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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
The Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the University of Bremen had already secured extensive data sets from the USA in 2025. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) has now approved around 860,000 euros in funding to systematically identify, secure and store endangered data over the long term, based on the PANGAEA data platform.
PANGAEA ranks as a globally recognised data publisher that publishes and archives scientific data from the fields of geo and environmental sciences. PANGAEA is operated jointly by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the MARUM – Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. The platform ensures that high-quality, well-structured and interoperable datasets are obtained and made available under open access conditions.
"PANGAEA enjoys the utmost recognition and appreciation in climate and environmental research," as Henrike Müller, Senator for Environment, Climate and Science of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen underlined. "I am delighted that the DFG has approved funding for this project. Particularly in view of current global political developments, these data are both vulnerable and precious treasures for international science. The fact that we can secure and store them here in Germany benefits us all."
Thanks to the DFG funding, three scientists at PANGAEA will now be able to continue supporting data rescue in the areas data scouting, data curation and software development this year and the next, as well as working on sustainable national and international strategies. The aim is to identify datasets of high scientific value through international exchange that could be jeopardised by political developments, for example, and to proactively secure them in PANGAEA. "This means that climate and environmental data will be available to the scientific community over the long term," as Frank Oliver Glöckner, head of PANGAEA and Data at AWI’s Computing Center as well as Professor of Earth System Data Science at University of Bremen stated: "Thanks to the intelligent redundancy of data infrastructures, the project will strengthen resilience and data sovereignty in Europe."
The data experts were already able to gain their initial experience with these tasks in 2025. Last year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had explicitly pointed out the risks to data sets, which were transferred to PANGAEA and thereby saved. "The particular value of this data lies in the fact that it comprises long time series," adds Dr Janine Felden, co-applicant and head of PANGAEA at the AWI and MARUM. "Their loss would lead to significant gaps in these areas that are so essential for humanity."
Part of the DFG funding will also be approved retroactively for the year 2025. According to the reviewers’ statement, the AWI has rendered considerable services to data protection with the data backup, for which it has provided advance personnel and financial support.
https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press.html
Surface Radiation Measurement
Source: Thomas Steuer
Copyright: Alfred Wegener Institute / Thomas Steuer
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