Computational Plant Biochemistry

The progress of the DFG-funded NFDI4Chem consortium (NFDI 4/1 - project number 441958208) in data management in chemistry is outlined in our latest report, highlighting the steps we have taken to integrate a data-centric approach within the chemistry community. This interim report offers a comprehensive overview of our data management activities, covering the reporting period from October 2020 to August 2023. The shift to digital tools in research documentation is driven by our work with Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs), such as Chemotion ELN, offering systematic data storage for easy retrieval and sharing. Additionally, we focus on developing repositories, such as Chemotion repository and RADAR4Chem, which fulfil the needs for the storage of chemical data. The NFDI4Chem Search Service ensures easy data access from our repositories. Our efforts extend to community engagement through conference visits and online presence, aimed at creating awareness for (digital) research data management and connecting to chemistry students and researchers. Our training programs have reached over 600 participants to date. Initiatives like the FAIR4Chem award and the Chemistry Data Days promote cultural change towards FAIR data. Our Editors4Chem initiative collaborates with publishers for standardised data management and the Ontologies4Chem workshops organised by our consortium promote the ontology development in the field. Apart from the consortium\'s engagement for chemists, NFDI4Chem members played key roles in the development of the NFDI as a whole. Being actively involved in the sections and task forces, NFDI4Chem promotes collaborative solutions across NFDI consortia.

The vision of NFDI4Chem is the digitalisation of all key steps in chemical research to support scientists in their efforts to collect, store, process, analyse, disclose and re-use research data. Measures to promote Open Science and Research Data Management (RDM) in agreement with the FAIR data principles are fundamental aims of NFDI4Chem to serve the chemistry community with a holistic concept for access to research data. To this end, the overarching objective is the development and maintenance of a national research data infrastructure for the research domain of chemistry in Germany, and to enable innovative and easy to use services and novel scientific approaches based on re-use of research data. NFDI4Chem intends to represent all disciplines of chemistry in academia. We aim to collaborate closely with thematically related consortia. In the initial phase, NFDI4Chem focuses on data related to molecules and reactions including data for their experimental and theoretical characterisation.This overarching goal is achieved by working towards a number of key objectives:Key Objective 1: Establish a virtual environment of federated repositories for storing, disclosing, searching and re-using research data across distributed data sources. Connect existing data repositories and, based on a requirements analysis, establish domain-specific research data repositories for the national research community, and link them to international repositories.Key Objective 2: Initiate international community processes to establish minimum information (MI) standards for data and machine-readable metadata as well as open data standards in key areas of chemistry. Identify and recommend open data standards in key areas of chemistry, in order to support the FAIR principles for research data. Finally, develop standards, if there is a lack.Key Objective 3: Foster cultural and digital change towards Smart Laboratory Environments by promoting the use of digital tools in all stages of research and promote subsequent Research Data Management (RDM) at all levels of academia, beginning in undergraduate studies curricula.Key Objective 4: Engage with the chemistry community in Germany through a wide range of measures to create awareness for and foster the adoption of FAIR data management. Initiate processes to integrate RDM and data science into curricula. Offer a wide range of training opportunities for researchers.Key Objective 5: Explore synergies with other consortia and promote cross-cutting development within the NFDI.Key Objective 6: Provide a legally reliable framework of policies and guidelines for FAIR and open RDM.