2024-02-28

The RDA Deutschland Tagung 2024 took place 20/21 February at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ). The RDA DE Association, in cooperation with the State and Library University Göttingen (SUB) and the Helmholtz Open Science Office, organised a versatile event, including two interesting keynotes and a number of talks covering a broad range of different topics. Furthermore, projects and initiatives were given the opportunity to present their work during a poster session. Base4NFDI was represented with two posters: An introduction to Base4NFDI, and another poster specifically dedicated to our Section Liaison Officers and Service Stewards.

Due to the pandemic, this year’s RDA DE Tagung was the first in-person since 2020. The event was framed by an opening keynote “Die Eckpunkte der europäischen Datenstrategie” given by Renate Nikolay, and the closing keynote “Who owns your data? Who should benefit from it? The effect of UN policy decision on biological data management” by Dr. Amber Hartman Scholz. Both keynotes drew attention to the multiple challenges that data collecting, storing, and reuse have on several levels, primarily focussing their talks on ethical issues.

The variety of talks, spanning from repositories and archives, RDA’s current strategic plan to digital emergency preservation, invited the audience to lively discuss each topic and served as a formidable basis for in-between conversations over a coffee and during the poster session. Each poster was briefly introduced in a ‘Minute Madness’ where the authors could advertise their work. While our introductory poster to B4N attracted people who were interested in which basic services they could potential use for their own work – both within and outside NFDI consortia –, our poster about the Service Stewards and Section Liaison Officers raised questions about how which support a basic service team can expect from those two groups of staff and how their expertise can best be utilised for cooperation between the different stakeholders.

For our work in B4N, the RDA Deutschland Tagung was an interesting and useful insight into an active and intrinsically motivated community whose activities and outputs will continue to play a major role globally. We are looking forward to strengthening our bonds with the RDA and overall international players.

Our Base4NFDI team at RDA Deutschland Tagung  2024.