Support structures to facilitate the dissemination and implementation of a national standard for research information – the German case of the Research Core Dataset

Biesenbender, Sophie; Herwig, Sebastian

Abstract

The German science and higher education system is characterized by federalism, multi-level governance and interwoven regulatory competences of different levels of government. Establishing binding standards and harmonized policies for German higher education institutions and non-university research institutions is a complex task that requires concerted action and co-operation between the federal and state governments. In 2013, the German Council of Science and Humanities recognized the need for research information (RI) standards in order to reduce the efforts in and to create an incentive for optimized RI management as well as to enhance the quality and informative value of RI. For this reason, the science council issued recommendations that called for the specification of the so-called research core dataset (RCD) - a set of standard definitions and concepts as well as data formats for RI - and recommended its (voluntary) implementation in the German science system in 2016. This paper is intended as a descriptive case report with the aim to provide insights from a national standardization project and to share experiences made during this project. Particular emphasis is on the support structures currently in place to facilitate the dissemination and implementation of the RCD in the federal and multi-level governed German science system.