Enabling Open Science practices in Helmholtz!

The Helmholtz Open Science Office (OS Office) embraces this mission since it was founded by the Helmholtz Association in 2005. It supports the Helmholtz Association as a service provider in shaping the cultural change towards open science. Furthermore, it promotes dialogue on open science within and beyond Helmholtz and regularly offers events on open science developments to provide impulses and guidelines for the Helmholtz Association.

In the area of open research data, the Helmholtz Open Science Office supports the Helmholtz Centers in developing policies and implementing corresponding practices for handling digital research data. Furthermore, the OS Office supports the discussion on the re-use and thus also reproducibility of research data in Helmholtz and the interdisciplinary exchange in this field.

The National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) represent central infrastructures in this context. Numerous NFDI consortia are being implemented with substantial Helmholtz participation, and Helmholtz Centers are also actively involved in the implementation of the EOSC. The OS Office actively animates and supports these activities. 

Helmholtz's participation in the international Research Data Alliance (RDA) and in Research Data Alliance Germany (RDA-DE) is also accompanied and coordinated by the Helmholtz Open Science Office. Moreover, the OS Office is active in third-party funded projects on open research data and persistent identifiers, such as re3data COREF and ORCID DE.

The work of the Helmholtz Open Science Office thus complements the developments of platforms in the Helmholtz Incubator and contributes to the utilization of the FAIR principles in Helmholtz, such as the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC).