FIZ Karlsruhe is a member of the Leibniz Association and at the same time an infrastructure institution, thus combining the neutrality, independence and reliability of an institution with a public mandate with the high professionalism of a service provider that has been successful on the international information market for decades.
FIZ Karlsruhe researches, develops and operates methods, processes and services for a sustainable information infrastructure - and offers data, information and knowledge, software and services via open and legally compliant platforms. This supports the value creation process in science and innovation at all stages. This strategy is implemented in four program units:
Patent & Scientific Information
In the Patent & Scientific Information program unit, we deal with the analysis, structuring and indexing of subject-specific information, which mainly originates from publications in scientific journals and patent specifications. The standardized, quality-assured and continuously updated data is made available in a timely manner via specific information services. In order to ensure the state of the art of these services, we conduct corresponding research. The target groups are users in both research-based industry and science. For example, we have joined forces with three other Leibniz institutes in the "Patents4Science" project to jointly establish an information infrastructure for the easy use of patent knowledge for science and to develop the first knowledge graph for patent information.
Subject-Specific Services
In the Subject-Specific Services program unit, we develop and operate globally recognized information services for the subject areas of mathematics, crystallography, and energy. For this purpose, we develop and aggregate relevant sources. All services are aimed at scientists in research, the information service in the field of energy in particular at basic research.
e-Research
In the e-Research program unit, we carry out infrastructure-oriented research projects in the digital humanities and in research data management, and develop and operate corresponding services. The close integration of consulting, conception, development and operation leads to a continuous transfer of our research results into practical applications. Our work focuses on the research data repository RADAR and the German Digital Library.
Research and teaching
This program unit comprises two research areas with corresponding professorships at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In the research area Information Service Engineering (ISE), we investigate models and methods for semantic indexing, aggregation, and networking as well as for retrieval of extensive heterogeneous and distributed data sources. In the research area Intellectual Property Rights (IGR), we analyze copyright requirements and reform developments and develop recommendations for digital science as well as copyright and licensing solutions - e.g., for open access, big data applications, or networked teaching formats.
In addition, FIZ Karlsruhe is playing a major role in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Now that the third and final round of funding from the federal and state governments has ended, FIZ Karlsruhe is involved in nine of the 27 research consortia and, with its expertise in the areas of research data management and knowledge graphs, data policies, data protection and IT security law, plays an important role in the further development of the NFDI.
