HNEE is an associate partner in the NFDI FAIRagro consortium

The Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) is further expanding its involvement in research data management: it has now become an associated partner in the FAIRagro consortium. In doing so, the university is strengthening its contribution to an open, interconnected and sustainable research data infrastructure for agrosystem research.

Since 2023, HNEE has been a member of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) e. V.. The NFDI aims to systematically catalogue valuable datasets from various scientific disciplines, link them together and make them available for research and innovation in the long term. In 26 discipline-specific consortia, scientific institutions are currently working to make research data accessible and reusable in accordance with common standards.

One of these consortia is FAIRagro. It represents the agrosystem research community in Germany and develops structures, tools and workflows for fair research data management. FAIR stands for ‘Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable’. The focus is on how research data can be processed and made available in such a way that it forms the basis for sustainable crop production and future-proof agricultural research.

By joining the associated partnership, HNEE has signed the FAIRagro FAIRness and Openness Commitment. In doing so, the university publicly commits to the consortium’s goals and values and undertakes to support FAIRagro’s mission, infrastructures, products and services. The signing also reflects a shared community of practice that encompasses the full spectrum of agricultural scientific expertise and relevant user groups.

For HNEE, the partnership opens up new opportunities to play an active role in the further development of the consortium. A particular focus is on training: the university will integrate subject-specific content from FAIRagro into the Research Data Management certificate course run by the Brandenburg State Initiative for Research Data Management (FDM-BB). In doing so, it is helping to further develop skills in handling research data and to embed FAIR principles more firmly in research and teaching.

The associate partnership also represents a shared commitment to collaboration. Through its involvement, HNEE will in future also be able to contribute to shaping the content of FAIRagro – and thus actively support the sustainable transition towards more ‘FAIR’ and open research in agrosystem research.