ZEF Data Portal

ZEF’s scientific knowledge is based on empirical field work carried out by our researchers in their study areas predominantly in the Global South. During these field trips information, here referred to as “data”, are collected and digitized in order to generate new knowledge. Whereas knowledge sharing by scientific publishing is as old as science is, data sharing has become more important over the last decades. Research data become a sustainable resource when they are made publicly available and easily accessible. In addition to strengthening transparency and credibility in science by, among others, permitting anybody to reproduce research findings, open access to data facilitates its future use for research we currently may not contemplate about. Time and effort in research can be reduced significantly when existing data as well as data products (e.g. maps) are catalogued in the web and thus easily to find, have access to and use.
These are just some of the reasons why ZEF opens parts of its data stock to the scientific as well as non-scientific public by establishing a new web-based Data Portal. A particular aim is to share data with ZEF’s partners in the Global South.
Due to the interdisciplinary character of our research, the data range from bio-physical measurements to socio-economic surveys. Based on a "ZEF Data Management Policy", covering issues of data rights, and protecting user and data rights, some data may be temporarily not downloadable or only accessible upon direct request to the data-providing scientist. ZEF scientists who would like to use the ZEF Data Portal to catalog and publish their data, or for non-public exchange of data within working groups or with partners, please contact the research data manager.