Data Stewardship goes Germany

This volume contains the abstracts of the lectures and posters from the second ‘Data Stewardship goes Germany’ (DSgG) workshop, an annual workshop series organised by the Research Data Management Working Group of TU9 (Alliance of leading Technical Universities in Germany). The workshop took place on 25 and 26 September 2023 at the Open Science Lab at the Saxon State Library – State and University Library Dresden. The central theme of the workshop was the collective exploration of the increasingly established concept of data stewardship - an institutionally organised support system for all aspects of sustainable research data management. It is increasingly recognised that such support is neither trivial nor can be considered a basic competency of scientific staff in research institutions. Consequently, more and more scientific institutions and projects are relying on data stewards to establish sustainable work processes and raise awareness among researchers about the importance of good research data management.

 

The DSgG workshop series provides a framework for direct exchange within the research data management (RDM) community. It invites data stewards, research data (handling) officers, research software engineers, data experts, data curators, and data managers to discuss their professional realities and current development perspectives in Germany and beyond. The workshops also serve as a forum for presenting innovative solutions, addressing critical issues, and providing comprehensive assessments in the field of data stewardship.

 

Similar to its premiere in Braunschweig in 2022, this year’s edition also garnered significant interest. Over 60 participants from across Germany and Switzerland came together to present and discuss ideas and solutions, as well as to conceptually exchange views on data stewardship in Germany. The well received keynote address by Jens Dierkes (University and City Library Cologne) set the stage for the discussion, highlighting essential results from the DataStew project and initiating further exploration of the status quo and perspectives for data stewardship in the German-speaking region. Barcamp discussions on topics such as job titles, tasks and roles, institutional placement, training, and the establishment of a data steward network, further served to explore these topics in more detail.

 

Thanks to numerous submissions, there were six exciting lectures and 21 poster presentations that focused on various aspects. The topics ranged from concrete tools for practical work to concepts for institutional embedding. A common theme of all contributions is acknowledging the gap between vision and reality in research data management. They propose a variety of strategies and tools to bridge this gap, emphasising the importance of research data management specialists, i.e., data stewards, throughout the research data lifecycle.