Portals and Platforms

The Max Weber Foundation (MWS) is publicly funded by the German Federal Government. MWS is committed to ensuring broad societal access to the research outcomes of its institutes. The following platforms and portals build the essential infrastructure to achieve this goal:

• perspectivia.net as an international, epoch-spanning and interdisciplinary platform for publications and research data in the humanities and social sciences.
• qed.perspectivia.net as a portal dedicated to the publication of digital sources and scholarly editions.
• MWS RDMO Platform as a tool for the initial registration of research projects and data management planning.
• Digital MWS Library as a shared discovery platform enabling researchers to search and find digital resources.
• de.hypotheses.org as the German-language branch of the international blog platform hypotheses.org.

Networks and Associations

Transnational research that extends beyond Germany’s national research landscape and is internationally interoperable requires corresponding transnational services. Therefore, the MWS actively participates in multiple international research infrastructure consortia, aligning its services with the needs of researchers:

• National coordination of OPERAS and DARIAH
• Germany’s lead institution in OPERAS
• Member organisation in NFDI e.V. and participant in the NFDI consortia Text+ and NFDI4Culture
• Member of the Coordination Council of the Association for Humanities and Cultural Studies Research Infrastructures (GKFI), which consolidates the activities of DARIAH, CLARIN, and OPERAS in the German research landscape
• Connection to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) via GKFI e.V., OPERAS, DARIAH, and NFDI e.V.
• Active involvement in the Service Center Diamond Open Access (SeDOA), serving as Germany’s national contact point for publishing under the Diamond OA model.

The MWS contributes to several EU-funded projects under the umbrella of OPERAS, playing a key role in building the European research infrastructure (current projects: OPERAS-PLUS, LUMEN, AEGIS-OA). These projects and services are accessible via the OPERAS website.

Data Steward Network for the MWS

To support the researchers, the MWS provides support and infrastructure for research data management through its in-house Data Steward Network. Researchers can get started with practical guidance available on our blog and in the RDM-Handbook.

IT infrastructures

In close alignment with international research infrastructure landscape, the IT department of the MWS is sustainably preparing for the future. The MWS is shaping the digital transformation within the international research network, in collaboration with infrastructure providers and strategic partners. This ensures reliable IT operations at the institutes and offices abroad as well as a stable, secure connection to international and foundation-wide IT infrastructures for MWS researchers.