idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Members of the U Bremen Research Alliance (UBRA) have been participating in five of the nine projects from the first funding round to establish the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). On July 4, 2025, Germany’s Joint Science Conference (GWK) —representing both federal and state governments — approved continued funding for these projects until the end of 2028. The evaluation process is led by international scientific experts and coordinated by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Bremen-based institutions received top marks in the review. For instance, the expert panel praised the NFDI4Biodiversity consortium: “The services provided by the consortium meet the needs of the scientific and broader biodiversity communities in an outstanding way. Its organizational structure can serve as a model for other NFDI consortia, and the consortium is well positioned to assume a leadership role even internationally.” In total, member institutions of the U Bremen Research Alliance are involved in 12 of the current 26 NFDI consortia — serving as lead or co-lead institutions in four of them. Along with other initiatives, such as “DataNord”, the Data Competence Center for the Bremen region, these activities confirm Bremen’s emergence as a national hub for scientific data infrastructure.
Professor Dr. Jutta Günther, Chairperson of the U Bremen Research Alliance and President of the University of Bremen, remarked: “We’re very pleased to receive continued funding from the first NFDI round. This success — and the significant involvement of our member institutions in the NFDI consortia — clearly highlights Bremen’s strong role in shaping the National Research Data Infrastructure.”
Professor Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, Spokesperson for both DataNord and the NFDI4Biodiversity consortium, added: “Bremen has a truly unique profile when it comes to managing research data. It’s not just about the volume of data or the quality of repositories—it’s above all about the structured and sustainable use of these data.”
Since 2018, establishing a National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) has been a declared objective of Germany’s federal and state governments. The NFDI is intended to set standards in research data management and help ensure that scientific data remains sustainably usable. Across three calls for proposals between 2020 and 2022, a total of 26 consortia from all four major research areas, as well as one union of consortia for cross-cutting base services have received funding.
Member institutions of the U Bremen Research Alliance are involved in five of the nine consortia from the first NFDI funding round:
KonsortSWD - NFDI4Society – Co-spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Betina Hollstein, University of Bremen. Focus: Research data infrastructure for the social, behavioral, educational, and economic sciences.
NFDI4Biodiversity – Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, University of Bremen; Participants: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – AWI, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT). Focus: Shared use of biodiversity and environmental data.
NFDI4Culture – Participant: German Maritime Museum. Focus: Research data from architecture, arts, music, theater, dance, film, and media studies.
NFDI4ING – Participant: German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Focus: Connects engineering disciplines and facilitates the networking of their research data.
NFDI4Health – Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Iris Pigeot, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology – BIPS; Co-applicant: Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS. Focus: Infrastructure and efficient services for FAIR personal health data.
In the second round as well, members of the U Bremen Research Alliance are actively involved in four of the ten projects selected in July 2021 for the development of the National Research Data Infrastructure. By name, these consortia are NFDI4DataScience (Participant: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – AWI), NFDI4Earth (Co-spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Stephan Frickenhaus, AWI; Participant: University of Bremen), NFDI4Microbiota (Participant: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology – MPIMM) and NFDIMatWerk (Participant: Leibniz Institute for Materials-Oriented Technologies - IWT).
In the third funding round, in which seven additional consortia were approved on November 4, 2022, member institutions of the U Bremen Research Alliance are involved in three of them: NFDI4Energy (Participant: University of Bremen), NFDI4Memory (Participant: German Maritime Museum) and NFDI4Objects (Participant: German Maritime Museum).
Research Data Infrastructure within the U Bremen Research Alliance:
Research data management and data science are designated as strategic focus areas and form part of the so-called ‘lead projects’ of the U Bremen Research Alliance.
In 2021, with support from the State of Bremen, UBRA launched Data Train – Training in Research Data Management and Data Science. This cross-disciplinary graduate program strengthens PhD-level competencies in managing and sustainably using complex research data. https://www.bremen-research.de/data-train
Since 2024, DataNord, the interdisciplinary Data Competence Center for the Bremen region, has been offering trainings, hackathons, advisory services, and networking formats for researchers at all career levels. The initiative is supported by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU. https://www.datanord-bremen.de
Furthermore, a white paper has been developed within the U Bremen Research Alliance, outlining key areas of action for the cross-disciplinary establishment of a cooperative research data management framework. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775371
About the U Bremen Research Alliance:
Within the U Bremen Research Alliance, the University of Bremen cooperates with twelve institutes from the non-university research sector that are jointly funded by the federal and state governments. The alliance includes research institutes from Germany’s four major scientific organizations—namely, the Fraunhofer Society, the Max Planck Society, the Leibniz Association, and the Helmholtz Association—as well as the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. Collaboration within the U Bremen Research Alliance spans the four High Profile Areas of research: “Marine, Polar, and Climate Research,” “Materials Science and Engineering Technologies,” “Health Sciences,” and “Minds, Media, Machines”—thus covering research literally “from the deep sea to outer space.” Research data management, data science, and digitalization are designated as strategic focus areas of the cooperative work within the U Bremen Research Alliance.
Contact:
Spokesperson of the NFDI4Biodiversity Consortium
Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner
Head of Data and PANGAEA at the Computing and Data Centre
Alfred Wegener Institute - Helmholtz Centre for Polar- and Marine Research
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen
Email: frank.oliver.gloeckner@awi.de
U Bremen Research Alliance
Merle El-Khatib
Communication und Marketing
Email: merle.el-khatib@vw.uni-bremen.de
Phone: 0421 218 60046
https://www.bremen-research.de/en/activities/research-data-and-data-science/en-n...; Overview of NFDI Consortia with Participation of U Bremen Research Alliance Members
Information stand by NFDI consortia at Research Data Day on the University of Bremen campus, June 11 ...
Source: Merle El-Khatib
Copyright: U Bremen Research Alliance
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Information stand by NFDI consortia at Research Data Day on the University of Bremen campus, June 11 ...
Source: Merle El-Khatib
Copyright: U Bremen Research Alliance
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