HeFDI – Hessian Research Data Infrastructures
HeFDI
The HeFDI state initiative supports higher education institutions in Hesse in the professional handling of digital research data. Through advice centres, repositories and training programmes, it establishes sustainable standards for research data management and promotes networking within the RDM community.
| Project lead: | Prof. Dr Stefan Schmunk |
| Project team: | Tim Bender, Stephanie Werner |
| Duration: | January 2016 to December 2025 |
| Funding body: | Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Art and Culture (HMWK) |
The increasing digitalisation of research is leading to a sharp rise in digital research data, whilst at the same time expanding the possibilities for analysing it. To ensure that this data remains available, accessible and reproducible in the long term, responsible structures and processes are required throughout the entire data lifecycle. The HeFDI – Hessian Research Data Infrastructures initiative addresses this need by establishing and further developing research data infrastructures at universities in Hesse. It was launched in 2016 under the leadership of Philipps University of Marburg and now comprises eleven universities.
Project progress
HeFDI supports researchers with technical infrastructures such as repositories, as well as guidance & support and training programmes on research data management (RDM). The aim is to initiate and coordinate organisational and technological processes to establish sustainable RDM at the participating universities.
The initiative works closely with national and international networks. It is an active part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and its consortia. Furthermore, HeFDI maintains partnerships with other regional initiatives and engages in intensive dialogue with partners such as EUT+. An important contribution to the RDM community is its participation in the forschungsdaten.info platform.
Objective
HeFDI aims to embed FDM sustainably at universities in Hesse and to provide professional support to researchers at all stages of the research process. This is achieved by providing technological solutions, a wide range of training and guidance & support services, and the development of common standards and concepts for the quality assurance of research data.
Results
HeFDI was launched in 2016 as a joint initiative of Hessian universities, building on a pilot project and numerous local initiatives. Since then, the state initiative has achieved numerous successes and established a wide range of opportunities for researchers.
As part of the Hessian Digital Pact, HeFDI has been approved for a second funding phase running until 31 December 2025.
- Between 2014 and 2018, ten of the HeFDI universities adopted guidelines on research data management.
- All universities have set up local research data service centres offering advice, expertise, training and support.
- All participating universities offer needs-based training for students, PhD candidates and researchers on relevant topics in research data management.
- In the area of training and data literacy, the HeFDI universities have also achieved remarkable success through securing funding and implementing the FOKUS collaborative project. Furthermore, two of the five top prizes in the nationwide competition ‘Science in the Digital Age’ went to HeFDI universities (TRUST and RDM in Mechanical Engineering).
- A comprehensive advisory service for researchers. This applies both to advice on research data management in relation to third-party funding applications and to ongoing research projects involving active data management. In 2019, over 300 advisory sessions were held at the consortium’s universities.
- All participating universities offer institutional research data repositories, which are made available in accordance with the operational concept for the repository solution within the HeFDI network.
- As part of their advisory services, the local research data service centres provide basic information on legal issues relating to research data.
- To support members of the HeFDI universities, the HeFDI universities have established an efficient and collaborative solution for the Research Data Management Organiser (RDMO) support tool.
- In 2018, the HeFDI universities jointly developed an overarching concept for the current stabilisation phase, which was positively received by the DFG’s Committee for Academic Libraries and Infrastructures.
- Since 2020, collaboratively developed and implemented training programmes have been taking place as part of the HeFDI Data School. The HeFDI Data School is delivered online and covers a broad spectrum of introductory topics in research data management (RDM).
- Based on the experiences of the FOKUS project and an e-learning course from RWTH Aachen University, the HeFDI self-study module was developed and published as an Open Educational Resource.
- As part of the regular HeFDI Data Talks – a one-hour lecture format followed by a discussion – a broader range of latest FDM topics is also covered.
- The HeFDI-ELN-Service satellite project, initiated by HeFDI, is developing and piloting an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) service at three HeFDI sites, which will subsequently be offered throughout Hesse as a federated service.
