Community Survey on “Mapping Information Infrastructures”

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is planning a workshop on “Mapping Information Infrastructures” for the first quarter of 2027. The event forms part of the strategic dialogue process on the DFG discussion paper “Digital Research Practice and Cooperative Information Infrastructures”(Download) (2025), and the Committee on Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (AWBI) is responsible for the content.

Call for Participation

In order to ensure that the workshop programme is planned as closely as possible around the needs of the research community, we would first like to identify what the communities feel should be given priority in the mapping exercise. We want to hear your views on which services and structures should be included in the mapping exercise in order to best meet the needs of digital research practice. For this reason, the preliminary survey is aimed primarily at researchers, but also at developers and operators of information infrastructures.

The workshop itself will focus on the prerequisites and requirements for developing and maintaining such a mapping, the selection criteria to be applied and the steps needed to initiate its practical implementation (see here(interner Link) for details). To this end, potential users of a mapping of information infrastructures will be brought together with stakeholders who have relevant expertise and experience of comparable initiatives, including technical and organisational expertise.

Please get involved and help us ensure the format delivers the greatest possible added value for the research community. Preliminary survey: https://dfg-umfrage.limequery.org/588681(externer Link)

Multi-Stage Dialogue Format

The in-person workshop will be preceded by two online consultations: through the current community survey, the DFG aims to determine which thematic focus would best serve the communities, in other words which types of information infrastructure should be prioritised in the mapping exercise. The feedback received will be incorporated in the draft workshop programme. The second stage will involve an open call for further participation and additional topic suggestions. On this basis, the workshop programme will be finalised in the fourth quarter of 2026. 

Further Information 

For detailed information on the strategic dialogue process and the topics identified through discussions with the communities, see: www.dfg.de/en/basics-topics/digital-topics/dialogue-process(interner Link)