Report on data made available for research by governmental authorities (NFDI4Earth Deliverable D2.3.1)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This report examines how governmental data can be made more accessible and usable for research in Earth System Science (ESS) by applying the FAIR principles — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Using High-Value Datasets (HVD) defined under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 (DVO-HVD) as a pilot case, it analyses metadata practices, harvesting workflows, standards, and infrastructures that support the discovery and reporting of governmental data. HVD cover datasets from six thematic categories, including geospatial, Earth observation and environment, meteorological, and statistical data. Their regulatory requirements for publication, metadata identification, and reporting provide a concrete basis for examining the discoverability and usability of governmental data. The analysis focuses in particular on how differences in metadata profiles, search mechanisms, and harvesting processes affect the visibility of HVD across infrastructures. The report focuses on three key questions: how governmental agencies can improve the publication and description of datasets; how ESS researchers can effectively find and access them; and what is needed for a sustainable, end-to-end data pipeline. It examines the legal and infrastructural context and considers GDI-DE, GovData, umwelt.info, NFDI4Earth OneStop4All, and the NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub. A comparative assessment of search results across GDI-DE, GovData, and OneStop4All illustrates substantial differences in discoverability and highlights potential causes, including metadata deficiencies, differences in search and indexing mechanisms, and limitations in machine-readable harvesting interfaces. The findings point to the need for harmonised metadata and controlled vocabularies, improved traceability and quality assurance of harvesting processes, semantic search capabilities, richer dataset documentation, and persistent feedback channels between researchers, data providers, and infrastructure operators. Without claiming to propose complete technical solutions, the report provides a roadmap for strengthening data infrastructures to serve both governmental agencies and the scientific community. It shows how HVD can act as a catalyst for broader, FAIR-aligned improvements.
Authors: Ziemann, Astrid, Wieshuber, Georg, Alois, Schürmann, Tim, Krämer, Stefan, Berthold, Maximilian, Kratzenstein, Frank, Henzen, Christin
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
OpenAlex ID: W7104370915