Landesinitiative NFDI – A central point of contact for RDM for higher education institutions in the German state of north Rhine-Westphalia

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of activities regarding RDM in Germany including the national political context as well as initiatives on federal state level. The knowledge about Germany’s federal system, which also entails the autonomy of the federal states regarding the higher education system, is fundamental to understand the different approaches towards RDM in Germany. The state initiatives of Thuringia, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Hesse are described to compare them to the state initiative (Landesinitiative NFDI) of Germany’s most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW). The aim of the initiative in NRW is to initiate the collaboration between institutions, to link current RDM activities in NRW and to prepare the local institutions for the participation in a National Research Data Infrastructure (Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur, NFDI).