NFDI4Chem – Chemistry Consortium within the NFDI

The overarching objective is to develop and maintain a national research data infrastructure for the research domain of chemistry in Germany in order to enable innovative and user-friendly services as well as novel scientific approaches based on re-use of research data. In the initial phase, NFDI4Chem focuses on data related to molecules and reactions including data for their experimental and theoretical characterization.

For the pending tasks and research issues the consortium has defined the following six key objectives:

Key Objective 1:
Establish a virtual environment of federated repositories for storing, disclosing, searching and re-using research data across distributed data sources. Connect existing data repositories and, based on a requirements analysis, build one or multiple domain-specific research data repositories for the national research community, and link them to international repositories.

Key Objective 2:
Initiate international community processes to establish minimum information (MI) standards for data and machine-readable metadata as well as open data standards in key areas of chemistry, where missing, in order to support the FAIR principles for research data.

Key Objective 3:
Foster cultural and digital change towards Smart Laboratory Environments by promoting the use of digital tools in all stages of research and promote subsequent RDM at all levels of academia, beginning in undergraduate studies curricula.

Key Objective 4:
Engage with the chemistry community in Germany through a wide range of measures to create awareness for, and foster the adoption of, FAIR data management. Initiate processes to integrate RDM and data science into curricula. Offer a wide range of training opportunities for researchers.

Key Objective 5:
Explore synergies with other consortia and promote cross-cutting development within the NFDI.

Key Objective 6:
Provide a legally reliable framework of policies and guidelines for FAIR and open Research Data Management.

The consortium is coordinated by Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Other partners besides FIZ Karlsruhe are Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) Halle, RWTH Aachen University, die Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Technische Informationsbibliothek TIB.

FIZ Karlsruhe contributes to the consortium with the expertise of its research units e-Research and Intellectual Property Rights (IGR).  The generic repository RADAR will be adapted to NFDI4Chem standards. Other tasks of FIZ Karlsruhe include operating the virtual research environment, the NFDI4Chem helpdesk and offering advice to researchers and users from the consortium and the chemical community. FIZ Karlsruhe’s inorganic crystal structure database ICSD will in the future be guided by selected NFDI4Chem standards and implement FAIR principles as far as possible – even if access to the data will continue to be offered at a charge.

• Jung, Nicole; Neumann, Steffen; Koepler, Oliver; Bach, Felix; Popp, Christian; Herres-Pawlis, Sonja; Liermann, Johannes; Razum, Matthias; Steinbeck, Christoph: "NFDI4Chem – Infrastruktur für den digitalen Wandel in der Chemischen Forschung" (Anhang); In: Bunsen-Magazin 23 (2), März 2021 (DOI: 10.26125/r978-6f93)
• Ortmeyer, Jochen; Schön, Florian;  Herres-Pawlis,Sonja;  Jung, Nicole; Bach,  Felix; Liermann, Johannes, Steffen; Neumann; Popp, Christian; Razum, Matthias; Koepler,Oliver; Steinbeck, Christoph: NFDI4Chem – Fachkonsortium für die Chemie. Bausteine Forschungsdatenmanagement. Empfehlungen und Erfahrungsberichte für die Praxis von Forschungsdatenmanagerinnen und -managern Nr. 2/2021: S. 34-45. DOI:10.17192/bfdm.2021.2.8340. https://bausteine-fdm.de/article/view/8340/8190
• Razum, Matthias; u.a.
  NFDI4Chem - Towards a National Research Data Infrastructure for Chemistry in Germany
  Research Ideas and Outcomes, doi: 10.3897/rio.6.e55852