US Clouds: German Research Association Aims to Bring Data Back from Abroad

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has launched a funding initiative to secure endangered data stocks and promote resilience in science. The call to bring important research data back from abroad is a response to the increasing dependence of German and European science on non-European tech corporations, primarily from the USA, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It specifically targets repositories hosted by these US cloud providers or located in the USA itself.

For the period from 2025 to an anticipated 2027, the DFG is providing financial resources of an undisclosed amount according to the call to extract datasets and research results from foreign cloud storage. It warns that otherwise, there is a risk that these may no longer be available for science, either now or in the future. Therefore, relevant data must be secured and made permanently usable for local researchers. The overarching goal is to strengthen the resilience of data infrastructures in the research sector.

The most important and largest self-governing organization for science and research funding in Germany supports measures within the initiative, such as the procurement of storage capacities and the provision of personnel resources for data acquisition, curation, or subject-specific aggregation. Necessary legal reviews and the integration of secured stocks into supraregional or European structures and clouds are also eligible for funding. A key focus is on developing frameworks and technologies for integrating corresponding repositories into such European networks.

European Open Science Cloud Becomes Important

The relevant funding stream is oriented towards integration into the European Research Area. The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is expected to play a significant role in this. Resilience is largely derived from the redundant storage of data at the European level, the DFG writes. Accordingly, initiatives that make data secured in Germany available through thematically oriented European infrastructures or projects that drive the development of a distributed and networked storage or data infrastructure are supported.

Even the refinancing of expenses already incurred, such as material and personnel costs or investments in storage media since August 1st, is possible to ensure short-term access to particularly endangered data stocks. However, this retroactive approach only applies if the expenses were incurred in addition to data security efforts and if there is a risk of information loss without the financial injection. Applications for this must be submitted by November 10th at the latest. The entire program runs until the end of 2027, with applications being accepted until September 30th, 2027.

Furthermore, the DFG is funding future expenses to ensure the transfer and aggregation of datasets and to make the stocks available again. In addition to storage capacities, qualified personnel such as data curators with specific expertise can also be considered here.

Digital sovereignty in the age of Trump

In essence, the DFG is positioning itself for the much-vaunted digital sovereignty. It is concerned with the ability to self-determine and decide over one's own data, infrastructures, and technologies. The primary problem is considered to be the legal framework in the USA, particularly the CLOUD Act. This law allows US authorities to access data stored by US companies under certain circumstances. This applies even if these bits and bytes are physically located on servers outside the United States.

For German research, this represents a significant risk, as sensitive information and results are theoretically exposed to access by foreign state authorities. They could also become unavailable from one day to the next for political or regulatory reasons. The political dimension comes into play, particularly in the form of US President Donald Trump. His unpredictable or protectionist stance, which could undermine existing transatlantic agreements, including those on data exchange, is considered a wake-up call for the current pursuit of sovereignty.

“Certainly, the changed transatlantic relationship has led to a rethinking here,” explains Dennis-Kenji Kipker, Research Director at the Frankfurt Cyberintelligence Institute, to heise online. He also notes that in scientific practice, those responsible “have paid too little attention to legal and technical data sovereignty in the past.” Although many university data centers have independent data storage, “external providers were often used without scrutiny to store sensitive research data and share it within consortia.” University data protection officers and ethics committees are too rarely involved in such decisions. The DFG's initiative is also groundbreaking beyond the scientific community.

(nie)