The Research Data Management Service Centre at School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences was established in 2019. Team leader Volker Thiemann briefly introduces his colleagues and their tasks at the Service Centre:
Who is part of the Service Centre team?
"Our team includes, in alphabetical order: Corinna Feeken (Master's degree in Computing Science) - she is currently responsible for the topic of biobanks and the development of further IT services. Hauke Fischer - he has a master's degree in business informatics and is our expert for the technical implementation of data protection requirements such as pseudonymisation or the management of declarations of consent. Galina Fitz is a specialist in social and healthcare services and works in the externally funded ENQuIRE project. Here we take on the tasks of a trust centre for the consolidation of clinical data, patient surveys and health insurance data. Enno-Edzard Steen has degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computing Science as well as many years of experience in OFFIS and healthcare research, among others. He is responsible for our general project consulting and the EDC/survey software. As team leader, I take care of strategic orientation, organisational matters and the coordination of projects and resources, for example. I have a degree in Computing Science and have previously worked in areas such as clinical trials, data protection and information security. Marc Wilken is a business information scientist and our specialist for data warehouse processes. He is in charge of the Medical Data Integration Centre (MeDIC) project and is currently also part of the COVID-19 task force for the Network University Medicine (NUM) project."
How long have you been working together?
"The Research Data Management Service Centre celebrated its first anniversary on 1 November 2020. However, we had already been working together in the Department of Medical Computing Science and are therefore a well-established team. Enno-Edzard Steen was among the first employees of the Department of Health Services Research, and all of our colleagues together will soon be celebrating 25 years of service."
What is the task of your team at School VI?
"The most important task of our service centre is to support the staff of School VI with advice and assistance in all challenges that arise around the topic of research data management. In a broader sense, research data is all data that is collected, processed, analysed and published. This also includes the survey instruments, metadata and evaluation programmes. We refer to the processing of this data, for example in accordance with the requirements of good academic practice (DFG) and the ideals of FAIR Data, as research data management.
In addition to providing conceptual advice on planning research projects and providing information and templates, the Service Centre also offers IT services. Special data processing programs are often required in research (e.g. online surveys, databases, biosample or image data management, data exchange platforms, evaluation software, pseudonymisation, patient/subject management, etc.). These tools must be professionally operated, configured and managed, otherwise they cannot fulfil their potential to facilitate or improve quality. In order to relieve the scientists of these tasks and avoid parallel developments in several working groups, we offer centralised support in setting up and operating these tools.
In addition, the Service Centre's largest individual project is the topic of "Medical Data Integration", which is currently also the focus of the BMBF-funded Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) throughout Germany. The aim here is to make medical data from patient care accessible and accessible for research in compliance with legal regulations (e.g. data protection). The necessary processes are being developed in the project to establish a medical data integration centre (MeDIC) and a technical infrastructure is being set up."
What do you see as the biggest challenges for the next few years?
"I expect that the requirements for the traceability and transparency of research data, for example, will continue to increase. Particularly in complex specialist areas such as medicine, where data is difficult to access and highly sensitive, this can only be achieved through interdisciplinary teams and the efficient use of information technology. In the coming years, I also expect many activities in the major national projects Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) and National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) for the subject areas that we cover as the Research Data Management Service Centre. This will result in opportunities, but also higher requirements in terms of data transparency and technical requirements for participation at the end of projects. This affects all areas of evidence-based science to some extent - but there are particular challenges in the area of utilising clinical data for research."
More information is also available at: uol.de/fdm