The specialised information service (FID) for gender research / gender studies is the first central infrastructure for the provision of academic information for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary gender research in Germany, which will increase the visibility and innovative strength of the discipline. The FID is supported by a consortium consisting of the Margherita von Brentano Centre at Freie Universit?t Berlin, the Centre for Transdiscilinary Gender Studies at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, the University Library at Humboldt-Universit?t, the GESIS - Leibniz Department of Social Sciences and the Qualiservice Research Data Centre at the University of Bremen. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the project with 1.75 million euros for an initial period of three years. With its focus on Open Access and Open Science, the new specialised information service strengthens the Berlin University Alliance's OpenX initiative for open science.
With its "Specialised Information Services for Science" funding programme, the DFG supports academic libraries and infrastructure facilities in the establishment and expansion of networked specialised information services as supra-regional, efficient and demand-oriented information infrastructures for science. Thanks to their networking and focus on digital services, specialised information services offer real added value compared to local information services. The DFG is currently funding 40 specialised information services throughout Germany.
Beate Binder, Centre for Transdiscilinary Gender Studies at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin (HU): "We are very pleased about the approval of a Specialised Information Service for Gender Studies. In future, this will provide gender researchers with a central location where they can access the diverse resources of the research field. At the same time, the productivity of gender studies with its diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches will become visible."
About the Specialised Information Service (FID)
The Specialised Information Service (FID) Gender Studies bundles existing research infrastructures and increases the supply of literature, research data services and networking opportunities in the research field. The new specialised information service will make research findings more accessible, easier to find and more visible. To this end, a centralised specialist portal for gender research will be launched on the Internet next year. The Digital German Women's Archive (DDF), with its feminist database and search engine META, will play a central role in making central collections on women's and gender history digitally accessible. The META catalogue provided by the DDF will be expanded as part of the FID. The DDF is supported by the umbrella organisation of German-speaking lesbian/women's archives, libraries and documentation centres (i.d.a.) and contributes its many years of expertise in the indexing and dissemination of feminist knowledge to the specialist information service.
The FID also develops subject-specific consulting and training services for sustainable research data management, supports research projects and highlights the potential for the re-use of research data. The specialised information service will also drive forward the open access transformation of gender research - for example by integrating the GenderOpen repository. Researchers benefit from this by making their own publications freely accessible, archiving their data or accessing quality-assured, subject-specific sources of information.
With its focus on Open Access and Open Science, the new specialised information service contributes to the achievement of central goals in the Berlin University Alliance. The promotion of Open Science practices is a central concern of the Excellence Alliance of Freie Universit?t Berlin, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Technische Universit?t Berlin and Charité - Universit?tsmedizin Berlin.