Accreditation and certification

The FDZ at the IQB is accredited by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) and certified with the CoreTrustSeal.

Accreditation by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) ðŸ”—

The FDZ at the IQB has been accredited by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) and bases its work on its criteria.

The RatSWD advises the Federal Government and the governments of the federal states on issues relating to the expansion and improvement of the research data infrastructure for the empirical social, behavioural and economic sciences. It is an institutionalised forum for exchange and dialogue between science and data production on improving access to high-quality and scientifically interesting data. Its tasks include

  • Strategic development of the research data infrastructure
  • Representation of interests of data producers and users
  • Accreditation and evaluation of the work of research data centres
  • European and international networking of research data infrastructures
  • Scientific and research-strategic exchange through dialogue events, symposia and the Conference for Social and Economic Data (KSWD)

Certification with the CoreTrustSeal (CTS) ðŸ”—

The FDZ at the IQB is certified with the CoreTrustSeal for trustworthy repositories.

Funding agencies are increasingly demanding that data resulting from projects they support be archived in the long term in accordance with an open data and data management policy and made available for subsequent use. Researchers must therefore ensure that their data can continue to be accessed reliably and unambiguously in the future and are therefore increasingly looking for trustworthy repositories. The CoreTrustSeal Foundation (CTS) - a legal entity under Dutch law with headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands - is a non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable and trustworthy data infrastructures. It has been in existence since January 2018 and is a merger of the predecessor certificates, the Data Seal of Approval (DAS) and the ICSU World Data System (ICSU-WDS). In practice, it is a kind of self-governing body of international experts from the field of research data archiving and data security who work on a voluntary basis (CoreTrustSeal). The so-called „CoreTrustSeal“ is a certificate for data archives that reflects trustworthiness, for example with regard to data protection and data security, but also to quality assurance of the archiving processes.

Such a certification helps to improve the quality and transparency of processes and to increase awareness of standards and compliance with these standards. In this way, processes could be optimised and workflows standardised and harmonised.

The certification of the FDZ at IQB with the "CoreTrustSeal" takes into account the efforts to permanently guarantee adequate quality assurance as well as a constant further development of the research data infrastructure and to be perceived as a trustworthy archiving partner also in the future. The certification proves to users and sponsors that the FDZ at IQB works seriously, according to established standards and internationally compatible.