Commitment to open research data
The ZBW in national and European infrastructures
Photo: Andrew Graumann
The ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics is actively involved in the design and development of national and European research data infrastructures. Through its involvement in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), the ZBW makes significant contributions to the promotion of open science and the sustainable use of research data. With a focus on the economic sciences, its work is centred in particular on the BERD@NFDI and KonsortSWD consortia and on strategic developments in the field of European science policy.
Piloting the BERD@NFDI platform for business administration
The NFDI consortium BERD@NFDI (Business, Economic and Related Data) is dedicated to developing research data infrastructures that make it possible to effectively manage and analyse unstructured data such as texts, images, videos and audio recordings. A central focus was on piloting the BERD platform, which is based on the open source framework InvenioRDM. The platform was specifically adapted to the requirements of the business administration community and has been available to researchers since March 2024. It enables the structured management, easy retrieval and reuse of research data in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). The platform is designed to address the full range of unstructured data – from scientific texts to multimedia data – and support economic researchers in managing it.
The ZBW was responsible for the technical development of the platform. The use of an external cloud environment ensures a scalable and reliable infrastructure that meets the specific needs of economic researchers. This is an important step towards sustainably supporting the digital research landscape and providing economists with a reliable tool.
Another highlight of 2024 was the adoption of an assessment methodology for the continuous review of FAIR compliance. This methodology, which is based on the RDA FAIR Data Maturity Model, enables an assessment of compliance with FAIR principles.
The ZBW’s work in the BERD@NFDI consortium in 2024 emphasises the focus on providing a future-proof research data infrastructure. The platform and the accompanying services help to make unstructured data more efficiently usable and create new opportunities for economic research in an increasingly data-driven world.
Improved findability of research data in KonsortSWD
A central focus of the ZBW’s collaboration with the NFDI consortium KonsortSWD in 2024 was on improving the findability of research data. In collaboration with GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, the ZBW developed a handout aimed at making research data more visible in general search engines such as Google. This initiative recognises the fact that many researchers start their research via web search engines rather than subject-specific data repositories. Around 60 per cent of researchers use general search engines for this purpose, while subject-specific repositories are initially only used by around 40 per cent.
The guideline contains practical recommendations and technical adjustments that enable research data centres to better index their data for search engines and thus increase their visibility. The results speak for themselves: centres that implemented the 2024 guidelines recorded an impressive 440 percent increase in access to their research data. This result underlines the importance of such measures for the accessibility and dissemination of research data and shows how targeted improvements can create sustainable added value.
Another ZBW milestone in 2024 was the development and evaluation of solutions for the standardised exchange of research data between different research data centres. These solutions address two key challenges: interoperability between different platforms and secure access to sensitive data. By introducing standardised interfaces and formats, existing data can be used more efficiently, which increases the number of users. At the same time, flexibility for researchers increases, as shorter travel times to the nearest research data centre make everyday research easier. Data security is also guaranteed.
The ZBW relied on close cooperation with other partners in the consortium in order to adapt the technical solutions to the specific requirements of the specialist disciplines. The evaluated infrastructure makes it possible to transfer data smoothly between different centres and thus further simplify access to research data. These advances will make a significant contribution to reducing fragmentation in the research data landscape and creating a more standardised, networked infrastructure.
Europe in view: The ZBW’s involvement in the European Open Science Cloud
At European level, the year 2024 was of great strategic importance for the ZBW and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The EOSC, which aims to establish a Europe-wide, interoperable infrastructure for research data, offers researchers access to research data across countries and disciplines. The ZBW has played a decisive role in the further development of this initiative, in particular through the involvement of ZBW Director Prof Dr Klaus Tochtermann as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the EOSC Association.
A key milestone in 2024 was the launch of the productive version of the EOSC EU Node. This version forms the basis for the Europe-wide networking of research data infrastructures and makes it possible to seamlessly connect national, regional and topic-specific infrastructures to the EOSC. With this basic technical version, an important step has been taken to overcome the fragmented access to research data in Europe and to create a standardised platform that complies with the FAIR principles.
To promote understanding and use of the EOSC and the EOSC EU Node in particular, the ZBW 2024 initiated the “EOSC Coffee Lectures” event series. This series of online lectures with Prof Dr Klaus Tochtermann offered over 1,200 participants a low-threshold opportunity to learn about the functionality, potential and strategic goals of the EOSC and the new EOSC node. The “EOSC Coffee Lectures” made a significant contribution to familiarising a broader scientific community in Germany with the EOSC and raising awareness of its benefits.
Another highlight was the EOSC Symposium 2024, which took place in Berlin from 21 to 23 October. With 1,355 participants from 64 countries, it was one of the most important events in the field of European research data infrastructure development. As project coordinator, the ZBW played a central role in the organisation of the three-day conference, which took place under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In addition to organisational responsibility, the ZBW also set the tone in terms of content. The Open Science Session, which was organised and moderated by Dr Guido Scherp, deserves special mention. This session highlighted the central importance of open science in the training of young researchers and offered an interactive world café format in which innovative approaches and strategies for the promotion of open science skills were discussed. Over 50 participants took the opportunity to exchange ideas on new approaches in keynote speeches and discussions.
Further information:
New BERD platform: https://berd-platform.de/
Handout SEO for research data “Enhancing data findability: how scientists and repositories can improve their data visibility”: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.6760241
Report on the EOSC session “Open Science Education“: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13982666
Interview on the topic KonsortSWD in the Podcast “The Future is Open Science“: https://zbw.to/VeTFr
*This text was written on 17 April 2025.
This text was translated on 12 May 2025 using DeeplPro.