Discovery of research data in African Studies

• Applicants: Dr.-Ing. Thomas Risse; Professor Dr. Mirco Schoenfeld
• Subject Area: African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 551387865

The broad spectrum of African studies disciplines with disparate research subjects and methods leads to a considerable heterogeneity of data content and data formats. At the same time, there is a substantive need for interdisciplinary exchange and re-use. However, locating relevant research data has been a major challenge so far: these data are distributed worldwide in a large range of institutional and disciplinary repositories. A central repository does not exist. Within the framework of the project, such research data catalogs will be integrated into the search of the African Studies Library, the portal of the Specialised Information Service (SIS) African Studies at the University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. In order to provide researchers with additional functionality, the integrated datasets will be supplemented with semantic metadata obtained using automated data mining methods. Finally, the existing central search portal will be extended with interaction possibilities that allow innovative access to research data and extracted metadata. Analogous to the transparent cataloging of artifact collections from Africa in the Global North, research data cataloging is ethically required and complies with FAIR and CARE principles. The proposed project also includes the bundling and networking of resources, data, and competences of the SIS African Studies, the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple" at the University of Bayreuth and the four African Cluster Centers, and their joint further development. The tools and resources of the SIS will be linked to the methods of the digital research environment "WissKI" of the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple". This will contribute significantly to improving the visibility of new publications and research data in the SIS, in the Cluster of Excellence, and in the German-language library and research data world.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)