2026-07-06

Time to connect! On June 9-10, 2026, the Base4NFDI Services Day took place in its second edition, this year in beautiful Bielefeld.

The Services Day has become a regularly organised event and support offer by Base4NFDI to the service development teams, where the teams get to meet each other, exchange on joint topics and enhance collaboration. The Base4NFDI staff prepared interactive formats like a barcamp and workshop sessons to inspire development ideas and enhance service quality but also to leave room to work on common challenges together.

On Tuesday, we started off with a workshop on community-building. After defining how we understand the term 'user community', we reflected on the individual service communities and how our teams already engage with them. We then discussed well-proven success factors for keeping the community momentum ongoing, assessed how the services already incorporate them and brainstormed ideas for next steps. These ideas will be put into practice in the Base4NFDI's ongoing User Engagement Task Force as we know: no matter how much potential a new service has, it is only as good as the number of people using it!

In a second workshop, we discussed harmonisation approaches for our incubator projects. Originally brougt up by the IAM4NFDI team, incubators are short-term collaborations (3-6 months) between a service team and a consortium (or one of their member institutions) that jointly tackle a specific integration challenge. Most of the teams offer regular incubator cycles in their Integration & Ramp-up phases - current open incubator calls can be found on the Base4NFDI website and individual service team websites. However, some common definitions and basic harmonisation on the approach are missing. In our workshop, we therefore discussed the term 'incubators' along with intended measures of integration and success. Also, a joint incubator dashboard for consortia to get informed on their involvement in each service was discussed as well as shared templates. For upcoming services, Base4NFDI is planning to prepare an incubator kit to support our teams and process harmonisation.

On Wednesday, the incubator session was continued in a second round - plus, we brainstormed on community stewardship and ideas for the regular Base4NFDI Service Teams Jour Fixe. Finally, we finished with a highly engaging and interactive barcamp where all participants were asked to bring up topics to jointly brainstorm or collect feedback on. We ended up with six sessions on important key future topics such as the EOSC node, NFDI after 2028, and the upcoming Interim report defence of Base4NFDI.

Luckily, we also had time for some fun during a joint dinner!

We are are grateful for the teams' engaging participation and are looking forward to our next Services Day.

Group Photo

2026-07-06

Base4NFDI is delighted to announce that TS4NFDI has been accepted for Ramp-Up phase funding following the Consortia Assembly’s decision!

Congratulations to the basic service team!

TS4NFDI aims to provide a central access point to all terminologies and a set of widgets for all NFDI consortia, as well as to support consortia in the creation, curation, and maintenance of community-specific terminology collections. The incubator program will continue to be an important tool for responding to the community’s needs. During the ramp-up phase, the focus will also be on scaling the service components and developing long-term financial sustainability and governance. Integration into relevant EOSC infrastructures is also on the agenda.

We are looking forward to what's ahead of us and encourage the NFDI community to join this endeavour by actively participating in the NFDI sections!

Best wishes from the Base4NFDI-Office!

2026-06-17

Do you have an AAI-specific use case that you need support to implement? Then this is your chance. The IAM4NFDI project has planned so-called incubator cycles to be able to react flexibly to the wishes of future users. With the incubator cycles you can bring in your ideas and needs for the NFDI-AAI and, thus, help shape its development.

The next incubator cycle starts on August 1st, 2026 and they hereby call for applications. Please note the submission deadline is July 13, 2026. 

What do you have to do?

1. Please look at the attached description of the process
2. Completely fill out the template provided in the process description, describe your incubator project idea and send it to the service by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
3. Present your idea to the Main Incubator Board (MIB) on July 30, 2026 (details to follow) in 5 minutes and answer any remaining questions. Please send the team the presentation afterwards.
4. Your support and participation in the implementation of the incubator cycle is essential – please, plan for this and ensure that you can contribute during the period before submitting your idea.

Please also have a look at their website if you have any further questions about the IAM4NFDI project. You can also find more detailed information in their presentation at the NFDITalk.

IAM4NFDI checks all submissions and, if necessary, reserve them for following incubator cycles. The selection of incubator projects is made in consultation with Base4NFDI and depending on their available capacities. If you have already submitted an idea in one of the last cycles and received feedback that you have been earmarked for the next round, you do not have to submit your idea again - if it has not changed.

They will let you know by July 23, 2026, whether your incubator project idea can be implemented in the next cycle.