RDM in a centralized university ecosystem – A case study of the University of Cologne

Central research data support structures on the university level are usually addressed by the central information-infrastructure providers like university libraries and computing/IT centers. There are several German examples, where also the university research management office and/ or the university's leadership are involved. Besides networking, a critical question that remains is, what model of cooperation and what degree of centralization or decentralization should be chosen. Likely, there will be marked differences between individual universities. The University of Cologne is an old university, which historically developed highly decentralized structures. We will report on first steps to map out the RDM practices at the Cologne campus and to develop a structure of cooperation between loosely coupled information-infrastructure actors