At its meeting on Friday, 4 July, the Joint Science Conference of the Federal and State Governments (GWK) decided on nine continuation applications from consortia of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The "NFDI4Culture" consortium, co-sponsored by Paderborn University, received a positive funding decision for a second project phase.
"NFDI4Culture" combines data from a broad spectrum of more than 100 partners from architecture, design, art history, music, media, theatre and dance studies, Digital Humanities, cultural heritage institutions and the creative industries. In the first funding phase from 2020 to 2025, the consortium has established a Germany-wide research data infrastructure that offers a diverse range of consulting and training services, repositories for long-term preservation and tools for searching and linking data on tangible and intangible cultural assets.
Prof Dr Thomas Tr?ster, Vice President for Research and Academic Career Paths at Paderborn University, emphasises the importance of the continuation of "NFDI4Culture": "The GWK's decision to sponsor a second phase of 'NFDI4Culture' has once again confirmed the relevance and necessity of the consortium's work. Paderborn University, together with ten partner institutions throughout Germany, is assuming responsibility for the further development and stabilisation of a sustainable infrastructure for cultural data, thus ensuring access to this important heritage for research, the cultural industry and society."
In addition to Paderborn University, ten other renowned institutions are members of the consortium, including four universities (Heidelberg, Cologne, Leipzig, Marburg), three infrastructure institutions (FIZ Karlsruhe, SLUB Dresden, TIB Hannover), two cultural heritage institutions (Stiftung Preu?ischer Kulturbesitz, Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum) and the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.
Vision for the second funding phase
Prof Dr Andreas Münzmay and Daniel R?wenstrunk, both co-speakers of the consortium, are delighted about the further funding. "We were able to establish strong structures in the first funding phase with the Culture Research Data Academy and the Research Tools and Data Services department," summarises Münzmay. According to R?wenstrunk, the "aim of the second phase is now to expand and consolidate these structures in order to strengthen the transfer of knowledge in research, politics and society and to be able to answer relevant questions in the development of research software such as the use of artificial intelligence."
In the second funding phase from 2025, "NFDI4Culture" will pursue the motto "Shared Data, Shared Practice, Shared Knowledge". The consortium is also tapping into new data areas with 17 new partners, particularly in the performing arts and film heritage. In addition to the consolidation of existing services, from 2025 the focus will be on measures for data sovereignty, resilience and data quality of culture-related research infrastructures, the use of artificial intelligence and the integration of services into European infrastructures such as the European Open Science Cloud.
This text was translated automatically.
