GHGA presents progress at NFDI Interim Report Symposium

  • 07 Feb 2024
  • Nina Gasparoni

In 2023, the first round of National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) funded consortia was evaluated by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The basis for this evaluation was the submission of interim reports by the consortia in September 2023. 

An evaluation symposium of the NFDI Interim Reports on 6 February at the DFG in Bonn brought together representatives of the evaluated NFDI-consortia (DataPLANT, NFDI4BioDiversity, NFDI4Cat, NFDI4Chem, KonsortSWD, NFDI4Culture, GHGA, NFDI4Health, NFDI4Ing), members of the NFDI expert panel, guests from the working group for structural evaluation of the NFDI (Wissenschaftsrat), the scientific senate of the NFDI and representatives of the DFG Head Office. The evaluated consortia, including GHGA, presented a comprehensive overview of the progress of their projects to date followed each by 40 minutes of questions.

GHGA's Board of Directors - Oliver Stegle, Oliver Kohlbacher, Jan Korbel and Eva Winkler - together with GHGA co-spokesperson Juliane Winkelmann introduced GHGA's achievements and future plans in a 20-minute presentation. Covering key concepts and progress towards a distributed national infrastructure embedded in European health data spaces, the presentation outlined the federation concept of GHGA and its data hubs as well as first products such as the GHGA Metadata Catalog and Metadata Model, GHGA Archive 0.9, and community workflows. In addition, community outreach and ELSI activities were emphasised, touching on engagement, events and training for and with scientists and the public, patient engagement efforts, consent modules and legal frameworks. The presentation also highlighted the successful collaboration and alignment with national and international partners and consortia such as NFDI, genomDE, fEGA and GDI.

The positive response to the presentation and the constructive exchange with the members of the NFDI Expert Panel and NFDI4Health underline the important role of the GHGA in the national research data infrastructure, connecting national and European health data spaces.