Pillar 3
Project Fund
The project fund is intended to support projects for particularly innovative RDM developments in Lower Saxony. The project’s impact must extend beyond its own institution and contribute to the improvement of research data management in Lower Saxony.
Application submission deadlines
All project applications are reviewed by a panel of external experts, organized by the coordination office of the HdN in collaboration with the MWK. Two application submission deadlines are announced each year. For 2025, these are 16.06. and 14.11.2025.
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Procedure description
All universities in Lower Saxony are eligible to apply. For universities that have applied for positions under Pillar 2 (“Basic Development”) during the funding period, it must be specified how the proposed activities are intended to be coordinated with the basic development. Further details on funding can be found in the procedure description (in German).
Exchange on Pillar 3 Projects
The overall coordination team of FDM-NDS regularly offers exchange meetings. These meetings provide an opportunity to present your own project ideas and to establish contact with potential project partners. The goal is to avoid parallel project proposals on the same topic and to enable early networking with individuals interested in participating in a collaborative project.
To support this, we maintain an internal “marketplace” featuring project ideas, suggestions, and concrete projects currently in the planning phase.
If you are planning a project proposal within Pillar 3 and would like to participate in the exchange, feel free to contact us at info@fdm-nds.de.
Overview of approved projects
Projects from the first call for proposals
Einstein Your Data – Data Literacy for Students
Today, data competence is an important qualification in research and teaching. A thorough research data management (RDM) is essential to make research transparent and its results reproducible. The project “Einstein Your Data” aims to strengthen the data literacy of students and introduce them to the basics of RDM. In close cooperation with the State Initiative FDM NDS, the universities of Vechta and Oldenburg will (1) create self-learning modules for students as Open Educational Resources (OER), (2) develop workflows linked to secure data rooms for student projects and (3) develop concepts for the subsequent use of the resources at other institutions and for use in teaching.
Link to project webpage at Uni Vechta
Project duration: 01.11.2025 – 31.10.2027
Funding volume: 614.754 Euro
Lead university: Universität Vechta
Universities involved: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Contact: Prof. Dr. Karolin Bubke (karolin.bubke@uni-vechta.de)
eLabFTW@FDM.NDS
The project involves the provision and sustainable operation of eLabFTW within the context of the Academic Cloud on servers at TU Braunschweig. By providing eLabFTW, the documentation of research data in scientific laboratories across Lower Saxony is to be modernized, optimized, and thus made interoperable. Regular maintenance and technical support will ensure high availability and data security. In addition, training and support will be offered to researchers and laboratory staff to enable seamless integration into existing workflows. A networking forum for eLabFTW users in Lower Saxony will also be established to facilitate the exchange of experiences, best practices, and solutions to specific challenges. The provision of eLabFTW will promote collaboration among researchers, improve the reproducibility of research results, and ensure compliance with data protection and security requirements.
Link to mailing list of the project
Project duration: 01.07.2025 – 30.06.2027
Funding volume: 269.628 Euro
Lead university: Technische Universität Braunschweig
Universities involved: Technische Universität Clausthal, Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen
Contact: Lennard Golsch (l.golsch@tu-braunschweig.de), Dr. Benjamin Golub-Overbeck (benjamin.golub-overbeck@tu-braunschweig.de)
FAIRnetzt in Lower Saxony
In the ‘FAIRnetzt in Niedersachsen’ project, activities are carried out to bring together RDM stakeholders in Lower Saxony and to raise awareness of the services offered by RDM-NDS. The activities planned in the project go beyond the activities in pillars 1 and 2 of the state initiative. Measures are planned to improve visibility in order to publicise the state initiative and establish it as a network in Lower Saxony. A second focus is on networking members of the state initiative with stakeholders in the NFDI consortia and researchers at universities and non-university research institutions in Lower Saxony. An annual conference in presence, the ‘Data Days Niedersachsen’, is to be established as an annual highlight of the Lower Saxony RDM community. In addition, moderated workshops will be held to reflect on the activities of the state initiative in dialogue with data stewards and researchers from Lower Saxony in order to align the services offered by FDM-NDS with the needs of researchers.
Project duration: 01.07.2025 – 30.09.2029
Funding volume: 162.250 Euro
Lead university: Leibniz University Hannover
Universities involved: Technische Universität Braunschweig
Contact: Dr. Anneke Meyer (anneke.meyer@zuv.uni-hannover.de)