Dear Speaker of the Biodata IG consortia, dear Biodata Colleagues,

We made it and just published the MoU on Zenodo! 
Ebert, B., Ewert, F., Förstner, K. U., Glöckner, F. O., McHardy, A. C., von Rummel, P., von Suchodoletz, D., Weidtkamp-Peters, S., Ebeling, M.-A., Engel, J., Hoffmann, C., Keller, C., Lange, M., Magel, M., Moore, J., Mühlhaus, T., Scholz, U., Specka, X., & thor Straten, M. (2026). Memorandum of Understanding between the NFDI consortia DataPLANT, NFDI4Microbiota, NFDI4Biodiversity, FAIRagro, NFDI4Objects, and NFDI4BIOIMAGE. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18694155

If you are wondering why no signature was required just yet: We decided to publish the document now, so that the consortia writing their reports at the moment can already reference the MoU in their texts.
However, we shortly discussed not to take any action to communicate the new MoU until our Biodate Interest Group Meeting in Berlin (15./16. April, register here: https://eveeno.com/160211483 ), where it can officially be signed (and photographed and taken for newsblogs, social media etc). If the speakers do not attend the meeting, maybe the signing can be delegated to an attending colleague of the consortium.

Thank you all for the effort to set up this new MoU,

Kind regards,
Judith for the Biodata IG

__________________________________
Dr. Judith Engel
NFDI4Biodiversity Cross Community Coordination

MARUM- University of Bremen
PANGAEA Data Publisher
Telefone: +49 421 218 65581
Email: Judith.Engel@uni-bremen.de

www.gfbio.org
www.nfdi4biodiversity.org

Am 03.02.2026 um 11:24 schrieb Josh Moore <joshua.moore@gerbi-gmb.de>:

Dear speakers of the BioData IG—

We are aiming for publication of the BioData MOU v2 with 6 consortia — DataPLANT, NFDI4Microbiota, NFDI4Biodiversity, FAIRagro, NFDI4Objects, and NFDI4BIOIMAGE — by February 20th in order to have the link ready for the interim reports. You can find the current document both attached as a PDF and in the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C9GXKeBAboYigeDS8aERncXvdd-sYDsrtw-Rm-sLsN8/edit?tab=t.0 

I’ve been asked to track the approval of the document. Could you please let me know ASAP if you are ready to sign and if not, what the timeline for your consortium is to give approval.

Many, many thanks.
~Josh Moore
NFDI4BIOIMAGE