The Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) promotes the qualitative enrichment of research data by means of metadata – and implements this approach across the whole organization.
In particular, its aim is to make all aspects of research knowledge gained within the Helmholtz Association discoverable, accessible, interoperable and reusable for the entire scientific community in accordance with FAIR principles.
The domain specific Metadata Hubs form the link between all centers and the higher-level activities of the HMC platform that are aimed at the entire Helmholtz Association. Within the Helmholtz Association, HMC is part of the Helmholtz Incubator Framework for Information and Data Science, see https://www.helmholtz.de/en/research/information-data-science/helmholtz-incubator/.
Project partners
The HMC Hub Earth and Environment is located at the following Helmholtz Centres, see: https://helmholtz-metadaten.de/en/earth-and-environment/centers
Furthermore, there is intensive exchange with:
Helmholtz DataHub
Helmholtz Open Science
NFDI Consortium Earth System Sciences (NFDI4Earth)
Spatial Data Infrastructure Germany (GDI-DE)
German contribution to the Group on Earth Observations (D-GEO)
International Communities as EOSC, ESIP, RDA and IOC-UNESCO
Tasks
The role of the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) is to moderate and coordinate the uniform handling of information on research results within the Helmholtz Association. Processes are to be established that enable all information that has been collected and refined in various ways to be found, used and consistently referenced in the different research areas - and this is to be done on a national level as well as networked internationally.
The first step was an inventory of existing metadata repositories, metadata standards, vocabularies etc., see for example: https://helmholtz-metadaten.de/en/earth-and-environment/helmholtz-earth-and-environment-data-infrastructures and an overview of the existing data infrastructures was obtained with the help of a survey, see: " Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration, Hub Earth and Environment; Die Dateninfrastruktur (DIS)-Erhebung im Forschungsbereich Erde und Umwelt der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft: Erste Ergebnisse und Schlussfolgerungen, 2022", https://doi.org/10.3289/HMC_publ_06.
In parallel, events were started to approach the topic of metadata with different levels of prior knowledge, see: https://helmholtz-metadaten.de/en/seminar-series
The implementation of the goals is also supported by project funds, see: https://helmholtz-metadaten.de/en/projects/hmc-project-calls
The GFZ is implementing the following HMC projects in collaboration with other Helmholtz Centres:
• eFAIRs (GFZ, AWI, GEOMAR) 2020
• FAIR WISH (GFZ, AWI, HEREON) 2020
• ALAMEDA (GFZ, UFZ) 2021
• MISO (GFZ, DLR, KIT) 2022
• STAMPLATE (KIT, Hereon, GFZ, AWI, GEOMAR) 2022
• SoftwareCaRD (HZDR, DLR, FZJ, GFZ) 2023
Furthermore, a website is currently being set up as a community platform where recommendations for the implementation of metadata management can be discussed and defined.
Project coordination
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Project start
2019
Contact persons
GFZ: Andrea Pörsch, E-Mail: andrea.poersch@gfz-potsdam.de
More information: https://helmholtz-metadaten.de/en
