On 2 July 2021, the Joint Science Conference (GWK) made the funding decisions in the second round of calls for proposals to fund consortia in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The funding of ten additional NFDI consortia was approved, including the Mathematical Research Data Initiative (MaRDI), in which the Department of Mathematics of TUK and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) are both represented as co-applicants.

Mathematical research data are extensive, complex and multifaceted. Due to the interdisciplinary and abstract nature of mathematics, they are widely used both within and outside mathematics, with modern developments leading to increasingly complex mathematical models and data. The aim of the Mathematical Research Data Initiative (MaRDI) is to develop a research data infrastructure that will be of great use not only to mathematics but also for other fields. Researchers from 18 institutions will cooperate under the leadership of Prof. Dr Michael Hintermüller from the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) in Berlin. For the TUK, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Decker and Prof. Dr. Claus Fieker represent the field of computer algebra, while Prof. Dr. Anita Schöbel (also director of the Fraunhofer ITWM), is responsible for interdisciplinary cooperation. She was already appointed to the NFDI Senate last December.

With the funding decision, the GWK follows a recommendation of the NFDI expert panel, which had proposed the initiatives for funding as the result of an intensive review and evaluation process. The consortia funded by the NFDI should systematically make the data holdings of science and research accessible, sustainably secure them and make them accessible as well as network them (inter)nationally. The federal and state governments will provide up to 90 million euros annually for the entire project until 2028.