The published document identifies cross-cutting issues and ways to deal with them in the NFDI: For the science-led development of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), the infrastructure must develop alongside research. The necessary mutual coordination must be ensured on the basis of sustainable processes and structures. Topics that are relevant for several expert consortia must be dealt with cooperatively and across individual consortia in order to ensure sustainable functionality.

In order to address this challenge in a coordinated manner, the majority of the expert consortia agreed on the “Berlin Declaration on NFDI Cross-Cutting Topics” in summer 2019. At a joint event in Berlin on 25 February 2020, representatives of expert consortia and cross-cutting initiatives once again exchanged views on the fields of action for cross-NFDI infrastructure development. Expert consortia and cross-sectional initiatives developed four model proposals to expand these fields of action and to implement them in a resilient and sustainable manner within the framework of NFDI. The published “Leipzig-Berlin Declaration on NFDI Cross-Sectoral Issues of Infrastructure Development” serves as a stimulus for discussion and is aimed at all consortia and those involved in the establishment of NFDI, as well as those expert groups that are more closely involved in research data management.

By signing this declaration, the 27 consortia confirm that they will jointly and in agreement with the NFDI Directorate and committees, further develop the identified cross-cutting topics and fields of action and work on them in the spirit of an NFDI.

A National Research Data Infrastructure creates added value in the overall system. It aims to facilitate access to and handling of data in order to support self-determined scientific work.

The National Research Data Infrastructure is intended to systematically develop, sustainably secure and make the data sets of science and research accessible and to network them (inter)nationally. It is currently being set up in a process driven by science as a networked structure of individually acting consortia.