ZB MED’s projects focus on developing services to provide practical solutions for specific applications in science and research. By combining innovative market research with its cutting-edge projects, ZB MED seeks to answer key questions such as: Where is research currently heading? What do users expect from a specialist information institution? And how can we determine which trends are relevant?
All the projects carried out at ZB MED have one goal in common, namely that “projects should generate products – or parts of a product”.
We are currently working on the following projects:
AQUAS
AQUAS seeks to combat disinformation in the life sciences using an application based on artificial intelligence. Its goal is to divide previously unseen texts into three categories, classifying them as either science, popular science or disinformation. AQUAS also highlights whether publications comply with the principles of good research practice, thereby providing further clues to possible instances of disinformation.
Base4NFDI
Base4NFDI develops basic services for the entire German science and research community. Unlike other NFDI consortia, Base4NFDI does not focus on a specific set of technical or methodological skills and competencies. Instead, it strives to create a portfolio of interdisciplinary services that will benefit all the NFDI consortia.
BfR ontology
ZB MED is developing an ontology for feed and food production processes, i.e. a representation of specific terms in the domain. The resulting BfR ontology will make it possible to create a consistent and explicit formal description of knowledge within the domain and to highlight existing interconnections.
BIONT
BIONT is an international consortium focused on establishing a top-quality training programme and community aimed at fostering digital skills in the life sciences.
DiASPora
The project "Digital Approaches for the Synthesis of Poorly Accessible Biodiversity Information" focuses on the biodiversity of bacteria. For this purpose, existing information is gathered and processed from a wide range of sources.
DOV-QuaPub
This project will conduct a fundamental overhaul of the DINI-OAI Validator, a tried-and-tested tool used to determine a service’s eligibility to receive the DINI Certificate for Open Access Publication Services.
EmiMin
The “EmiMin – Reducing emissions from livestock rearing – Individual measures” project focuses on emission factors and potential ways of reducing emissions from livestock sheds. EmiMin is a collaborative project involving six partners. ZB MED is in charge of developing a systematic method of managing the data.
FAIRagro
The consortium FAIRagro was successful in the third funding round of the NFDI. Key objectives include developing standards for data publishing and interoperability based on FAIR data principles as well as developing services – in particular a search portal – and running training and development activities within the expert community.
GRADitude
GRADitude is a modular tool that performs all the steps required to translate sequencing and mass spectrometry data from Grad-Seq experiments into a list of potential molecular complexes.
LSData.NET
The goal of this initial project is to develop a concept for a data competence centre. Putting this concept into practice would be the subject of a follow-up project.
Machine-actionable Software Management Plans
The project aimes to develop software management plans, which are machine-actionable.
MAK Collection
The List of MAK and BAT Values of the DFG - an overview of occupational substances hazardous to health - is published by PUBLISSO. Open Access, with search and filter functions and quality assured.
NFDI4DataScience
The NFDI4DataScience consortium is focusing on the development of a research data infrastructure for data science and artificial intelligence. ZB MED is one of 15 partners.
NFDI4Health
Embedded in the national research data infrastructure, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at nfdi4health aims to establish an infrastructure for personal health data. ZB MED is coordinating the consortium.
NFDI4Microbiota
NFDI4Microbiota’s mission is to support the microbiology research community in Germany by providing access to data, data analysis tools, and data and metadata standards, as well as a comprehensive range of training programmes.
OAPEnz
The PUBLISSO publishing platform is expanding into disciplines beyond the life sciences. As part of a collaborative project, the German Political Science Association (DVPW) will be working with the Barbara Budrich publishing company to publish an encyclopedic handbook using the PUBLISSO infrastructure. Over the course of the project, ZB MED will be developing and enhancing PUBLISSO to create a freely accessible platform that is open to all standard publication types.
PIXLS
Most of the information published on preprint servers does not currently appear in conventional reference and search systems. The goal of this project is to access and index this information in order to make it more discoverable and reusable.
sRNARegNet
The sRNARegNet project carries out a comparative analysis of the regulatory networks of small RNA in Gammaproteobacteria. The aim is to find small, regulating RNAs in order to obtain information on their functions and to be able to predict them.
STELLA II
STELLA II is a continuation of the successfully completed STELLA project, which was also funded by the DFG. The project partners are expanding the existing evaluation infrastructure for search and recommender systems.
Task Force COVID-19
The Task Force COVID-19 originated from the NFDI4Health initiative with the aim of improving the management of public health data on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thieme transformation licence
As part of its funding programme for nationwide licensing deals, the German Research Foundation is funding a transformation licence for the Thieme journal Hormone and Metabolic Research. ZB MED and the Forschungszentrum Jülich have formed a consortium for this purpose together with thirteen other specialist libraries.
