Research data management services for Collaborative Research Centers: Experiences from three long-term, interdisciplinary, geoscientific research projects

Research conducted in cross-institutional, large-scale, long-term collaborative research projects, requires active sharing of research ideas and output in a controlled and structured manner. Thus, establishing appropriate research data management (RDM) services for scientists is essential. Regular project meetings and joint field campaigns support exchange of research ideas. Technical infrastructures facilitate storage, documentation, exchange and re-use of research output including research data, as well as publications, conference contributions, reports, pictures etc.. Both parts, knowledge and data sharing are important to create synergies and contributes to reach the project goal.i

The German Research Foundation provides funding for Collaborative Research Centres (CRC) including setting-up of RDM services and infrastructures. CRCs are long-term, cross-institutional research projects, established for up to 12 years with the aim to solve complex research questions in inter-disciplinary research environments. This poster focuses on RDM infrastructure and services developed for three CRCs: the CRC/Transregio 32 'Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Systems: Monitoring, Modelling and Data Assimilation' (funded 2007-2018), the CRC1211 'Earth - Evolution at the Dry Limit' (funded since 2016), and the CRC/ Transregio 228 'Future Rural Africa: Future-making and social-ecological transformation' (funded since 2018).

Experiences gathered from the CRC/Transregio 32 have been re-used for the other two CRCs. All three projects have a common focus on geoscientific research questions. Scientists from various disciplines are involved, which create very heterogeneous data. All data has to be collected, documented, backed up, exchanged and published. However, each CRC has its own specifics and needs that have to be considered. In our case, the re-use of an available repository infrastructure (e.g. providing data storage, sharing, publishing with DOI, interoperable metadata, data statistics) was successfully adapted and transferred to the other CRCs. This enabled a fast offer of the RDM services and infrastructure. Likewise, corresponding RDM guidance, training and support is essential from the project start, as experienced already from the first CRC.