Advancing Collaboration Across NFDI BioMed

From 2 - 4 December 2025, representatives of the biomedical NFDI consortia - NFDI4BIOIMAGE, NFDI4Health, NFDI4Immuno, NFDI4Microbiota  , and GHGA – gathered at ZB MED in Cologne for the NFDI BioMed Workshop 2025. The meeting aimed to strengthen cross-consortium collaboration and align future activities within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), with a focus on communication, metadata, training and services.

The first part of the workshop centred on strategic discussions around the positioning of the BioMed group within NFDI and the identification of shared goals and areas of collaboration. Participants discussed how existing efforts across consortia could become more visible and accessible to researchers, and how joint activities might translate into actions that benefit the wider community.

Building on these strategic reflections, the afternoon of day two shifted into hands-on sessions in smaller groups. Participants explored opportunities to harmonise communication activities and present resources jointly. Discussions covered improving the visibility of training opportunities, coordinating helpdesk pathways, and designing user-friendly access to services across consortium websites, including early ideas for aligning metadata to support discoverability of BioMed resources. Initial inventories of services and training offers were compiled, alongside first concepts to guide researchers more intuitively through the shared BioMed portfolio.

On the third day, the outcomes of the breakout sessions were presented, compared and refined among all participants. This allowed groups to align on short- and medium-term priorities and to develop roadmaps for next steps. While many topics will continue to evolve beyond the workshop, participants agreed on the need for clearer user entry points and a more coherent, cross-consortium communication strategy.

The workshop fostered a fruitful exchange across consortia and reaffirmed our joint commitment to FAIR and interoperable biomedical data infrastructures. The group is intensifying its coordination, identifying common ground and building on its complementary strengths. In doing so, it aims to improve access to services, data and knowledge. This work lays the foundation for long-term, sustainable collaboration across the NFDI BioMed community.