FID GEO – a hub for the publication and the connection of diverse research results and groups in Germany

The Open Science movement has reached a point where the publication of research data and the creation of data management plans are required by both research funders and research institutions for the approval of research projects. Geoscientific data, in particular, are subject to various data laws. Examples for Germany are the Geological Data Act of 2020, the Geodata Access Act, the Data Use Act and the planned Research Data Act. In addition, all outputs along the lifecycle of research results – including samples, datasets, data reports, research software, scientific papers – are required to be made available/published according to the principles of Open Science and FAIR. This makes the research process increasingly transparent and visible, and at the same time makes the workflows more complex and challenging, especially in communities with low levels of digitalisation.

The Specialized Information Service for Geosciences is a library-based infrastructure funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which provides various services for the publication of different research results and for supporting the German-based geoscience community in handling their research processes. Research data and software can be published via our associated geosciences domain repository GFZ Data Services, hosted at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. Scientific contributions in the form of scientific articles, conference proceedings etc. can be published via our domain repository for texts and geological maps GEO-LEOe-docs, hosted at the Goettingen State and University Library. Another central service of FID GEO is consulting and training. Here we support our community by training them how to publish and link their research results in the best possible way and how to make the complex research processes involved more practicable. We inform and reach out to our community through conference presentations, workshops, individual and group consultations. In addition, FID GEO supports the digitisation and publication of older data, research results and publications.

Standardisation in the publication of research outputs in the geosciences takes place at very different levels. In geodesy and geophysics, for example, there are already well-established global standards, while in other disciplines there are even regional differences in the description of research results. This means that data curation alone is still very complex. Our experience in recent years has shown that information infrastructures such as FID GEO can act as a hub between different specialist groups so that they can learn from each other and benefit from their experiences.