University of Münster Enhances Research Data Management: Joins NFDI4Culture Consortium

(04.07.2024) The ambitious National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) project, initiated in 2018 to enhance the competitive edge of German science, has gained a new participant: Through the initiative of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jakob Jünger, the University of Münster has joined the NFDI4Culture consortium. Jünger is tasked with coordinating the development of the open-source program Facepager within the consortium.

Currently, research data in Germany are primarily stored in a decentralised, project-based, and temporary manner. The aim of the NFDI project is to securely preserve German data assets and establish a connected "knowledge repository" to foster exchange and collaboration in research and drive societal innovation. To this end, the federal and state governments are providing up to 90 million euros annually until the end of 2029, which will be invested in more than 25 different consortia. The NFDI4Culture consortium addresses specific needs in media studies, art history, and architectural research and is supported by a network of universities and non-university institutions, primarily the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.

Jünger's new task involves the Facepager4NFDI work package, aiming to expand the application areas of the tool Facepager, which facilitates automated data collection for researchers. Developed over the past decade, Facepager is widely used internationally, particularly in social media research. The new work package aims to adapt Facepager for use in humanities projects by making adjustments for the relevant APIs. Presets and tutorials will be developed to enable even students and researchers without programming skills to collect and analyze data from NFDI projects. The implementation of the work package is a collaborative effort by Jünger and master student Lennart Höfig, conducted in cooperation with the Mainz Academy and supported by the DFG with nearly 10,000 euros.

Contact person public relations:
Dr. Stephan Völlmicke
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