On 16 December 2015, the Executive Board of TU Darmstadt adopted the first version of the university’s guidelines on research data management. This made TU Darmstadt one of the first universities in Germany to anchor the handling of research data at an institutional level – well before the debate on a National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) in Germany gained momentum.

“The Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa) considers the responsible and scientifically appropriate handling of research data to be an essential contribution to the acquisition and dissemination of scientific knowledge as an implementation of its principles for ensuring good scientific practice.” (Prof. Dr. Peter Pelz, translated)

In line with good scientific practice, TU Darmstadt has since supported its researchers with a central unit for research data management. TUdata, a joint initiative of the University and State Library (ULB) and the University Computing Center (HRZ), serves both as the first point of contact on campus for all questions related to data management and as a central actor in developing services and infrastructures for researchers at TU. This work was preceded by intensive discussions in the Research Data Working Group (AG Forschungsdaten), in which representatives from all departments at TU contributed their experiences and perspectives.

Over the past few years, services have been developed that cover the entire research data lifecycle: tools for planning the FAIR handling of data (TUdmo), for secure archiving and publication (TUdatalib), for documenting laboratory experiments (eLabFTW), for organising laboratory equipment and research infrastructure (TUinfra), for code versioning (TU-Gitlab), as well as for documenting code and supporting teaching (JupyterHub). These tools are embedded in a comprehensive training and advisory programme, offered free of charge to all members of TU. The development of this portfolio has been supported by various third-party funded projects aimed at building innovative digital infrastructures for research data and developing discipline-specific best practices.

“Guided by the motto ‘Data literacy from day one’, TU Darmstadt is today a leading player in national and international research data initiatives such as DALIA, NFDI and EOSC. The growing demand from digital methods such as AI for structured and reliable data, together with the recently increased focus on data sovereignty, confirms our long-term strategy.” (Prof. Dr. Peter Pelz, translated)

TU Darmstadt is also actively involved in building the Hesse-wide HeFDI cooperation and in turn benefits from this network. HeFDI enables the joint operation of research data management services and thus ensures that researchers at all participating institutions can benefit from the services developed. At the same time, cross-institutional research projects receive better support. Similar forms of cooperation exist within the Rhine-Main Universities alliance (RMU) and the TU9 alliance of leading technical universities in Germany.

With the launch of the NFDI in 2020, the foundation was laid for a national, distributed and cooperative network. Research institutions from all over Germany are involved in discipline- and method-focused consortia, jointly developing data services and offerings that make research data more traceable, sustainable and reusable. This strengthens both the research system as a whole and the more recent developments driven by the data hunger of AI-based systems.

The spokesperson role for the engineering-focused NFDI consortium NFDI4ING, held by Prof. Dr. Peter Pelz who also serves as Vice President for Digitalisation, Sustainability and Infrastructure, illustrates the strong commitment of TU Darmstadt’s researchers and institutions to building these national structures. Researchers and units at TU are actively involved in many other NFDI consortia as well, since a well-functioning system offers major benefits for research at TU Darmstadt. Reusable data, models and software are key factors for excellent research. With the basic service DMP4NFDI, ULB Darmstadt is also contributing to the development of a shared service portfolio within the NFDI.

When the guidelines were updated in 2022, these key developments of recent years were taken up and firmly embedded at institutional level:

• Since then, research data management officers (FDM-Beauftragte) have been supporting colleagues in all departments with research data management and form a network for sharing best practices, coordinated by TUdata.
• Data literacy has been further integrated into teaching, with practical application of discipline-specific methods and tools in student lab courses and theses.
• The sustainability of research software has been given greater emphasis.

The close interaction between research and infrastructure is the real driving force behind forward-looking developments in research data management. TUdata would therefore like to thank all partners for ten years of successful collaboration!