curate terminologies.
The Terminology Base Service (TS4NFDI) aims to standardise and harmonise terminology management within NFDI, promoting consensus building and interoperability of services across disciplines. In this way, a common framework for knowledge representations can be built. The service aims to integrate individual solutions into a standardised, interoperable and sustainable service suite with service wrapper, API gateway, mapping service and reusable GUI widgets.
In March, a positive decision had already been made on IAM4NFDI. Read more about the process here: How Base4NFDI will decide.
More information on Base4NFDI: https://base4nfdi.de/
Other posts
Posts
5-year anniversary of the NFDI association: A brief journey through time in 5 images
Five years ago, on 12 October 2020, the German federal and state governments jointly founded the association Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (NFDI) e.V. in Hannover. More than 300 institutions are now members, and the association continues to grow. The members are united by a common vision: data as a shared good for excellent research, organised by the scientific community in Germany.
To celebrate the association’s 5th anniversary, we would like to take a brief journey through time in 5 pictures. The photos illustrate how NFDI has transformed throughout its development phase into a strong network.
RDM in Action: Highlights oft CoRDI 2025
Almost 700 people attended the Conference on Research Data Infrastructure (CoRDI) 2025 at RWTH Aachen University. The three-day conference, held from 26 to 28 August at C.A.R.L. (Central Auditorium for Research and Learning), focused on making better use of research data and the resulting added value for science and society. The motto ‘RDM (Research Data Management) in Action’ was reflected in all presentations, discussions and posters.
NFDI Directorate: Susanne Walter-Augustin appointed as new Administrative Director
Susanne Walter-Augustin was appointed Administrative Director in June 2025. She has been contributing her extensive experience in administration, finance and project management since 1 August 2025. With a degree in business administration, she previously held various management positions in social, cultural and educational institutions.
Recent Comments