During International Love Data Week, which this year will focus on the question "Where's the data?", the University of Graz will host a full-day event on this topic.

The FAIR & AI Symposium, organised under Cluster Forschungsdaten, brought together a vibrant community of researchers, infrastructure specialists, data stewards, and policy experts to explore one of today’s most pressing intersections: the evolving relationship between FAIR research data and artificial intelligence (AI). Held in the magnificent Aula of TU Graz’ historic main building, the rich program sparked lively discussions on how data management and AI development can advance together in a responsible and sustainable way.

We would like to draw your attention to the university course "Data Steward" and invite you in advance to the free online information event on Wednesday, 3 December 2025.

The annual project meeting of “Shared RDM” took place at Graz University of Technology from September 23 to 24. The focus was on how cooperation between universities can be continued on a sustainable basis even after the official end of the project.

On September 8 and 9, the University of Vienna invited Austrian and international guests to an open science exchange.

The second edition of the Conference on Research Data Infrastructure (CoRDI) brought together national and international experts in Aachen from August 26 to 28, 2025. The venue was the C.A.R.L. lecture hall center at RWTH Aachen University. The event offered a diverse program of keynotes, presentations, poster sessions, and a “market of opportunities”—all united under the guiding principle of generating more knowledge through the effective use of research data.

Members of Graz University of Technology and TU Wien participated in this year's partner workshop in Hamburg as part of the InvenioRDM community—a dynamic and collaborative event that drives the future of InvenioRDM.

RIS Synergy, a project funded by the BMBWF as part of the ‘Digital and Social Transformation in Higher Education’ call, has come to an end after a period of 4 years and 10 months. Around 80 participants attended the final event, taking place on 5 March 2025 at TUtheSky, with a project presentation, panel discussion and a festive conclusion.

As part of the RIS Synergy subproject 2, a concept study on a national research portal for Austria was conducted and has now been published.

On February 17-19, our colleagues Andrés Tabima, Valentin Futterer (both TU Wien) and Laura Thaci (TU Graz) presented their work at the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) in The Hague.

On Tuesday, 19th November, 2024, the last RIS Office of the project period took place at TU Wien. Over the past few years, the RIS Office proved itself as a tried-and-tested co-working mode: Once a month, different partner institutions invited the project team to come visit and work together.

The conference Kubernetes Community Days Austria brings over 400 international cloudnatives to Vienna on Oct 8-10 2024.

TUW offered again the lecture series „Hands-On Cloud Native“ during SommerSemester 2024. Open to all Austrian Universities at the faculty for computer science during 13 four-hour lectures.

On 10th and 11th October, another RIS Synergy consortium meeting took place at the University of Vienna. The meeting’s focal points were the concept study for a national research portal and the consolidation of RIS Synergy’s project results.

The second project meeting following the project launch in July 2023 was held at Graz University of Technology on 17 and 18 September. After just over a year of project duration, the focus was on the review of the first project phase and the outlook for the following phases.

This year, the Austrian Bioinformatics Workshop took place on July 3, 2024, at the Medical University of Graz.

The Public Relations Working Group, consisting of members of TU Graz, TU Wien and the University of Vienna, drew up a manifesto in the run-up to the symposium "Cross-Cutting Research Support Services", which took place on 14 May 2024.

The FAIR-IMPACT National Roadshow visited Austria on June 18th. This event was hosted by the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) as part of “Shared RDM Services & Infrastructure” project. Around 50 participants from Austria and beyond joined to explore the latest advancements in Open Science within the country and to learn about outcomes from EOSC-related projects, including FAIR-IMPACT.

In collaboration with expert representatives of different portals, RIS Synergy produced a screencast about national and regional research portals.

This year’s EARMA Conference took place 23-25 April in Odense, Denmark. Representatives of the project consortium introduced an international audience to the RIS Synergy interfaces and the concept study for a national research portal.

The 16th International Conference on Current Research Information Systems (CRIS2024) took place at the TU Wien from May 15 to 17, 2024. CRIS 2024 is the sixteenth edition in a biennial series of conferences on CRIS systems. The conferences are organised by euroCRIS, with this year’s CRIS 2024 locally organised by RIS Synergy, the TU Vienna and the University of Vienna. The conference brought together around 200 international experts in research information systems.

CRIS2024 took place from May 15 to 17, 2024, at TU Wien. It is the 16th conference in a series of international events held every two years by euroCRIS on the topic of research information systems (abbreviated CRIS: current research information systems).

Short biographies of our speakers at the Cross-Cutting Research Support Services symposium on 14 May 2024.

In a move towards enhancing data interoperability and accessibility, FAIRCORE4EOSC.eu extends a unique invitation to researchers, developers, and institutions to test our cutting-edge components today and shape the future of data management within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

RIS Synergy is one of the user-centric case studies discussed in the FAIRECORE4EOSC podcast episode about the European Integration of National-Level Services. We talk about concrete use cases, persistent identifiers, some of the technical challenges faced by the CRIS community, and more.

The representatives of the Research Data Cluster invite you to attend the symposium "Cross-cutting Research Support Services". Find out about current projects, learn about European implementations and discuss the challenges of the future.

Eine Delegation der Projekte ARI&Snet und RIS Synergy der TU Wien und der Universität Wien, besuchte SRCE, das Rechenzentrum der Universität Zagreb. Während drei Tagen wurde eine ausführliche Übersicht aller Services des zentralisierten Rechenzentrums geboten.

A delegation from the ARI&Snet and RIS Synergy projects of TU Wien and the University of Vienna visited SRCE, the computer centre of the University of Zagreb.

CRIS 2024 is the sixteenth edition in a biennial series of conferences devoted to improving the availability of and access to research information systems across Europe.

The Journal for Higher Education Development (ZFHE) published the Special Issue Research in November 2023.

On November 28th and 29th 2023, a large RIS Synergy project meeting took place at TU Wien and was attended by colleagues from almost all project partners.

The euroCRIS Strategic Membership Meeting took place in Pamplona from 21 to 23 November 2023.

In November 2023, a workshop hosted at TU Graz marked a noteworthy milestone in fostering collaboration between the Shared RDM Services & Infrastructure and ARI&Snet projects, both recipients of the BMBWF awards within the Cluster Research Data.

On 20 September 2023, the ARI&Snet kick-off meeting with all project partners took place at TU Wien.

September 2023 saw the first time that our monthly RIS Office Day took place at the University of Innsbruck. On September 26th and 27th, the project.service.office invited RIS Synergy colleagues to the Technology Campus of the University of Innsbruck.

A RIS Synergy delegation presented project results at the EUNIS 2023 conference. These were now published in the article “RIS Synergy – Creating a Common Language Across Institutions: Lessons Learned and Challenges”.

The project Shared RDM Infrastructure and Services official Kick-Off took place during the 5th and 6th of July at the Technische Universität Graz. The project Shared RDM Infrastructure and Services aims to create a framework for offering selected tools and infrastructures in the field of RDM as shared services for Austrian universities and research institutions.

At the EUNIS 2023 Congress in Vigo, Spain, a delegation of the RIS Synergy consortium presented project findings and discussed future challenges with the participants in the IT Support for Research track.

The Austrian DataLAB and Services project organised a workshop with training in the context of an Austrian-wide science cloud.

The RIS Synergy project consortium has grown again. The OeAD (Agency for Education and Internationalisation) joined the consortium which has now grown to 18 project partners.

The way is paved for improved research data management and effective collaboration.

The RIS Synergy project takes significant steps towards digitizing the research landscape in Austria. By setting standards, digitizing services, and networking expertise, a sustainable and forward-looking basis for research operations is created.

On 17 and 18 April, about 50 participants of the RIS Synergy consortium met for a two-day project meeting at the University of Klagenfurt.

30 hours of lectures/exercises and 2 Capture the Flag events have taken place, and just in time for the Easter holidays, we are taking stock to reflect on the feedback...

This year, RIS Synergy took part in the International Love Data Week, organised by ICPSR and the University of Michigan, with a live event at the University of Vienna.

The RIS Synergy project consortium has grown again. The Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) and the University for Continuing Education Krems (UWK) joined the RIS Synergy project.

Austria receives large EU-Grant to enable hosting interactive environments for collaborating on and sharing high-performance-compute codes on GCP via the European Open Science Cloud.

In this after-work event, we will spend an hour discussing relevant data for a potential national research portal in Austria.

The Austrian DataLAB and Services project is proud to have taken the first step with OpenScienceLabs towards publishing the blueprints developed in this project in full.

On 17 January 2023, we were able to present the first version of the functional prototype of the call input tool (“Eingabetool“) at a RIS Synergy Meeting at TU Wien.

In the fall of 2022, after months of intensive work, the documentation of the Program Information interface was completed and released for RIS Synergy partners.

Some project members travelled to the Strategic Membership Meeting in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, from 30th November to 2nd December, 2022. We presented the project and announced the organisation of the CRIS2024 Conference in cooperation with RIS Synergy at TU Wien.

European Open Science Cloud - Kick-Off successful at the Vienna Scientific Cluster

On November 16 and 17, the RIS Synergy consortium met for a two-day project meeting at TU Wien.

The Austrian DataLAB and Services project is organising and holding a lecture on the topic of Hands-On Cloud Native.

October 2022 saw the first time that our monthly RIS Office Day took place outside of Vienna.

About our successes, results and further cooperation.

Collaboration and diversity are cornerstones of RIS Synergy. In this spirit, the consortium produced a short video exploring a key question at the heart of the project: Have you ever considered how much metadata researchers and research support staff need to manage during a research project? From vision to goals and results, the following video introduces the RIS Synergy consortium:

Every last Tuesday of the month between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., the RIS team invites you to work together, exchange ideas and network at changing partner locations.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the RIS Synergy public relations working group, a delegation of various project partners travelled to Lake Wörth (Wörthersee) at the invitation of the Research Support Services department at the University of Klagenfurt.

Now freely available.

Together with the project FAIR Data Austria, RIS Synergy has organised a webinar on the topic of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs), which took place on April 27th.

A successful event focusing on results, competencies, and goals for year three.

The projects funded by the BMBWF for the “Digital and Social Transformation” call gave a status update as part of a workshop of the Policy Committee on Digitalization (uniko – Universities Austria).

At the invitation of the Policy Committee on Research, we presented the Research Data Cluster and its goals and tasks to the Vice Rectors of Research of all Austrian universities on 15 November 2021.

The interface for the exchange of financial project data for the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) went live in July 2021. Until 30 September 2021, universities could transmit the 2020 annual project accounting data for §27 projects using the new interface for the first time. The data was sent from SAP directly to the FWF.

On September 2 and 3, 2021, after a project period of one and a half years, the first face-to-face meeting finally took place in order to deepen the previous, very productive online collaboration.

On September 2nd and 3rd, the RIS Synergy project meeting will take place at the TU Wien, which will be held in person for the first time since the start of the project in March 2020 due to corona. Cooperation partners from a total of 14 Austrian partner universities and funding agencies will take part in the meeting.

The “Programme Information” team will implement the first component in the implementation phase of the project.

The initiative commits to connecting research communities and service providers.

On June 15th and 16th the first ADLS Hackathon took place in Vienna. The project team met at the Science Center of TU Vienna located in the Arsenal to work together on different work packages of the project.

During the analysis phase, we surveyed, coordinated and documented a consolidated funding and project process.

Over the past few weeks the ADLS team has been working on the implementation of a mockup for the future user portal.

In a meeting on 15 March 2021, we officially launched Subproject 2: Concept Study for a Research Portal.

We prioritised the previously defined use case groups (UCGs) in online voting and thus determined the most urgent UCGs as pilots for implementation. In an online follow-up meeting with all project partners, we defined five new working groups that now take responsibility for implementing and piloting the interfaces and going live with them.

Interesting presentations and lively feedback

Would you like to know more about our project or download information in pdf format?

The aim of the interviews was to determine what requirements, areas of responsibility, skills and competences are expected of them.

Each working group presented its results of the analysis phase in an online project meeting with approx. 50 participants of all 14 project partners, taking place on 27 January 2021.

Presentations and discussions on objectives, status, and cooperation in the project

The unisap-FWF interface for the transmission of project accounting data will be realised within the RIS Synergy project.

The preliminary concept report is now available.

Results of an intensive and successful workshop held by the project partners at TU Graz.

First steps towards developing a business model

The project was presented at the FIS/CRIS network meeting, where numerous employees of Austrian universities and research institutions participated.

On 23 September 2020, a virtual RIS Synergy project meeting with the participating project partner organisations took place. Working groups presented the results of the analysis phase up to now.

About the FAIR Principles, Data Stewardship, and DMPs