Source: Own Illustration
The research data management platform Coscine is becoming increasingly important: as of January 2026, 13 universities have already signed contracts to use it. Coscine is thus laying the foundation for FAIR data storage at universities and offering researchers a practical solution.
Coscine Grows Beyond Aachen
Coscine has been developed at RWTH Aachen University since 2018 and is now available to all participating universities in the DH.NRW. By signing the contracts, universities can not only use Coscine as an RDM platform for creating projects, collaborative work, and organized data management. They also gain access to redundant storage financed by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This storage system allows research data and associated metadata to be stored securely and shared with other researchers, within their own research group, or with external project partners, for example. Researchers at participating universities receive 100 GB of storage space per project. If more storage space is required or direct access to the storage system via S3 clients is desired, this can be achieved by submitting a storage space request.
Fair Distribution Through Peer Review
To ensure fair distribution of storage space among the participating universities, storage space requests are reviewed in a peer review process and evaluated according to defined criteria. This review process is carried out via the Coscine JARDS platform, and the universities’ RDM staff are trained as reviewers by Coscine Service Management.
Getting Started With Coscine Is Easy
If you are interested in using Coscine and your university is not one of the DH.NRW universities: Feel free to take a look at our offerings page and contact the Coscine team if you have any questions. We would be happy to present the various modules to you in a short appointment.
Learn More
Coscine not only offers access to storage space, but is also a platform that helps researchers to better organize their projects, share data efficiently, and implement the FAIR principles.
Would you like to receive regular updates about Coscine? Visit the Coscine website and sign up for the newsletter.
If you have any questions about Coscine or research data management, the RDM team at RWTH Aachen University is always available to help.
Responsible for the content of this article are Hania Eid and Katja Jansen.
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