Guiding Principles
Equipping scientists and scholars with the information infrastructure best suited to meeting their research needs is the guiding principle of this priority initiative. In the digital age, this entails digital access to publications, primary research data, and virtual research and communication environments, available to the user without costs or other barriers. It also requires a sustainable, integrated digital research environment that can provide all German researchers the broadest possible access to published knowledge and the relevant primary research data.
An integrated and innovative information environment is most effective when established within both a national and an international context. The partners within the Alliance of German Science Organisations are committed to increasing Germany’s competitiveness in world-class research by concentrating competencies and resources, and improving the coordination of current and future activities. In particular, they are prepared to coordinate their basic political and professional decisions in the area of digital information, to bundle the financial resources that they employ for this purpose and, if necessary, to provide additional resources.
The Alliance of German Science Organisations therefore agree to coordinate the activities of the individual partner organisations and to expand on the ideal of the innovative information environment by means of a Joint Priority Initiative from 2008 to 2012 with the following goals:
- to guarantee the broadest possible access to digital publications, digital data and other source materials
- to utilise digital media to create the ideal conditions for the distribution and reception of publications related to German research
- to ensure the long-term availability of the digital media and contents that have been acquired from around the world and their integration in the digital research environment
- to support collaborative research by means of innovative information technologies.
The partners within the Alliance of German Science Organisations agree to coordinate and bundle their resources and activities in the following priority areas:
