2025-03-17

Base4NFDI turns two years old this month! Our joint initiative of all 26 NFDI consortia is well beyond taking its first steps, and runs confidently ahead. Below a few reflections on what our team has achieved in a relatively short space of time: 

Supporting the services: A significant achievement is the onboarding of 8 potential services, driven by the NFDI community and facilitated via the Base4NFDI transparent decision-making process. They facilitate open science and RDM across disciplines, as per our mission statement. The Base4NFDI website itself now has a wealth of topical information, guidance and templates and the Base4NFDI team supports the services to move through the initialisation, integration and ramp-up for operation phases via a series of identified activities. Each service is also offered support for training and ‘persona development’, driving a fuller understanding of who uses the service. The services are supported with their daily work by a new role in open science: service stewards who ultimately provide the vital “glue” for NFDI engagement.  

Outreach in Base4NFDI has been an important focus of the team’s activities. The first user conference held in November 2024 brought the NFDI community together to engage potential users and to embed the services within the activities of the consortia. Clearly targeted explainer videos have been created and we initiated a regular Services Roadshow. We have also been able to grow our network on LinkedIn, currently counting more than 630 followers there.

Team spirit: Having a multi-professional team is the most vital cog in all of the above. Team spirit is essential to making things work and as we grow into our responsibilities we can all be proud that we are supporting open science and growing competencies in infrastructure development. Added to this we feel supported by our International Advisory Board, monitoring our developments, including our European connectivity. 

It takes a village: The old adage rings true: Our emerging framework is nurtured not only by Base4NFDI but also the unique NFDI community who are starting to engage with, and commit to adopting the services. This will be the critical next steps to ensure the healthy growth, adoption and ultimately long-term sustainability of these building blocks for open science. Looking to a successful community-driven future ahead!