On June 18, 2024, the U Bremen Research Alliance (UBRA), together with its member institutions and other initiatives, organized the second Research Data Day under the motto "Storing and using research data. Responsibly. Together." The Research Data Day in Bremen offered all researchers and specialists in administration and technology insights into best practices and current challenges in dealing with research data. Participants exchanged ideas with data experts and colleagues from various disciplines. The event was divided into a daytime program (9 am - 3 pm) on the campus of the University of Bremen and a public evening event (from 5:30 pm) in the "Haus der Wissenschaft".
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Workshops and Talks
The workshops and lectures offered in the morning reflected the diversity of stakeholders within UBRA: health sciences, artificial intelligence, humanities, biology, economics, social sciences and material sciences. The workshop of the Data Science Center of the University of Bremen and the World Café took place across disciplines.
The World Café offered a series of thematic discussions at various tables to explore specific aspects of dealing with research data in different disciplines and to find interdisciplinary synergies. Disciplines covered at the five tables were: public health, natural and environmental sciences, social sciences, material sciences and engineering. Good practices were identified and obstacles and optimizations in research data management (RDM) were discussed through a lively exchange of experiences on procedures. The numerous participants, made up of researchers from UBRA member institutions and data experts from northern German institutions, were just as diverse as the program itself.
Information booths
At the same time as the lectures and workshops in the SuUB, data experts were available to chat at information islands in the glass hall of the University of Bremen. The NFDI consortia (National Research Data Infrastructure) with participation from Bremen, the Bremen Data Competence Center "DataNord", the materials sciences at the joint stand of Leibniz IWT, MAPEX-CF & Fraunhofer IFAM, Qualiservice, KonsortSWD & QualidataNet at a joint stand, Leibniz ZMT, Gesellschaft für Biologische Daten (GFBio e.V.), AWI Data Center (AWIO2A), PANGAEA and SuUB were represented.
Evening Event
At the public evening event "Using data responsibly - research data for society" from 5:30 pm in the Haus der Wissenschaft, the ethical and social implications of the use of research data were addressed in presentations and a panel discussion. The event was moderated by Felix Krömer from Radio Bremen.
Rainer Fechte-Heinen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Leibniz Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien (IWT) and Deputy Chairman of UBRA, warmly welcomed the numerous participants on behalf of UBRA. He presented the role and importance of UBRA in the fields of RDM and data science at the science location Bremen. He discussed the well-functioning cooperation within UBRA and the successes achieved as a result, such as the promotion of the interdisciplinary data competence center DataNord for the Bremen region, which creates programs for researchers from all disciplines and career levels in the areas of learning, networking and consulting.
One highlight was the awarding of the Data Champion Award 2024 by Prof. Dr.-Ing Rainer Fechte-Heinen on behalf of DataNord. Dr. Norbert Riefler from the Leibniz-Institut für
Werkstofforientierte Technologien - IWT was selected for the year 2024. He is being honored for his role as head of UBRA's Data Steward Network, his outstanding commitment and his involvement in activities related to RDM and Open Science. He has also contributed to the development of a structured, holistic data management system at IWT and has driven forward the establishment of the electronic lab notebook eLabFTW.
Prof. Dr. York Sure-Vetter, Director of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), presented a comprehensive overview of the NFDI's goals, recommendations and funding. The vision of NFDI is "Data as a common good for excellent research". The development of a connected information infrastructure includes the development of sustainable services and metadata standards as well as integration into European and international platforms. A further goal is the reuse of existing data, whereby the integrity, quality and protection of this data should be guaranteed. NFDI is sponsored and supported by the scientific community in Germany.
In the second keynote, the program moved from national efforts to the international level. In his presentation "European Open Science Cloud: A Google for Research Data?", Prof. Dr. Klaus Tochtermann, Director of the Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft - ZBW, examined the concept, target group and goals of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in comparison to Google. In the end, he came to the conclusion that EOSC does not intend to be or become a "Google for research data". Rather, its goal is to create a collaborative and open environment for scientific research in Europe that is clearly different from Google's commercial model.
Prof. Dr. York Sure-Vetter, Director of the NFDI, points out that data literacy needs to be taught. "Even today, we have to deal with the question of whether our smartwatch is allowed to collect data that could be shared with researchers, i.e. even in everyday life, the question of data sharing often arises. As researchers, we would like to have more high-quality data available." In Germany as a whole, for example, there is a lot of data on diseases, but it is not always shared.
Patients need to be better informed about what data provision can contribute to health research and improving therapies. Basically, Sure-Vetter sees two extreme camps of opinion: people who don't want to share data at all and those who share everything.
"We achieve balance by teaching data literacy."
Prof. Dr. York Sure-Vetter
Prof. Dr. Iris Pigeot, Director of the Leibniz-Institut für Präventionsforschung und Epidemiologie – BIPS, would like to see data literacy taught even more in schools, not only as a pure method, but also in its application. For example, the concept of risk must be understood as well as the significance of statistical indicators. She is constantly surprised at how platforms (Google, Twitter, x, TikTok) are treated like good friends, as if the data input is safe with them and in good hands, but are skeptical about research projects despite the data protection regulations in force and applied at the time and clearly aiming to obtain consent for data sharing.
Prof. Dr. Sophia Hunger, Professor of Computational Social Sciences at the University of Bremen, emphasizes the role of science communicators. Researchers should receive media training and the sharing of research results should be given the same value and recognition as scientific publications. There needs to be more incentive and a change in thinking in politics and science so that researchers are keen to present their work in a media-friendly and understandable way. At the same time, it is important that journalists also have sufficient data skills to interpret data correctly and back up statements with studies.
Tochtermann also supports the change in thinking. Science needs to be more open to society. It should be more of a task for researchers to communicate the content.
Everyone agrees that data literacy should be taught in schools in an application-oriented way. This requires action and commitment from older people who are in a position to make a difference. Active communication by researchers should be made more attractive through recognition. Science is more than just publication.
Cooperating in U Bremen Research Alliance:
