Orientation in an ocean of data – more than a data portal

By providing funds of 5.8 million euros, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft recognizes the importance of managing scientific data properly. The funding is the basis for the second phase of the German Federation for Biological Data – GFBio. The joint project is coordinated at the University of Bremen and involves 19 partners from all over Germany, including the MPI for Biogeochemistry. One main objective is to integrate already existing data infrastructures for molecular and ecological data in one central portal. Moreover, GFBio aims to offer a comprehensive service for the management of data. For this purpose, GFBio supports scientists in project planning, data collection and visualization as well as subsequent long-term archiving in one of the affiliated data centers. This holistic approach and the integration of genomic, environmental and collection data are internationally unique.
The recently approved grants enable GFBio to refine and upgrade its services offered since December 2013. In this way, GFBio will establish itself as the main German contact point for biological and environmental data management in the long run, making high quality data accessible quickly to address future scientific questions more effectively.
Additional Information:
Diepenbroek, M., Glöckner, F., Grobe, P., Güntsch, A., Huber, R., König-Ries, B., Kostadinov, I., Nieschulze, J., Seeger, B., Tolksdorf, R., Triebel, D. (2014). Towards an Integrated Biodiversity and Ecological Research Data Management and Archiving Platform: The German Federation for the Curation of Biological Data (GFBio). In: Plödereder, E., Grunske, L., Schneider, E. & Ull, D. (eds): Informatik 2014 – Big Data Komplexität meistern. GI-Edition: Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI) – Proceedings 232: 1711-1724. Köllen Verlag, Bonn