NFDIxCS at the 1st NFDI Berlin-Brandenburg Network Meeting
The first NFDI Berlin-Brandenburg Network Meeting brought together 73 participants from 21 NFDI consortia at the Weierstrass Institute in Berlin on October 12. Besides creating opportunities for intensive networking and exchange, the focus of the event was on discussing issues that are of central importance across the NFDI consortia.
A total of 27 consortia with hundreds of organizations spread across Germany are already part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). While there are initial initiatives for regional and local exchange such as "Stammtische", structured, regional meetings have not yet been established. The MaRDI consortium took a first step in this direction with the organization of the first NFDI Berlin-Brandenburg Network Meeting, which was attended by participating organizations from the region from a total of 21 NFDI consortia. NFDIxCS also took part, represented by Dr. Firas Al Laban from the University of Potsdam and Julia Meisner from the German Informatics Society.
Initially, each consortium was asked to do a short presentation on their distinctive features (in case of NFDIxCS, one example would be having an X in its name, indicating that is does not only develop research data services for, but above all with, the individual sub-disciplines of computer science) and on existing collaborations with other NFDIxCS consortia. The event then transitioned into an "unconference" format, in which the participants themselves determined the topics to be discussed. In the afternoon World Café, the participants thus dealt with the following questions: How can the acceptance and relevance of the FAIR data principles and research data management (RDM) be promoted outside the "NFDI bubble"? What should RDM teaching look like and how should RDM be introduced into teaching? Which economic and international collaborations are worth pursuing and how can they be encouraged? What is the value of open source software in the field of RDM? Which ontologies and knowledge graphs are relevant for NFDI?
Not only in identifying topics, but also in the subsequent discussion in the World Café, it became clear that despite all their differences, the consortia are confronted with the same challenges. These include very basic problems such as communicating central NFDI goals (e.g. FAIR RDM) and incentivizing young researchers to adhere to the corresponding practices. Moreover, efficient communication channels and the assignment of responsibilities between the individual consortia, the NFDI and its committees also need to be fully consolidated. The Network Meeting thus demonstrated that a continuation of the format, possibly also in smaller topic- and requirement-related focus groups, is extremely beneficial.
