Dealing with research data is an important topic within science. Data is mostly digital today, but should not just be collected and stored on local storage, but made available as freely as possible and accessible for reuse. The Research Data Alliance RDA has set itself the goal to develop solutions for this.

On 19 and 20 February 2019, the fourth German RDA conference took place at GFZ. Organizers were the association RDA Germany and the Helmholtz Open Science Coordination Office, located at GFZ. Central topic of the conference was the establishment of a National Research Data Infrastructure NFDI, decided on by the federal and state governments.

Reinhard Hüttl, GFZ’s Scientific Executive Director and opening speaker: "Science must master the flood of data. We run large observatories all over the world, operate satellite missions and install measuring networks - we receive a huge amount of data every day”. The Helmholtz research topic Earth and Environment, in which GFZ takes part in besides seven other Helmholtz centers and that Reinhard Hüttl has been coordinating for two years, supports and promotes the planning of an NFDI consortium for Earth System Science within the overall consortium: NFDI4earth.

The second NFDI4earth Workshop, organized by the GFZ and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK, will take place after the RDA conference on February 21, also on the Telegrafenberg, to plan the design of NFDI4earth. (ak)

More informatio

• RDA Meeting
• NFDI4earth Workshop