University of Excellence Project “Research Data Management”

KIT as a University of Excellence

As “the research university in the Helmholtz Association,” KIT stands for excellent research, outstanding teaching and forward-looking innovation. As one of eleven “Universities of Excellence” in Germany, we strengthen our cutting-edge research from basic research to application, maintain an intensive exchange with society and offer young scientists reliable career paths.

KIT's successful application is based on the leitmotif “Living the Change“ and pursues the following four goals:

• Increase performance and agility in cutting-edge research
  
• Raise awareness of responsibility
  
• Increase attractiveness for excellent young scientists
  
• Promote institutional cultural change on the basis of the KIT 2025 umbrella strategy
  

These goals are addressed in three packages of measures (thrusts) with different projects:

1. strengthening excellent research and its agility across the entire spectrum from basic research to application,
   
2. intensive dialog and exchange with society and
   
3. offering reliable career paths
   

Objectives of the Research Data Management (RDM) project

In Thrust A, the Research Data Management (RDM) project promotes the further expansion of research data management at KIT and pursues three overarching goals:

1. Broad-based support for the digitization of research processes in the field of RDM
   
2. promoting the aggregation of research data across organizational units and disciplines as well as their cross-disciplinary use
   
3. Enable data-intensive scientific communities at KIT to find, share, use and archive data (while maintaining data sovereignty and observing ethical, legal, economic and contractual framework conditions)
   

To this end, the RDM of selected coordinated large-scale research projects will be set up as an example of best practice and transferred to other specialist communities as a blueprint. This will be done in particular with regard to the use of Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs), the connection to repositories and the associated interaction of centralized and decentralized services. The EXU project also supports the development of awareness and training measures for RDM.