Welcome to the News Digest – RDM in Natural Science. Each week, I explore the latest developments in research data management, focusing specifically on natural sciences, and provide a concise overview. Let us dive right in.
FAIRmat
FAIRmat wins the European Digital Skills Award 2026
Congratulations to FAIRmat for winning the European Digital Skills Award 2026 in the category Digital Upskilling @ Work! Read more about the award and the work of FAIRmat on their news page.
Link to the article on the webpage of FAIRmat
FAIRmat, PUNCH4NFDI & DAPHNE4NFDI
Data literacy in the physics curriculum
Flagging this for people working on introducing data literacy and research data management skills in the curriculum, in this case specifically in the physics curriculum. In a preprint published on Zenodo by Carsten Daniel Burgard, Michael Krieger and Heiko B. Weber, ideas and examples are provided on how such an introduction can look. In the article starts with the introduction of seven core competencies, a discussion on how and where to introduce the new topics with disrupting the already established curriculum and closes with best practices. It is a good read and I think we should spread this publication with your researchers, and people who are responsible for teaching and practical lab courses.
Link to the preprint in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20850996
NFDI4Earth
A support network in numbers
Maybe you are working in a helpdesk or similar support role, then the publication by Hela Mehrtens et al. could be very interesting for you. In a short report, they provide insights on the numbers around the NFDI4Earth User Support Network, evaluating the efficiency of the support. I want to highlight and applaud the openness of NFDI4Earth for providing such insights.
Link to the project deliverable in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21069001
Long-term preservation: A cross-survey analysis
Long-term preservation of research data is getting more and more important. In a recent publication in Zenodo Tim Schürmann and Peter Valena compared the results of three surveys (NFDI4Earth, EOSC EDEN and FIDELIS) on this topic. Cross all three surveys, they found four major concerns: policies, training, infrastructure and role definitions. For more details as well as suggestions on how to tackle these challenges, check out the publication.
Link to the project deliverable in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21028746
PSDI
Paper ≠ Bad, Electronic ≠ Good, Tech ≠ Transformation
If you are following this weekly News Digest for a while, you know that I like the slides by Samantha Pearman-Kanza, and so I am delighted that there are two fresh sets of slides available in Zenodo. The topic this time is the deployment and adoption of electronic lab notebooks, and I recommend to have a look specifically at slide 3 "ELNs are not Magic", and slide 11 "Provide Training & Support" of the first linked presentation. And if you want to know what the "modern-day FAIRy tale" is, then check out the second linked presentation. I will definitely integrate some of the content to my slide collection.
Link to the presentation in Zenodo with DOI:10.5281/zenodo.21028257
Link to the presentation in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21035953
The FAIR Elephant
First pilot session
On July 16 at 8 am (CET) the first pilot session of Ask The Elephant will take place. This early morning, monthly session is an open space to discuss your questions around data management in natural and life sciences, and it is open to researchers, RDM colleagues and all interested people. Each session will start with a short (10 min) input from my side and then moves to an open discussion. In the first pilot session, my short input will be on Chemotion ELN. A few weeks back there was a major new release for the electronic lab notebook, which also changed the UI, so we have a look at the new design and features. So bring your cup of coffee, your open questions or problems and discuss with us.
Link to Ask The Elephant on The FAIR Elephant webpage
Or click here to join the community
Outro
That's it for today. Thanks for reading, and see you next week.
Benjamin
If you find these weekly overviews useful, please like, and share them with your colleagues and if you want to support me even more, you can go over to my ko-fi page and buy a bag of peanuts for The FAIR Elephant. Your support is much appreciated.