Research data infrastructures in the humanities

Research data is the raw material of science. Appropriate infrastructures are required for the generation, indexing, processing and making accessible of research data in the humanities. Their establishment and further development have been supported for many years by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).

Depending on the type of data provided or the discipline, there are various types of research data infrastructures within the humanities. These range from digital resources containing humanities sources, through software for processing and analysing them, to portals offering academic publishing services or subject-specific access. These resources are sometimes supplemented by face-to-face training sessions.

National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI)

In order to promote a process for professional data management and the harmonisation of research data in Germany, the Council for Information Infrastructures (RfII) set up by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) recommended the establishment of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) in 2016. This process is being implemented by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The aim is to make data from science and research available, network it and make it usable in the long term. To this end, standards, services and training courses are being developed and brought together under one roof in 26 consortia organised by subject or method.

BMFTR-funded research data infrastructures

Since the 2000s, the BMFTR has been funding the following as research infrastructures for the humanities the German Council for Social and Economic Data (RatSWD) and the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-DE).

CLARIN-D and DARIAH-DE are part of the Text+ humanities NFDI consortium. Together with other partners such as NFDI4Culture, NFDI4Memory and NFDI4Objects, they receive funding through the humanities NFDI consortia.

Since 2026, the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-DE) has also been receiving funding.

Participation in European research data infrastructures

In 2002, the multidisciplinary European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) was established by the EU Council of Research Ministers. This provides for the establishment of excellent thematic and cross-thematic research infrastructures as alliances of European partners by supporting them in a roadmap process. ESFRI publishes a strategy report, the so-called "ESFRI Roadmap", at regular intervals.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a member of most European research data infrastructures. As a rule, significantly more than the minimum number of three countries are involved in the establishment of European infrastructures, with one European member state taking on a coordinating role in each case. For the "Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe" (SHARE), international coordination is based in Germany at the SHARE Berlin Institute (SBI), which was founded specifically for this purpose. GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences coordinates the German project work for two other European infrastructures focussing on the social sciences, the "European Social Survey (ESS)" and the "Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)". In the field of the humanities, Germany is a member of the European counterparts of the above-mentioned established infrastructures "Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN-D)" and "Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH)", as well as the relatively new infrastructure "European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI)". No ERIC has yet been established in the relatively new infrastructure "Open Scholarly Communication in the European Research Area for Social Sciences and Humanities" (OPERAS). Germany is represented in the predecessor committees.