Abstract
Science conducted in cross-institutional, interdisciplinary, long-term research projects requires active sharing of data, documents and further information. Thus, within the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio 32 ‘Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems’, funded by the German Research Foundation, research data management (RDM) services have been available since early 2007. These services were established to support all researchers during their entire individual research studies. They cover provision of general guidance, support and training for RDM. To fulfil the scientists’ needs and requests with regard to storage, backup, documentation, search and sharing of data with other project members, a project-specific RDM system was designed and implemented. This system was developed and continuously modified in collaboration with the scientists to facilitate their system acceptance. Besides the mentioned services, the system supports further common services such as controlled access to data, rights management, data publication with DOI and data statistics (on repository and single data level). All RDM services provided for the scientists are thus bundled and available to the users in one system: a ‘one-stop-shop’. After more than ten years of RDM service provision for the CRC/TR32, the repository statistics clearly visualize the use of the diverse RDM system services. Furthermore, it has been shown that an RDM adapted to the needs of interdisciplinary researchers can be fruitful and indispensable when scientists conduct their research study e.g. with a time lag. RDM services established at an early stage can contribute to a successful long-term research project.