On 24–25 March 2026, the 3rd NFDI4Energy Conference brought together researchers, research infrastructure providers, and research data management (RDM) experts in Aachen under the motto “Defining Energy Research Data Management Together.” Organized by NFDI4Energy in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University, the conference provided a forum to discuss current developments, exchange best practices, and strengthen collaboration around FAIR research data and software in interdisciplinary energy research. The programme featured interactive workshops, scientific presentations, poster sessions, and a market of consortia, fostering exchange across disciplines and NFDI initiatives.
The close connection between engineering and energy research is reflected in the long-standing collaboration between NFDI4ING and NFDI4Energy. As both consortia address many of the same research data management challenges, NFDI4ING naturally played an active role in this year’s conference programme.
On the second day, NFDI4ING spokesperson Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Schmitt delivered the keynote “How NFDI4ING tackles interdisciplinary Research Data Management in the Engineering Sciences.” In his presentation, he highlighted the heterogeneous and increasingly data-driven nature of engineering research and demonstrated why interdisciplinary research data management is essential for enabling FAIR and reusable research. Using an AI-supported additive manufacturing use case, he illustrated typical challenges such as integrating heterogeneous data sources, managing large data volumes, and ensuring reproducibility throughout the research process. Building on this example, he showcased how NFDI4ING’s service portfolio supports researchers across the entire data lifecycle, from data management planning and semantic metadata to storage, publication, and reuse, providing practical solutions tailored to engineering research.
In addition, NFDI4ING was represented through its collaborative work with NFDI4Energy. The joint contribution presented a task-based semantic framework designed to improve the discovery, interoperability, and reuse of research software and other digital research artefacts. A central challenge addressed by the project is that the purpose and functionality of research software are often described only in free text, making automated discovery and integration difficult.
To address this, the project introduces a hierarchical Open Energy Task Ontology, in which research tasks are formally described with clear definitions and semantic relationships. This machine-readable representation enables software, datasets, publications, researchers, and organisations to be linked through the research tasks they support, facilitating more effective search, workflow construction, and interoperability across infrastructures. The framework is being integrated into existing knowledge graph infrastructures and demonstrates how semantic technologies can strengthen FAIR research data management across disciplinary boundaries. The extended abstract is available in the conference proceedings: “Task-Based Semantic Framework for Organizing Energy Research”, P. Kuckertz, M. Stappel, O. Karras, S. Ferenz, J. Göpfert, T. Hartono, J. M. Weinand. The work exemplifies the close collaboration between NFDI4ING and NFDI4Energy in developing interoperable solutions that benefit both the engineering and energy research communities.
Thorsten Schwetje