FAIR4ever - Development of a Sustainable Infrastructure for the Long-Term Archiving of Research Data

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann; Frank Scholze; Professor Dr. Thomas Stäcker
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 568403214

Research is increasingly producing data and research software that is often insufficiently secured, accessible, reusable or reproducible. Data loss have heightened awareness of the fact that the tamper-proof long-term archiving (LTA) requires special attention in the scientific process. However, long-term archiving does not only include “long-term storage” but, more precisely, “long-term accessibility” and reusability, in the spirit of the FAIR principles. The decisive factor here is the intention to understand research data as an essential component of a research result or a publication and therefore to preserve it together with the research publication or to link to itOn the other hand, implementation of long-term archiving for any type of digital resource has been a recurring problem for over 30 years and requires a continuous investment of resources as well as ongoing adaptation of processes to ever-changing technological possibilities and needs. At the same time, with the exponential growth and complexity of research data, it is gaining urgency, whether due to demands from funders or science itself, the economy or society. The DFG requirement to keep research data available for “at least” 10 years from its creation demands a minimum retention period. In many cases, however, longer retention periods apply, up to permanence, as is common for cultural or humanities data or certain biosphere and climate data. The NFDI consortia have a large number of different information infrastructures with a high potential for interoperability. An important goal of the NFDI is to use this potential to create a common research data platform (Research Data Commons, RDC). This is challenging when considering individual infrastructure components that, although well tested in the NFDI on a domain-specific basis, are quite heterogeneous between domains. Against this background, the integration of LTA into the RDC of the NFDI is an urgent desideratum in order to ensure the long-term availability and usability of research data. Understanding principles and LTA standards, as well as applying them to the relevant data is crucial to ensure professional LTA. NFDI consortia must be enabled to meet their content preservation needs by considering existing research data services and evaluating them in the context of these principles - this is where the application's work programme comes in, with the aim of establishing sustainable organizational and responsibility structures for the long-term archiving and accessibility of research data in Germany via a LTA consultation service. As such, the primary addressee is the NFDI.

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