The Helmholtz Knowledge Graph - towards a Helmholtz FAIR data space

Research in the Helmholtz Association is carried out interand multidisciplinary and spans across 18 independently operating research centers across Germany. Within this digital ecosystem, research data and digital assets are heterogeneous in terms of formats, used schemas, record consistency and hosting location. This impairs interoperabiltiy and data re-use. The Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) is a long term platform supporting convergence in a FAIR data space. As part of this effort we develop Helmholtz Knowledge Graph (Helmholtz KG) [1] as a lightweight interoperability layer and semantic harmonization target, with the aim to connect metadata of Helmholtz digital assets. With the KG, we envision (1) providing better cross-organizational access to Helmholtz's (meta)data and information assets on an upper semantic level, (2) harmonizing and optimizing the related metadata across the association, and (3) forming a basis from which the semantic quality and the depths of metadata descriptions is improved and extended into domain and application levels. While our KG prototype initially aggregates data provided in schema.org, with our recent works [2] we have established an internal data model that will allow inclusion of data consistent with other semantic standards to standardized semantics (DataCite, Dcat, DC). At the same time we are establishing software for a scalable KG infrastructure, will actively improve the currently incomplete and inconsistent metadata records through entity resolution and data inference and increase domain specific semantic depth within the various Helmholtz research fields. [1] Broeder, J.; Preuss, G.; D'Mello, F.; Fathalla, S.; Hofmann, V.; Sandfeld, S. (2024) The Helmholtz Knowledge Graph: driving the Transition towards a FAIR Data Ecosystem in the Helmholtz Association; The Semantic Web: ESWC 2024, Springer Computer Science Proceedings. doi:10.34734/FZJ-2024-03156 [2] Codebase of the Helmholtz KG: https://codebase.helmholtz.cloud/hmc/hmc-public/unhide/development (Apr. 29th 2025)