Memorandum of Understanding; Taking over research data of other CLARIN-D centres

Motivation

Each CLARIN-D centre is also a data centre, hosting their own research data for citation and archiving. They also provide data management services for other researchers who need those services in research projects running for limited periods of time. As CLARIN-D is partially funded as a project, i.e. for a limited time period, CLARIN-D has taken measures from the beginning in order to provide sustainable data hosting environments beyond the project funding.

CLARIN-D is designed as a modular association of centres, sharing a common technical infrastructure and respecting standards. This modular architecture is a core part of the sustainability concept, which also demonstrates the interests of both the hosting institutions and the individual German states concerning the running and financing of the centres, besides the national interests.

CLARIN-D is currently financed by the Federal Republic of Germany (by the federal ministry of research and education) and seven German states, namely Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Saarland and Saxony. All CLARIN-D centres have also received long term commitments from their hosting institutions. 

To support the reliability of the data centres within the CLARIN-D initiative, the CLARIN-D centres intend to cooperate with each other to provide not only common interfaces for collaboration but also to provide fallback options in the case of the discontinuation of a task by one centre. 

Memorandum of Understanding for taking over research data by other CLARIN-D centres

CLARIN-D centres cooperate in the area of data management and intend to provide fallback options for each other. Hence the CLARIN-D centres agree on the following terms: 

  1. Each CLARIN-D centre supports the ideal of Open Access and tries to publish its own data freely for all types of academic research. CLARIN-D follows the recommendations of CLARIN-ERIC on the use of open licenses wherever possible.
  2. If a CLARIN-D centre is unable to archive its data sustainably, the centre is willing to share these data for archiving and distribution by the other CLARIN-D centres - independent of specific causes.
  3. If a CLARIN-D centre has to discontinue its archive and data management, the other CLARIN-D centres commit themselves to seek for opportunities to host the data of this centre. 
  4. This agreement is limited in the sense that there are research data collections for which the centre does not have the rights or licenses to share the data in parts or as a whole, due to legal obligations involving third parties such as data providers, etc. 
  5. This agreement is also limited due to the fact that a centre may not be able to take over the data of another centre, for example due to the size or the nature of the data. 
  6. Each CLARIN-D centre is requested to create an inventory of its data and include in its metadata the assessment of the data in terms of sharability based on legal or technical restrictions or an assessment of potential obstacles with its data if another centre were to take over the data, for example due to regulations in data hosting agreements. 

Contributing centres

Each CLARIN-D centre (see the list and description of Centres) is part of this agreement.