Von Merle El-Khatib
04 Dec 2023
"Data is the gold of the present, but it must also be handled carefully and responsibly,"
Prof. Dr. Jutta Günther emphasized. For this reason, DataNord is of enormous importance as a pioneering initiative.
The President was very happy about the approval of DataNord and the resulting funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and financing from the European Union - NextGenerationEU. She congratulated the DataNord spokespersons involved in the application (Prof. Dr. Rolf Drechsler, University of Bremen/DFKI, Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, University of Bremen/AWI, Prof. Dr. Iris Pigeot, University of Bremen/BIPS) and DataNord coordinators (Dr. Lena Steinmann, Data Science Center at the University of Bremen and Dr. Tanja Hörner, U Bremen Research Alliance) on the success.
In his presentation, Prof. Dr Frank Oliver Glöckner then defined the importance of data competence in accordance with the "FAIR Data Principles". In order for research data to be used sustainably, across disciplines and without loss, it must be FAIR, i.e. findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Data expertise is the basis for gaining new insights from data and utilising its potential profitably. Unfortunately, there is a lack of data experts. Data competence centres (DCC) are intended to counteract this situation. Eleven DCCs are being funded across Germany. DataNord is one of six regional DCCs, one of four interdisciplinary DCCs and the only DCC in the north.
DataNord speaker Prof. Dr. Rolf Drechsler added:
"You can do a lot with data, we would like to improve the world a little bit."
No one in this group doubted that Bremen as a centre of science is contributing to a sustainable increase in data skills among researchers from all disciplines and career levels in Bremen. The following get-together provided space for discussions on how the world can be made a better place through research data management, where lively discussions took place and the success was celebrated together.
As part of the U Bremen Research Alliance and in close cooperation with the regional NFDI consortia, an interdisciplinary data competence centre (iDKZ) is to be established for the Bremen region (acronym: DataNord) with a strong network, particularly in northern Germany. Here, doctoral students from the five profile areas "Social Sciences", "Health Sciences", "Environmental and Marine Sciences", "Materials and Engineering Sciences" and "Humanities" are to be trained as data experts through counselling and training offers.
The infrastructure in the field of research data management, which has been built up in recent years with funding from the state of Bremen and structural contributions from the members of the U Bremen Research Alliance, was one of the reasons why Bremen was able to assert itself over other locations in the application to become a data competence centre.DataNord combines regional scientific data expertise and enables synergies with existing structures and initiatives.
Structures that have been in place for years include the training programme for doctoral students offered by the U Bremen Research Alliance (UBRA) - Data Train - and the UBRA flagship project Research Data, which supports and promotes cooperation between UBRA member institutions in the field of data science. For example, the white paper "Establishing cooperative research data management in the U Bremen Research Alliance" was created here. There is also the Data Science Centre (DSC), an interdisciplinary institute of the University of Bremen, which bundles, coordinates and further develops the competencies and projects of the University of Bremen in the field of data science. The research repositories PANGAEA (https://www.pangaea.de) and Qualiservice (https://www.qualiservice.org) developed in Bremen are internationally recognised and successfully used to centrally collect and provide research data. The high level of participation of the University of Bremen and the members of UBRA in NFDI consortia also testifies to Bremen's great expertise in the field of research data management.
More information on DataNord are available in our press release.
