Germany
Germany’s open neuroscience ecosystem is shaped by a national research data infrastructure initiative (NFDI), institute-level open science policies from the Helmholtz and Max Planck research organisations, and active participation in European research infrastructures. Several German institutions have developed open neuroscience tools and data platforms that are now in international use.
Open Science Policy
The principal open science mandates applicable to German researchers and institutions are summarised below.
| Who | What is required | For whom | In force since |
|---|---|---|---|
| DFG Open Science | Data management plan required, open access to publications and research data, FAIR data management | All DFG-funded projects | 2015 (data guidelines), 2019 (Code of Conduct) |
| EC Open Science Policy | DMP from month 6, FAIR deposit, open access to publications (see Europe) | German institutions in Horizon Europe | 2021 |
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany’s primary public research funder, has published guidelines on handling research data since 2015. Its 2019 Code of Conduct for Good Research Practice strengthened these requirements, mandating data management plans and open access to research data and publications for all funded projects. German institutions participating in Horizon Europe are additionally subject to EC Open Science Policy mandates.
The NFDI (Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur) is the German national research data infrastructure initiative, launched in 2020 with DFG coordination and joint federal and state government funding. NFDI operates through thematic consortia covering different research domains, each responsible for building shared data management services, training, and standards for their community. Relevant consortia for life sciences and health research include NFDI4Health (clinical and epidemiological data) and NFDI4Bioimage (biological image data), with further consortia addressing genomics and bioinformatics. The Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC), a parallel Helmholtz-wide initiative, focuses specifically on FAIR metadata management across Helmholtz centres and contributes to RDA working groups.
Research Organisations and Neuroscience Institutes
The Helmholtz Association is one of Germany’s principal public research organisations and the parent body of two institutions with significant open neuroscience roles. DZNE (German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases), with nine sites across Germany, is a dedicated national research centre for neurodegenerative disease, active in EBRAINS, JPND, BBMRI-ERIC, and the CURE-ND alliance. Forschungszentrum Jülich, another Helmholtz centre, contributes the Jülich Brain Atlas and the BigBrain ultra-high resolution human brain atlas to EBRAINS. Its neuroscience institute, INM Jülich (Institut für Neurowissenschaften und Medizin), is the co-developer of DataLad, the distributed data management system now used across multiple international neuroscience data platforms, and a participant in NFDI Neuroscience.
The Max Planck Society operates several neuroscience institutes relevant to open data, including the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS, Leipzig), known for large-scale neuroimaging methodology development and open dataset releases, and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tübingen), active in computational neuroscience and perception research.
National Data Infrastructure
Germany’s ELIXIR node is de.NBI (German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure), which provides bioinformatics compute services, training, and data management support aligned with FAIR Principles, serving as the German node within the ELIXIR federation. G-Node (German Neuroinformatics Node), hosted at LMU Munich, is the German national node of INCF and the national neuroinformatics repository for electrophysiology, neurophysiology, and neuroimaging data, with ten-year preservation and GDPR compliance. Germany is also a member of BBMRI-ERIC through the German Biobank Node (GBN), which federates German biobank collections for cross-network discoverability.
International Engagement
DZNE and INM Jülich (Forschungszentrum Jülich) contribute to EBRAINS, the open brain research platform created by the Human Brain Project. Germany is a founding member of JPND and a participant in the ENIGMA Consortium. DataLad, developed at INM Jülich and Dartmouth College, underpins the data management layer of CONP and multiple BIDS-based data sharing workflows internationally. NFDI Neuroscience (NFDI-Neuro), part of the DFG-funded National Research Data Infrastructure, is the German consortium building FAIR RDM standards, tools, and training for the neuroscience community, in formal partnership with EBRAINS and co-led by G-Node.
For the open data repositories and standards maintained by German neuroinformatics infrastructure, including G-Node and NFDI Neuroscience, see Neuroimaging and Electrophysiology.