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Law

Legal questions about research data arise regarding authorship and rights of use (including licences) as well as data protection. Even though many legal questions about data are easy to answer, there is still a great deal of uncertainty in the field of research, which leads to a need for action (see also GWK 2018; Lauber-Rönsberg/Krahn/Baumann 2018 (GER)). Clear principles of action and regulations are needed to enable and facilitate legally compliant conduct by researchers.  

The HeFDI universities have provided researchers with orientation in the form of guidelines or policies adopted at all universities. At the same time, however, the need for information and support concerning the entire spectrum of possible legal issues has remained high in the course of counselling and further contacts with researchers. In order to meet this need, cooperation between different organisational units at the respective higher education institution and joint support for researchers are necessary.

The local service points for research data provide university members with information on legal issues relating to research data. They have built up in-depth expertise at some locations and developed an information graphic. In addition, they link existing local competences and resources to support researchers. HeFDI is also involved in establishing supra-regional networking on the topic.