Joint ScienceCampus of FIZ Karlsruhe and KIT Researches the Digital Transformation of Science

Karlsruhe, April 03, 2023 — The Senate of the Leibniz Association sees DiTraRe as a "project of high relevance and transdisciplinary innovative strength" and decided on March 22, 2023, to fund the ScienceCampus for an initial period of four years. Research results are increasingly being shaped by digitization processes - this applies both to research methods and to their communication in science and society. With a focus on "Digital Transformation," FIZ Karlsruhe - Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will investigate the effects of the increasing digitization of scientific work in four research clusters on an interdisciplinary basis and develop specific solutions.

Leibniz Science Campuses have the science policy goal of better integrating university and non-university research. The core element is cooperation between Leibniz institutes and universities or other non-university institutes. More specifically, the aim is to create networks in order to further develop the respective research area and strengthen the scientific environment.

Sabine Brünger-Weilandt, President and CEO of FIZ Karlsruhe, is pleased to open a new chapter of cooperation with KIT: "The ScienceCampus will enable us to contribute our expertise in information infrastructure and digital transformation and to break new ground in research together with our partner KIT."

"In science - whether in climate and energy research or in the natural or materials sciences - dealing with data-driven analyses and big data has long been part of everyday life. To further accelerate the digital transformation here, cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration is needed, as we are already successfully doing with FIZ Karlsruhe and are now continuing in the ScienceCampus," says Professor Holger Hanselka, President of KIT.

Transparent and reproducible knowledge processes create trust

The digital transformation of science affects all disciplines. The change in scientific methods, e.g., through data-driven analyses, also leads to changes in traditional methods in the individual subjects. Here, it is important to make this change clear to both scientists and data users and to investigate the effects of the transformation on society's perception of science. Transparent and reproducible knowledge processes are fundamental for the science system itself - and from this also for trust in research at the societal level. With their interdisciplinary orientation, KIT and FIZ Karlsruhe provide an important prerequisite for dealing with this topic in a holistic way. KIT researchers are concerned, for example, with raising scientists' awareness of information security issues in the collection, evaluation, and storage of sensitive information and informing them about practicable security solutions. They also conduct research on the transparency and traceability of the communication of scientific results to society. In particular, methods of technology assessment are used in this context.

Research clusters focus on specific scientific use cases

DiTraRe's work program is organized into four research clusters, each of which is based on a specific scientific use case. For example, the research cluster "Protected Data Spaces" is dedicated to the use case "Sensitive Data in Sports Science". The other research clusters deal with intelligent data acquisition (use case: smart labs in chemistry), AI-based knowledge spaces (use case: artificial intelligence in biomedical engineering), and publication cultures (use case: publishing large amounts of data).

More information is available on the FIZ Karlsruhe website.

FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure is a not-for-profit limited liability company. As one of the largest non-academic information infrastructure institutions in Germany, we have the public mission to provide researchers and scientists with scientific in-formation and to develop the appropriate products and services. To this end, we edit and index large data volumes from manifold sources, develop and operate innovative information services and e-research solutions, and carry out research projects of our own. FIZ Karlsruhe is a member of the Leibniz Association which comprises more than 95 institutions involved in research activities and/or the provision of scientific infrastructure.

As "The Research University within the Helmholtz Association", KIT creates and imparts knowledge for society and the environment. Its goal is to make significant contributions to global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. To this end, about 9,800 employees cooperate on a broad disciplinary basis in natural sciences, engineering, economics, the humanities and in social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science through research-oriented university studies. KIT's innovative activities bridge the gap between knowledge and application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural resources. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.

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More Information
FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure
Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1
76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen
Germany
Phone +49 7247 808 0
contact [at] fiz-karlsruhe.de