NFDI4DS - NFDI for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 460234259

The vision of NFDI4DataScience (NFDI4DS) is to support all steps of the complex and interdisciplinary research data lifecycle, including collecting/creating, processing, analysing, publishing, archiving and reusing resources in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. The past years have seen a paradigm shift, with computational methods increasingly relying on data-driven and often deep learning-based approaches, leading to the establishment and ubiquity of Data Science as a discipline driven by advances in the field of Computer Science but being of relevance to most scientific disciplines. Transparency, reproducibility and fairness have become crucial challenges for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence due to the complexity of contemporary Data Science methods, often relying on a combination of code, models and data used for training. Taking into account the increasing importance of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence methods for Computer Science as well as a broad range of scientific disciplines, NFDI4DS will promote FAIR and open research data infrastructures supporting all involved resources such as code, models, data, or publications through an integrated approach. The overarching objective of NFDI4DS is the development, establishment and sustainment of a national research data infrastructure for the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence community in Germany. This will also deliver benefits for a wider community requiring data analytics solutions, within the NFDI and beyond. The key idea is to work towards increasing the transparency, reproducibility and fairness of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence projects, by making all digital artefacts available, by interlinking them, and by offering innovative tools and services. Based on the reuse of these digital objects, new and innovative research will be enabled. NFDI4DS intends to represent the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence community in academia, which is an interdisciplinary field rooted in Computer Science. We aim to reuse existing solutions, and to collaborate closely with the other NFDI consortia and beyond. In the initial phase, NFDI4DS will focus on four Data Science intense application areas: language technology, biomedical sciences, information sciences and social sciences. The expertise available in NFDI4DS related to Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, infrastructure development and further domain knowledge ensures that metadata standards are interoperable across domains, and that new ways of dealing with digital objects arise.

• DFG Programme: NFDI technical and methodological consortia
• Applicant Institution: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
• Co-Applicant Institution: Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI); FIZ Karlsruhe; Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur GmbH (FIZ KA); Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT); Fraunhofer-Institut für Offene Kommunikationssysteme (FOKUS); GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover; Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen; Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (LZI); Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB); Technische Universität Berlin; Technische Universität Dresden; Universität Hamburg; Universität Leipzig; Universität zu Köln, since 1/2022; ZB MED - Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften; ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• Participating Institution: Alfred-Wegener-Institut; Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung; Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (FHI); Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (MPG); Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Sonja Schimmler
• Co-Spokespersons: Professor Dr. Ziawasch Abedjan; Dr. Marcel R. Ackermann; Professor Dr. Sören Auer; Professorin Dr. Oya Beyan; Dr.-Ing. Zeyd Boukhers, since 5/2023; Professor Dr. Stefan Dietze; Professor Dr. Manfred Hauswirth; Dr. Christoph Lange-Bever; Professor Dr. Volker Markl; Professor Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Möller; Professor Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel; Professor Dr. Thomas Neumuth; Professor Dr. Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann; Professor Dr. Georg Rehm; Professor Dr. Harald Sack; Professor Dr. Raimund Seidel; Dr. Markus Stocker; Professor Dr. Klaus Tochtermann; Professor Dr. Ricardo Usbeck; Professorin Dr. Claudia Wagner; Dr. Michael Wagner
• Participating Persons: Privatdozent Dr. Carsten Baldauf; Professorin Dr. Franziska Boehm; Professor Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner; Franziska Heine; Professor Dr. Matthias Scheffler