Open Science in research funding policies in Austria and the supporting role of the TU Wien Centre for Research Data Management

After open data obligations by international funding agencies, Austrian funding bodies are now following suit, with the biggest funder of basic research starting to demand Data Management Plans and open data underlying publications from 2019. In practice, the demands of researchers, funders and cooperation partners are as diverse as the various research areas. Infrastructures for secure, protected access to data are just as important as staged access and solutions for making data available to the public. Research institutions must be increasingly equipped to provide orientation. The TU Wien has established a Center for Research Data Management to support researchers with handling their data along a project lifecycle and beyond. Questions regarding the long-term use of data are taken into consideration from the very beginning. A multidisciplinary team provides information on existing infrastructures and services for storing, archiving and publishing data, on organisational and legal framework conditions as well as on funders’ guidelines. The TU Wien will also develop automated research data management workflows in order to improve the quality and efficiency of research processes.