YOUR INSTITUTION

NFDI4Microbiota 
Prof. Dr. Konrad U. Förstner 
ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences Data Science and Services 
Gleueler Strasse 60 
50931 Cologne 
Germany 

DATE

Letter of commitment 

Dear Prof. Dr. Konrad Förstner, 

The ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences intends to submit the project proposal “National Research Data Infrastructure for Microbiota Research” (acronym of the consortium: NFDI4Microbiota) for the second funding phase (2026-2031) to the NFDI call for Consortia Proposals of the German Research Foundation (DFG), and to coordinate this consortium of 10 institutions (Bielefeld University, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Philipps-Universität Marburg, RWTH Aachen University, ZB MED) in case of approval. 

YOUR INSTITUTE / NETWORK - represented by the speaker YOUR NAME, expressly supports this application. 

[In a couple of sentences, please explain the gaps in your institute that NFDI4Microbiota could fill in if possible. E.g., “We are studying an increasing number of viruses (e.g., cucumber mosaic virus 4, turnip yellow mosaic virus, polio virus), and we will soon have to adopt good practices to systematically manage and process this growing amount of data. By supporting the microbiology community with metadata enrichment, (meta)data deposition, storage solutions, computational data analysis workflows, consultancy and trainings, NFDI4Microbiota would help us establish these good data management practices, leading to better data reuse and a more efficient research process.”] 

[In a couple of sentences, please specify your planned contributions to / interaction with NFDI4Microbiota. E.g., “Our research will benefit from NFDI4Microbiota’s services in the following way: faster data analysis, safe storage of data, efficient exchange of data with collaboration partners, establishment of electronic lab notebooks (ELN) in our laboratory, support in developing data management plans (DMP), significant capacity building in terms of research data management skills and knowledge graph creation for our research field. On the other hand, we can contribute expertise in viral metadata collection, standardisation of experimental protocols and provision of training events to NFDI4Microbiota.”]

As suggested we will also participate in the NFDI4Microbiota Ambassador programme and will provide a representative for it to facilitate the exchange.  Furthermore, we will actively encourage our staff to engage in community involvement and training events. Please feel free to contact me for questions or clarifications. 

Sincerely, 

YOUR SIGNATURE
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