For the con­cre­te im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of a pro­fes­sio­nal re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment, dif­fe­rent ap­proa­ches are cho­sen at Ger­man uni­ver­si­ties, which are ge­ared to the uni­ver­si­ty-spe­ci­fic needs, and or­ga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures and cul­tures. Here the wheel is of­ten re­inven­ted in­s­tead of buil­ding on exis­ting and reusable so­lu­ti­ons. Both the buil­ding and the es­tab­lish­ment of uni­ver­si­ty-wide re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment struc­tures can be de­si­gned more ef­fec­tively and ef­fi­ci­ent­ly if exis­ting RDM in­sti­tu­ti­ons build net­works, co­ope­ra­te and ex­ch­an­ge their ex­pe­ri­en­ces best prac­ti­ces and stan­dards. In par­ti­cu­lar, the most dif­fi­cult and at the same time most im­portant aspect of es­tab­li­shing RDM com­pe­tence cen­tres at uni­ver­si­ties, na­me­ly a cul­tu­ral ch­an­ge wi­thin the uni­ver­si­ties and a ch­an­ge of men­ta­li­ty among re­se­ar­chers, should be pro­mo­ted and fa­ci­li­ta­ted by such networking.

For this pur­po­se, the Im­ple­men­ta­ti­on Net­work GO UNI (as a na­tio­nal chap­ter of the Data Ste­ward­ship Com­pe­tence Cen­ter IN) was foun­ded un­der the um­brel­la of the in­ter­na­tio­nal GO FAIR in­itia­ti­ve. GO UNI’s vir­tu­al kick-off work­shop took place on 8 Oc­to­ber 2020. A to­tal of 28 dif­fe­rent in­sti­tu­ti­ons took part in the event. Sin­ce the GO UNI con­tent was to be de­fi­ned and de­si­gned from wi­thin the Ger­man com­mu­ni­ty, a key part of the kick-off mee­ting was a bar­camp slot. In this, all par­ti­ci­pan­ts had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­ter­mi­ne for them­sel­ves in which for­mat and what con­tent, needs and com­pe­ten­ci­es should be dis­cus­sed. A bet­ter net­wor­king of the ac­tors as well as an over­view of the ac­ti­vi­ties of the Ger­man and in­ter­na­tio­nal RDM in­itia­ti­ves were iden­ti­fied as es­sen­ti­al re­qui­re­ments of the Ger­man RDM com­mu­ni­ty. Fur­ther steps of GO UNI are de­fi­ned in a new­ly foun­ded GO UNI core team and so­lu­ti­ons will be work­ed out in clo­se co­ope­ra­ti­on with the RDM community.

Curr­ent­ly the next stra­tegy mee­ting is be­ing or­ga­ni­zed. It will take place on 11 Fe­bru­ary 2021. The GO UNI Com­mu­ni­ty is open for fur­ther mem­bers and wel­co­mes new work­shop par­ti­ci­pan­ts. Cont­act Mo­ni­ka and Pa­trick for more information.

This short re­port was writ­ten by the GO UNI IN Coor­di­na­tors Mo­ni­ka Lin­ne and Pa­trick Helling.