Langer, R. ; Fröde, F. ; Cafiero, M. ; Pitsch, H.

2025

Abstract: From FAIR principles to practice, we present an experience report on designing and implementing an institute-wide research data management strategy and policy at the Institute for Combustion Technology, RWTH Aachen University. With about 25 PhD students and postdocs across simulations, experiments, and modeling, we initially lacked a unified process amid the use of diverse tools and various individual solutions. The decision to create an institute-wide policy emerged as we moved to use the Collaborative Scientific Integration Environment (Coscine) for the management and storage of research data and to integrate it with existing processes and IT infrastructure, which raised complex data management questions. The policy provides clear governance through three pillars: project-level data management plans in the Research Data Management Organiser (RDMO), git-based management of software and other text-based assets in the RWTH GitLab, and storage, referencing, and documentation of all research data in Coscine. It grew from broad discussions on processes, infrastructure, and domain knowledge. A small team of group leaders, data stewards, and experienced PhD students prepared the draft and refined it with feedback from about 25 researchers. We share lessons learned: establishing institute-wide standards is time-consuming, but it enables sharing proven practices, clarifies and improves processes, and ensures long-term findability and accessibility. The strategy is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17748591

http://join2-wiki.gsi.de/foswiki/pub/Main/Artwork/join2_logo100x88.png Conference / Event
FAIRe Daten - FAIR Play
2025Tag der Forschungsdaten in NRW 2025, RWTH AachenRWTH Aachen, Germany, 18 Nov 2025 - 18 Nov 20252025-11-182025-11-18 BibTeX | EndNote: XML, Text | RIS