Institutional support for FAIR research data in livestock research

At the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), we have established a Data Service Centre (DSC) to support the full lifecycle of research data, ranging from experimental design and the preparation of Data Management Plans to reproducible statistical analysis, standardized data structures, long-term archiving, and the publication of data and software. A central aim of the DSC is to support researchers in implementing FAIR principles in their daily work, while avoiding unnecessary additional workload. We also address current challenges in agricultural research, including the still limited availability of established metadata standards and domain-specific repositories for livestock data. Our work is closely linked to active participation in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), where we both benefit from and contribute to community-driven developments and the growing network of expertise fostered by FAIRagro and related initiatives.