Research Data Infrastructure for the Material Remains of Human History
Subject Area
Humanities
Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine
Construction Engineering and Architecture
Biology
Geosciences
Medicine
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 501836407
Material remains, hereinafter “objects”, are the only source of knowledge about most of the cultural and biological evolution of humanity. Tools made, monuments built and landscapes shaped by humans bear witness to essential aspects of human history, such as technological development, innovation, human–environment interaction, migration, cultural exchange and transformation. Material remains gain their scientific, historical and cultural significance through multilayered analyses and contextualisation. Their diversity, manifold contexts and complex (object) biographies pose a particular challenge to integrated digital research. The strategy to empower the NFDI4Objects (N4O) Community to integrate and develop solutions that benefit the entire NFDI the initiative has nine objectives: 1. to provide reliable and interoperable data services; 2. to foster awareness of data quality; 3. to improve research data quality; 4. to implement, align and expand standards; 5. to promote professionalism and qualification; 6. to strengthen NFDI-wide cross-cutting topics; 7. to embed N4O into the national and international landscape; 8. to assure collaborative governance and sustainability; 9. to increase the diversity of those actively involved in the consortium. The N4O work programme will implement these objectives in seven Task Areas (TAs): TA1 Documentation covers all needs arising from exploring, collecting and documenting primary data sources (of excavations, field projects, artefacts, landscapes, sites, monuments, etc.). TA2 Collecting provides an integrated research data infrastructure and quality-oriented data management processes that meet the complex requirements of artefact collection contextualisation and provenance research. TA3 Analytics and Experiments sets up platforms, standards and services for desk-based research, controlled experiments and laboratory-based object analysis. TA4 Protecting offers applications and data management solutions to meet the complex requirements of protection, conservation, restoration. TA5 Storage, Access and Dissemination delivers comprehensive technologies and standards for the long-term archiving and reusability of FAIR research data. TA6 Qualification, Integration and Harmonisation systematically establishes appropriate research data management (RDM) skillsets with tailored qualification concepts and aligns research data and metadata to integrate digital representations of object biographies. TA7 Support and Coordination manages and develops structure and content for N4O. It coordinates the processes between fields of activity, and ensures the continued scientific and community-driven development of the consortium.
DFG Programme
NFDI technical and methodological consortia