Data management in collaborative interdisciplinary research projects - conclusions from the digitalization of research in sustainable manufacturing

As research topics become increasingly complex, large scale interdisciplinary research projects are commonly established to foster cross-disciplinary cooperation and to utilize potential synergies. In the case of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1026, 19 individual projects from different disciplines are brought together to investigate perspectives and solutions for sustainable manufacturing. Beside overheads regarding the coordination of activities and communication, such interdisciplinary projects are also facing challengs regarding data management. For exchange and combination of research results, data from individual projects have to be stored systematically, categorized, and linked according to the logical interrelations of the involved disciplinary knowledge domains. In the CRC 1026, the project for information infrastructure observed and analysed collaboration practices and developed IT-supported solutions to facilitate and foster research collaboration. Data management measures in this period were mainly focused on building a shared conceptual framework, and the organization of task related data. For the former aspect, an ontology basesd apporach was developed and prototypically implemented. For the latter aspect, a message board integrated task management system was developed and applied.