DFG Open Science Policy

Overview

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is Germany’s primary public research funding agency. Its Guidelines on the Handling of Research Data, first published in 2015, require data management plans and open access to research data for all DFG-funded projects. These were substantially strengthened in 2019 through the DFG Code of Conduct for Good Research Practice (Leitlinien zur Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis), which mandates data availability and open access to research outputs and has been updated twice since, with the current edition from 2022. Together these instruments constitute Germany’s primary national framework for research data governance, complementing the EC Open Science Policy requirements that apply to German institutions participating in Horizon Europe. DFG also coordinates and funds the NFDI initiative, through which discipline-specific open data services and standards are built for the German research community.

Connections

• implements: FAIR Principles
• relatedTo: NFDI (DFG coordinates and funds the NFDI initiative as its primary funder and governance body)
• relatedTo: EC Open Science Policy (German Horizon Europe grantees are subject to both DFG and EC open science requirements)

Resources

• https://www.dfg.de/en/research-funding/principles-dfg-funding/research-data
• https://www.dfg.de/resource/blob/174732/3f30d8de48e3f1efe3b7a35c5e325869/230424-leitlinien-wissenschaftliche-praxis-en-data.pdf (DFG Code of Conduct for Good Research Practice, 2022 edition, English)