Community building for research data repositories in Helmholtz

The Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) and the Helmholtz Open Science Office have launched a joint initiative at the end of 2022 to strengthen and connect research data repositories in the Helmholtz Association, and to increase their visibility in the international research landscape. Research data repositories form central hubs for metadata on the Road to FAIR: They generate, consolidate and maintain metadata, thus ensuring that valuable data generated in the course of research projects can be systematically reused over the long term.

The Helmholtz Open Science Office has been involved in re3data, the “Registry of Research Data Repositories”, for over 10 years. The multi-disciplinary registry indexes repositories for searching and publishing research data and is the most comprehensive directory of research data repositories worldwide. Currently, about 100 repositories listed in re3data can be assigned to Helmholtz centers.

Based on the information in re3data and in close collaboration with the domain-specific HMC metadata hubs, the joint initiative will map the research data repositories in Helmholtz and aim to build a networked community to further develop these infrastructures in Helmholtz, also taking into account a successful implementation of the FAIR principles.

The involvement of other Helmholtz stakeholders from the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) will ensure the compatibility of Helmholtz infrastructures with national and international initiatives.

The initiative makes use of existing synergies by linking the activities of re3data, HMC and the Helmholtz Open Science Office in a meaningful way. The results achieved will be systematically documented to support HMC, the Working Group Open Science, and other bodies in Helmholtz in practical and strategic activities in the field of research data infrastructures.