Research data occur in science in a wide variety of forms - from historical weather data and predicted technical plant parameters to software artifacts.

The National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) addresses different challenges for the German science system, aims to set standards and establish them in the respective research communities in order to make the increasing amount of this data more accessible. NFDI4Energy focuses on data and software in energy system research, which are necessary for research on forward-looking technologies related to the energy transition, increasing sector coupling, and the digitization of energy systems. Furthermore, this data must be traceable from the initial project idea to policy advice and should be made reusable in the best possible way.

Based on the decision of the Joint Science Conference (GWK), the German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding NFDI4Energy (National Research Data Infrastructure for Interdisciplinary Energy Systems Research). The consortium is coordinated by the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg through Prof. Dr.-Ing. Astrid Nieße. In addition to the University of Oldenburg and the Oldenburg-based computer science institute OFFIS, other applicants include leading German universities as well as institutes of the Helmholtz and Leibniz Associations:

• Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg
• Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg
• Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS)
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
• RWTH Aachen University
• Sociological Research Institute Göttingen (SOFI)
• Technical Information Library (TIB)

The Reiner Lemoine Institute and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology are also on board as partners.

"We want to make research results more reusable. NFDI4Energy will enable the use of research data management strategies in energy system research and thus make data and software much more accessible to the various players in energy system research. Especially in an area where the industry is not only a user of results but also provides relevant input data, we see great potential for new approaches to research data management," says NFDI4Energy spokesperson Astrid Nieße, Professor of Digititalized Energy Systems at the University of Oldenburg.

The NFDI is made up of consortia that represent both infrastructural institutions and users of research data throughout Germany. For this purpose, 28 consortia have been selected in 3 rounds over 3 years, for which up to 90 million euros will be made available annually. The consortia will initially be funded for a period of 5 years. The first 19 consortia have already been selected in 2020 and 2021. NFDI4Energy will start in the 3rd and for the time being last funding round.