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Overcoming the Reproducibility Crisis - Results of the first Community Survey of the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Neuroscience

View ORCID ProfileCarsten M. Klingner, View ORCID ProfileMichael Denker, Sonja Grün, Michael Hanke, View ORCID ProfileSteffen Oeltze-Jafra, View ORCID ProfileFrank W. Ohl, View ORCID ProfileJanina Radny, View ORCID ProfileStefan Rotter, Hansjörg Scherberger, Alexandra Stein, View ORCID ProfileThomas Wachtler, Otto W. Witte, View ORCID ProfilePetra Ritter
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.07.487439
Carsten M. Klingner
1Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Germany
2Biomagnetic Center, Jena University Hospital, Germany
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  • For correspondence: carsten.klingner@med.uni-jena.de petra.ritter@charite.de
Michael Denker
16Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) and Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS- 6) and JARA-Institute Brain Structure-Function Relationships (INM-10), Jülich Research Centre, Jülich, Germany
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Sonja Grün
16Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) and Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS- 6) and JARA-Institute Brain Structure-Function Relationships (INM-10), Jülich Research Centre, Jülich, Germany
17Theoretical Systems Neurobiology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
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Michael Hanke
13Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain & Behaviour (INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany
14Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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Steffen Oeltze-Jafra
18Department of Neurology, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany
19Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, Hannover Medical School, Germany
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Frank W. Ohl
20Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN), Magdeburg Germany
21Center for Behavioral Brain Science (CBBS), Magdeburg Germany
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Janina Radny
8Bernstein Coordination Site, INM-6 - Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
9University of Freiburg, Germany
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Stefan Rotter
15Bernstein Center Freiburg & Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Germany
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Hansjörg Scherberger
11Deutsches Primatenzentrum GmbH – Leibniz-Institut für Primatenforschung, Göttingen
12Faculty of Biology and Psychology, University of Goettingen, Germany
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Alexandra Stein
8Bernstein Coordination Site, INM-6 - Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
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Thomas Wachtler
10Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
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Otto W. Witte
1Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Germany
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Petra Ritter
3Berlin Institute of Health at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
4Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology, Brain Simulation Section, Berlin, Germany
5Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany
6Einstein Center for Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany
7Einstein Center Digital Future, Berlin, Germany
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  • For correspondence: carsten.klingner@med.uni-jena.de petra.ritter@charite.de
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Abstract

The lack of reproducibility of research results is a serious problem – known as “the reproducibility crisis”. The German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) initiative implemented by the German Research Foundation (DFG) aims to help overcoming this crisis by developing sustainable solutions for research data management (RDM). NFDI comprises domain specific consortia across all science disciplines. In the field of neuroscience, NFDI Neuroscience (NFDI-Neuro) contributes to the strengthening of systematic and standardized RDM in its research communities. NFDI-Neuro conducted a comprehensive survey amongst the neuroscience community to determine the current needs, challenges, and opinions with respect to RDM. The outcomes of this survey are presented here. The German neuroscience community perceives barriers with respect to RDM and data sharing mainly linked to (1) lack of data and metadata standards, (2) lack of community adopted provenance tracking methods, 3) lack of a privacy preserving research infrastructure for sensitive data (4) lack of RDM literacy and (5) lack of required time and resources for proper RDM. NFDI-Neuro aims to systematically address these barriers by leading and contributing to the development of standards, tools, and infrastructure and by providing training, education, and support, as well as additional resources for RDM to its research community. The RDM work of NFDI-Neuro is conducted in close collaboration with its partner EBRAINS AISBL, the coordinating entity of the EU Flagship Human Brain Project, and its Research Infrastructure (RI) EBRAINS with more than 5000 registered users and developers from more than 70 countries of all continents. While NFDI-Neuro aims to address the German national needs, it closely aligns with the international community and the topics of the Digital Europe Program and EU Data Spaces.

Significance Statement A comprehensive survey amongst the neuroscience community in Germany determined the current needs, challenges, and opinions with respect to standardized research data management (RDM) to overcome the reproducibility crisis. Significant deficits were pointed out concerning the perceived lack of standards for data and metadata, lack of provenance tracking and versioning of data, lack of protected digital research infrastructure for sensitive data and the lack of education and resources for proper RDM. Yet, at the same time, an overwhelming majority of community members indicated that they would be willing to share their data with other researchers and are interested to increase their RDM skills. Thus, the survey results suggest that training, the provision of standards, tools, infrastructure and additional resources for RDM holds the potential to significantly facilitate reproducible research in neuroscience.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • https://gin.g-node.org/NFDI-Neuro/SurveyData

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted April 11, 2022.
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Overcoming the Reproducibility Crisis - Results of the first Community Survey of the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Neuroscience
Carsten M. Klingner, Michael Denker, Sonja Grün, Michael Hanke, Steffen Oeltze-Jafra, Frank W. Ohl, Janina Radny, Stefan Rotter, Hansjörg Scherberger, Alexandra Stein, Thomas Wachtler, Otto W. Witte, Petra Ritter
bioRxiv 2022.04.07.487439; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.07.487439
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Overcoming the Reproducibility Crisis - Results of the first Community Survey of the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Neuroscience
Carsten M. Klingner, Michael Denker, Sonja Grün, Michael Hanke, Steffen Oeltze-Jafra, Frank W. Ohl, Janina Radny, Stefan Rotter, Hansjörg Scherberger, Alexandra Stein, Thomas Wachtler, Otto W. Witte, Petra Ritter
bioRxiv 2022.04.07.487439; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.07.487439

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