NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity at MARUM

In less than two months, from 22 September to 25 September 2025, MARUM at University of Bremen will open its doors to welcome partners from NFDI4Earth and NFDI4Biodiversity for our joint plenary.

We are excited to share a fully packed agenda that includes:

• A diverse use case session showcasing the breadth of research data management in ESS,
• engaging workshops on open learning, data quality & cross-disciplinary metadata challenges, and a
• common poster session, software marketplace as well as barcamps together with NFDI4Biodiversity.

Find further details also on the plenary website.

As a repository provider, you will get to know how to assess your infrastructure for the NFDI4Earth Label. Researchers will learn how the OneStop4All supports them, e.g., in selecting a suitable data repository - big thanks to all contributors to the poster session, software marketplace, and barcamps!

We look forward to lively on-site demos and discussions and encourage you to register now and look forward to seeing you end of September at Bremen.

Claudia Müller (AWI), Kristin Sauerland (MARUM) & Christin Henzen (TU Dresden) 

Meet us here

Data Science Symposium 2025 – registration is open

We are excited to announce the 10th Data Science Symposium (DSS), happening on-site in Geesthacht near Hamburg, on 3 & 4 September 2025. This year's event is organized by hereon and the Helmholtz Coastal Data Center (HCDC).

Established in 2017, the DSS has been a collaborative effort by AWI, GEOMAR, and Hereon, dedicated to fostering connections between scientific methods, applications, and infrastructure developments. Our symposium covers a wide range of topics, including AI, metadata, digital twins, sensor management, and much more.

Don't miss your chance to be part of this exciting event - registration is open until 1 August 2025!

For more information, please visit the conference website.

Marie Ryan (hereon)

CoRDI 2025 - programme and registration announced

The NFDI's own biannual Conference on Research Data Infrastructure (CoRDI) will take place from 26 to 28 August 2025 at RWTH Aachen University. The comprehensive programme is now available on the conference website.

The event will be held at the C.A.R.L. lecture hall centre with keynotes, lectures, poster sessions and a market of opportunities. Meet members from NFDI4Earth and engage with other consortia on topics such as Education RDM, RDM Infrastructures, RDM in Context, and thematic sessions on natural sciences, life sciences, humanities and social sciences, engineering sciences, and Base4NFDI. Look forward to inspiring keynotes and thought-provoking panel discussions.

Registration for the 2nd CoRDI from 26 to 28 August 2025 is open until 8 August!

We invite you to register. Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite.

NFDI4Earth Coordination Office (TU Dresden)

NFDI4Earth Outcomes‍

Launched at the beginning of this year, the third cohort of NFDI4Earth pilot projects has now reached its midpoint. Most pilots are well underway and have been successfully integrated into the NFDI4Earth consortium.

• 4DWorks (TU München) is closing a crucial gap in data infrastructure by developing metadata standards for topographic 3D time series—laying the foundation for greater reproducibility and comparability. The pilot collaborates closely with the NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub.
• GeoRoc (University of Göttingen) is improving accessibility of one of the world’s largest geochemical databases by implementing new quality assessment tools and enhancing user experience.
• GeoFresh (Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries), a long-standing pilot, now emphasizes interoperability between NFDI4Earth and NFDI4Biodiversity, advancing cross-consortial collaboration.
• GeoLabel (University of Freiburg) brings structured annotation to remote sensing by enabling interactive engagement with Earth observation imagery and fostering best practices in data use.
• CAMELS-DE (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) combines hydrological and meteorological datasets to boost reusability for climate, hydrology, and water research—setting new benchmarks for FAIR data in environmental science.
• EarthLinks (GESIS) creates a bridge between Earth observation and social science data, linking NFDI4Earth with NFDI4Society to enable interdisciplinary insights into climate adaptation, urban development, and environmental justice.

Together, these pilots embody the diverse, collaborative spirit of NFDI4Earth and drive forward the implementation of FAIR data practices across research domains.

More information can be found on the NFDI4Earth website.

 

NFDI4Earth at EGU 2025 at Vienna

Several members of the NFDI4Earth team at EGU '25 at Vienna. Foto cr‍edit: Xiaoyu Huang (TU Munich)

This year was the second time that NFDI4Earth was actively involved in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly at Vienna, showcasing its products and activities to a global audience. Our booth cluster with DKRZ, University of Hamburg, LRZ, and DLR was a place for active exchange and collaboration. The booth served as both an open meeting point for partners during the week and as a live helpdesk, where our engaged User Support Network directly answered user questions on data, learning materials, and research data management in Earth System Sciences (ESS).

One of the visual highlights of our booth was the haptic 3D visualization of a dynamic riverbed model contributed by the NFDI4Earth pilot 4D-Works from TU München. Various activities connected NFDI4Earth with the ESS community. In our Townhall Meeting, we engaged with representatives from European and fellow NFDI research infrastructure initiatives, such as FAIRagro and DATA TERRA. Together, we worked towards a better connection between infrastructure providers and researchers' needs in data management. This collaborative discussion provided a valuable opportunity for knowledge sharing and networking, helping to drive progress in this field for the future.

 Klaus Getzlaff & Hela Mehrtens (GEOMAR Kiel), Jörg Seegert & Christin Henzen (TU Dresden)

NFDI4Earth Academy Workshop Recap: Boosting Research with Good Code and FAIR Workflows

In May, the Good Scientific Coding workshop tackled one of researchers' most common pain points: messy, hard-to-reproduce code. Across three sessions, participants were guided through best practices in scientific programming, covering clarity, modular design, documentation, testing, and reproducibility. With a strong practical focus, everyone had the chance to apply what they learned directly to their own code. Participants transformed scattered scripts into reliable, shareable research tools. The workshop was hosted by George Datseris (University of Exeter), and all materials can be found here.

In the Machine-actionable Knowledge for Earth Science workshop, participants explored how Research Knowledge Graphs (RKGs) can make scientific information not just readable, but actionable for both humans and machines. Through hands-on sessions with the Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG), attendees learned how to curate semantic content and produce FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) knowledge from the start of a project. In addition, they learned about creating reborn articles: structured scientific contributions that are reusable, accurate, reproducible, and open. The workshop was held in cooperation with NFDI4DataScience and hosted by Anna-Lena Lorenz and Lauren Snyder (TIB Hannover).

Please find more information about reborn articles at the end of the newsletter!

Jonas Kuppler (GFZ Potsdam)

NFDI4Earth among ten NFDI Helpdesks to Join Forces in NFDI Geo-Chem-Life Science Helpdesk Cluster

To better support researchers working across disciplines, ten NFDI consortia have formalised their collaboration through a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This agreement strengthens the emerging Geo-Chem-Life Science Helpdesk Cluster, an inter-consortial initiative focused on delivering coordinated user support in Earth, chemical, and life sciences. The network enables streamlined forwarding of anonymised requests, ensuring that expertise across disciplinary boundaries becomes more accessible to researchers.

 
NFDI4Earth is proud to be part of this dynamic alliance, alongside consortia such as NFDI4Biodiversity, FAIRagro, and GHGA. Each consortium commits personnel to the cluster (see the NFDI4Earth User Support Network) and contributes to a joint workflow. The full text of the MoU is available on Zenodo. For deeper insight into the motivations and vision behind the collaboration, we recommend the recent blog article by NFDI4Biodiversity.

The NFDI4Earth User Support Network Team

NFDI4Earth co-organised the European AGILE 2025 conference

NFDI4Earth is proud to have co-organized the 28th AGILE conference on Geographic Information Science (AGILE 2025) at Dresden from 10 to 13 June. This year’s conference theme, “Geoinformation Science Responding to Global Challenges”, aligned closely with the mission of NFDI4Earth.

The conference featured workshops, tutorials, and presentation sessions that resonate with the key topics currently addressed within NFDI4Earth: geodata modelling, geodata management, geodata analysis, geoinformation services, visualization, and education.

We were also pleased to have three inspiring keynotes:

The peer-reviewed full and short papers accepted for presentation at the conference were published by Copernicus Publications. The peer-reviewed poster papers were published on Zenodo.

We thank the 180+ researchers, students, and professionals from the geoinformatics community who joined us at Dresden for an exciting conference!

NFDI4Earth engages in FOSS community

C. Keßler, Y. Eid, V. Bremerich & T. Niers at the NFDI4Earth booth engaging with the FOSS community

Three days at the FOSSGIS conference 2025 end of March in Münster have once again shown: Free and open source software and FAIR access to Earth data are essential to address the current diverse global challenges. We look forward to supporting the geospatial community in its challenges in research data management in the Earth System Sciences with NFDI4Earth's services. These services comprise both technical offerings, which are of course developed as free and open source software (FOSS), such as the NFDI4Earth OneStop4All or the NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub with its open API, as well as services like the User Support Network. The NFDI4Earth team at FOSSGIS was happy to present these services and connect more closely with the FOSSGIS community.

Vanessa Bremerich (IGB Berlin), Yomna Eid (University of Münster), Carsten Keßler

(Bochum University of Applied Sciences) & Tom Niers (TU Dresden)

The future of resource management is in the spotlight at Dresden Nexus Conference

NFDI4Earth developed services were presented by Tom Niers (TU Dresden)

This year, NFDI4Earth and United Nations University UNU-FLORES co-organised a joint session on “Integrated Earth System Science Data for Integrated Resource Management", showcasing examples of integrating data from heterogeneous sources in line with the Nexus approach. Lightning talks highlighting ongoing work in NFDI4Earth including the OneStop4All, EduTrain Portal, and the User Support Network as well as an introduction to the Sustainability Nexus Analytics, Informatics, and Data (AID) programme, served as a platform to discuss best practices and open challenges on how to fully exploit the potential of Earth System Sciences data when applying holistic, cross-sectoral approaches with multiple stakeholders involved.

It was a great opportunity to identify potential synergies, e. g. in the area of education and training, which we now hope to address in the form of future collaborations.

Serena Cotzee (UNU-FLORES), Mir Matin & Mohsen Mesgaran (UNU-INWEH),

Kolja Nenoff (University of Leipzig), Matthias Mauder, Tom Niers & Jörg Seegert (TU Dresden)

Spot on... NFDI4Earth

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NFDI4Earth welcomes three Institutional Signatories of NFDI4Earth Commitment‍

In the last months, three more institutions signed the NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment to show their support for the NFDI4Earth mission.

The Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) is a research institute that works to find long-lasting solutions to problems in farming. ZALF develops and designs crop systems that combine food security with sustainability, using complex landscape data and experimental methods. ZALF's research is about how all these things work together, from the soil and plants to how they affect the whole world. ZALF is committed to both scientific excellence and social relevance, and shares its findings with the public and the relevant stakeholders. ZALF bridges the communities by signing both the NFDI4Earth Commitment and the FAIRagro Commitment. Contact: Carsten Hoffmann (hoffmann@zalf.de).

The Spatial Data Infrastructure Germany (SDI Germany, GDI-DE) is a joint project of the Federal Government, Länder, and local authorities. It aims to make spatial data available in a standardized and simple way via the Internet. SDI Germany's Geoportal.de is a website that allows users to search, find, and use geodata that is freely available to the public. As a signatory of the NFDI4Earth commitment, the SDI Germany aims to make sure that people can access and use good-quality spatial data for research and other purposes. It also aims to improve metadata structures and geodata harmonisation, and to work more closely with the research community. Contact: Karin Weke (vorsitz.lg-gdi-de@bau.bremen.de).

The Alfred-Wegener-Institute (AWI) is a Helmholtz centre for polar and marine research that studies the Earth's system, particularly in cold and temperate regions. AWI's research focuses on deciphering climate change processes and understanding the Earth's development. AWI works with national and international partners to advance its knowledge and provide insights into the future of our planet. As a signatory of the NFDI4Earth commitment, AWI plans to work with the NFDI4Earth community and contribute to its goals. Contact: Anke Allner (anke.allner@awi.de)

NFDI4Earth engages with the community – be it student, service provider, or researcher. The team looks forward to collaborating with the signing organisations in the spirit of the NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment.

Daniel Nüst (TU Dresden)

Start of the 3rd cohort of NFDI4Earth incubators



The third cohort of incubator projects kicked off at the beginning of June. The following five projects are working on realising their blue-sky ideas before the end of this year.

The GFZ Potsdam is introducing 'ELaborate Particle Analysis from Satellite Observations – EL PASO', a modular, open-source Python package that reads, processes, and validates particle data from satellite observations and makes it reproducible through automated testing and community support.

At TUM, 'PhenoMapping' is an interactive online tool that digitizes, geocodes, and visualizes historical phenological records to close long-term data gaps and combine historical and current data for climate and ecosystem research. 

Under the title 'Visual Question-Answering for Thematic Maps', the University of Münster is developing an open dataset of map images with QA annotations and a base model to promote AI-supported visual question-answering systems for geographic data.

In the project 'I-ADOPT Variable Extraction using Semantics', KIT is developing an LLM-based workflow that automatically generates machine-readable, FAIR-compliant descriptions of variables according to the I-ADOPT framework, thus facilitating the semantic annotation of research data.

Finally, TU Berlin is implementing 'MaRESS', a modular web application for the geographical and semantic mapping of research data with AI-supported categorization to identify knowledge gaps in Earth system sciences and ensure FAIR-compliant access.

Further information is available at NFDI4Earth website.

Udo Feuerhake (University of Hannover)

Participate in NFDI4Earth

NFDI4Earth Academy Coffee lectures: Machine Learning -Essentials & Workflows

This October, we are hosting a two-part online lecture series on Machine Learning! You will get a hands-on introduction to ML fundamentals and explore the full data science workflow through a real-world project.

Find full details and registration here.- please mark your calendar!

Jonas Kuppler for the NFDI4Earth Academy (GFZ Potsdam)

Help to Improve Terminology Services for Earth System Sciences

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Are you working with scientific data in the Earth System Sciences (ESS)? Do you use or rely on structured terminologies such as controlled vocabularies, thesauri, or ontologies? The BITS (Blueprints for the Integration of Terminologies in Earth System Sciences) project invites you to participate in a short survey to help shape the future of the TIB Terminology Service (TIB TS) – a free and open source tool that supports terminology search, browsing, and look-up, all in one place. As part of BITS, TIB TS is building a comprehensive ESS collection to support scientists in selecting the right terminologies for their research and applications.

Your feedback is essential! The survey focuses on what additional information would be most helpful to display when choosing a terminology. What would help you decide between similar terms or terminologies? Before you begin, please visit the TIB TS ESS collection to explore what’s currently available.

Take the survey now and help us improve the way terminologies are presented and selected!

Thank you for supporting better science through better data!

Anette Ganske (TIB Hannover)

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News from the RDM & Earth System Science Community

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2nd NFDI Metadata Workshop – towards common metadata

practices in the NFDI

Foto credit:  Emanuel Söding‍

From June 25 to 27 2025, the second NFDI TF Metadata Workshop took place at TIB in Hannover, bringing together over 50 participants from across all NFDI consortia. Organized by the NFDI Task Force Metadata, the event focused on harmonizing metadata practices across disciplines and infrastructures.

The workshop began with reflections on progress since the first workshop and outlined the goal of creating a cross-consortial NFDI Core Metadata Profile. Central to the discussions were the three generic metadata schemas: DataCite, DCAT-AP, and schema.org. Working groups explored these in depth, identifying core metadata elements and debating their status (mandatory, recommended, optional) based on usability across disciplines.

Domain-specific sessions highlighted diverse needs, such as variable documentation in tabular data, semantic enrichment, and PID strategies for data, people, and instruments. Participants emphasized the need for shared definitions, community consensus, and practical mappings between metadata standards.

The workshop concluded with a roadmap toward formalizing recommendations, including a draft NFDI Metadata Standard document and a draft recommendation on an alignment with re3data registration. The outcomes will strengthen interoperability across NFDI and lay the groundwork for more unified, FAIR-compliant metadata practices.

More information and materials are available on the workshop website.

Emanuel Söding (GEOMAR Kiel) and Christin Henzen (TU Dresden)

Visible Together – NFDI4Earth at Communication Circle meeting of the NFDI

Foto credit: Veronica Haas (Bernd@NFDI)

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Eighteen communicators from various NFDI consortia met on 4 and 5 June for the NFDI Communication Circle meeting at GESIS in Mannheim. The focus was the central question: How can the complex structures, goals, and added values of the NFDI and consortia be made more understandable, accessible, and effectively visible?

The one-and-a-half-day programme focused on jointly developing practical tools to make content visible across consortia, while at the same time preserving the individual strengths of each consortium. The outcome was the creation of social media templates that can be flexibly adapted to the communication needs of the individual consortia—while retaining recognition value for the NFDI as a whole. In an accompanying infographics workshop, approaches were developed to visualize complex NFDI structures and processes in a way that the community can understand.

For NFDI4Earth, the meeting offered a valuable opportunity to actively contribute to the communication within the NFDI and drive progress.

Ira Gerloff (LIAG Hannover)

International News

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Reborn articles: rethinking the way we produce

and publish science

With millions of scientific articles published annually, the need for machine-assisted information retrieval and processing is rapidly growing. Most efforts to address this need have attempted to train machines to interpret text-based information using artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, usually with limited success. Recently, a research team from the TIB—Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology proposed tackling the problem with a different mindset. Rather than trying to teach machines our language, why not produce science in a language they already understand?

Their recent open-access article published in Scientific Data introduces the open-source reborn articles approach, which enables researchers to produce scientific results in a format machines can interpret without human assistance (i.e., machine-readable). The approach also shows the code (e.g., R or Python) used to generate the results, enhancing reusability and reproducibility. For more information, check out the associated press release and explore reborn articles on the emerging digital library. The reborn articles team is open to collaborations and happy to support researchers in implementing the approach! Please reach out via reborn@orkg.org.

 Lauren Snyder and Markus Stocker (TIB Hannover)

Geo-INQUIRE 4th and last Transnational Access (TA) Call

The Geo-INQUIRE project offers access to state-of-the-art European research infrastructures that support cutting-edge studies of the Earth system. Through transnational access (TA), users can:

• Visit facilities in person (Transnational Access), or

• Access services remotely (Remote Transnational Access)

Facilities include unique laboratories, test sites, data services, and modeling tools focused on geophysics, seismology, geology, volcanology, geodesy, and related Earth science domains.The access to TA facilities is free of charge and includes:

• Use of infrastructure or services
  

• Scientific and technical support
  

• Travel and accommodation (for physical access), when applicable

Whether you are working on seismic hazard, crustal deformation, subsurface imaging, or other geoscience topics, the TA program is a great opportunity to access cutting-edge tools and expertise through one of the installations offered by Geo-INQUIRE partners.

The TA Call is open until Wednesday, July 30 2025, 17:00 CEST! 

 The Geo-INQUIRE Project Management Office (GFZ Potsdam)

The NFDI4Earth project has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project NFDI4Earth (DFG project no. 460036893, https://nfdi4earth.de/) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/).‍