Positive signal for funding phase 2: NFDI4Biodiversity's work deemed "highly relevant to the scientific community"

After representatives of the consortium presented the work program for a second funding phase in Bonn in November, the network has now received the eagerly awaited results of the scientific review conducted by the DFG reviewers.

The new year begins with encouraging news for the NFDI4Biodiversity network: Yesterday, Wednesday, January 15, the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced the results of the scientific review of the continuation proposal — and delivered a very positive assessment. The work of the consortium was deemed to be “highly relevant to the scientific community” and was praised for having developed an “outstanding momentum in terms of mobilizing and providing biodiversity data” during the first funding phase.

The established organizational structure is perceived as “excellent” and “exemplary”. The involvement of the biodiversity data community – one of the declared pillars of the consortium – is also rated as “extremely successful” and the “achievements of the consortium in terms of activating stakeholders”, for example through targeted training activities, are again rated as “exemplary”. Special attention is also paid to central innovations in the second funding phase: so-called Topic Tables are intended to further strengthen the self-organization and innovation of the community. In addition, Flexfunds calls offer regular opportunities to implement community-driven projects.

In addition, the reviewers emphasize that NFDI4Biodiversity – already “excellently networked” nationally – could also prove to be an important player internationally: “There is great potential that the consortium, which has a leading role in research data management for biodiversity data in Germany, could also achieve this internationally.”

“[The] consortium has succeeded in harnessing the momentum in the debate on the importance of biodiversity and [...] generating outstanding momentum in terms of mobilizing and providing biodiversity data.”

"With this vote, we have established an excellent starting position for the next step, namely the funding recommendation that will be made by the NFDI expert group to the GWK," explains Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, spokesperson for NFDI4Biodiversity. The statement also demonstrates how deeply the review group has engaged with the consortium's work – "which is very gratifying to read." 

All the more valuable are the suggestions from the reviewers regarding further work starting in September of this year. For example, the assessment suggests developing usage statistics to better quantify successes within specific communities. It also recommends to strategically establish more international partnerships to create additional value for the community.

Whether the consortium will be allowed to put its plans into action will be decided in the summer of 2025, when the Joint Science Conference (GWK) issues its vote. "But for now, it’s time to pause and give ourselves a pat on the back!" says Barbara Ebert, Deputy Spokesperson of the consortium. “A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this result with their analytical minds, hard work, and experience!”