Advancing the Infrastructure: The 7th NFDIxCS Plenary Meeting in Essen
How can we further scale the existing architecture to provide services for the computer science community? This question was a focal point of the 7th NFDIxCS Plenary Meeting, held in Essen from April 21st to 22nd, 2026.
The meeting highlighted the progress achieved across all Task Areas. The consortium confirmed that the project is on track and is now increasingly focusing on how the different consortium members will work on how to make the infrastructure accessible to the larger computer science community.
Architecture and Services in Action
Discussions emphasized the transition toward a service-oriented architecture to ensure the technical framework supports the actual workflows of researchers. A key milestone is the Research Data Management Container (RDMC), which has moved from concept to a tangible prototype. This was demonstrated through an interactive trial.
Innovation through Community Contributions
Among others, the 2025 Flexfund projects showcased the range of innovation currently being integrated into the consortium, including work on semantic concept extraction, business process management, and the governance of data platforms. Participatory sessions also explored the role of generative AI in bringing legacy artifacts into the NFDIxCS ecosystem and presented tools like SciGraphChat for better data interaction. Technical sessions on HPC benchmark data and ontology-based metadata further highlighted the commitment to creating high-performance, interoperable data standards.
Strategic Outreach and Outlook
Beyond technical developments, the plenary focused on defining how to communicate results to stakeholders and presented on a cooperation with the Software Heritage Foundation to ensure the long-term archiving of research software. As the meeting concluded, the roadmap for the coming months was outlined, focusing on the upcoming interim report and the delivery of practical services to the community.
The consortium will gather again in Dresden for the 8th Plenary and 4th Symposium, held alongside the INFORMATIK 2026 festival in September.
The Call for Papers for the 4th Symposium is open now: https://nfdixcs.org/event/4th-nfdixcs-symposium-rdm-from-research-to-sustainable-services
