Data Management Solutions for Neutron Research at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ)

Research data management at Large Scale Facilities (LSFs) plays an important role in the effort to make research data from Neutron and Photon research adhere to the FAIR criteria [1]. Experiments at these facilities are typically conducted after successful submission and evalua-tion of a proposal submitted by a research group and represented by the principle investigator (PI). Thus, any research data management has to cope with the requirements of a user facility, the number of different beamlines or instruments in operation, the amount of collected data, as well as a breadth of research topics, ranging from fundamental physics to life sciences. In this contribution, the concept and the technical realisation of the integrated research da-ta management within the user programme at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) will be presented. About 1200 individual experiments at 27 different beamlines are conducted annual-ly at the neutron research facility. While the context of the experiments conducted at MLZ, the parameters of the actual experiment conductions as well as sample and sample history are known, this information was so far distributed over different storage locations and means, rang-ing from digital to paper solutions. The technical realisation of the research data management system will automatically col-lect, annotate and aggregate relevant metadata throughout the data work flow at the facility. It starts from the user management software and covers all the way during data collection and storage, including experimental parameters and documentation of the experiment conduction, e.g. in an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN). At the core of the data work flow managements sits our instrument control system NICOS [2] that acts as a metadata aggregator, as outlined in the recommendations of DAPHNE4NFDI [3]. On the one hand, this data is used to write self explaining data formats, on the other hand, standardized information is passed on (via a loosely coupled message queue system) to subsequent clients, i.e. a metadata catalogue (SciCat) that will serve as entry hub for the uses for the organisation and access of the research data. Accessibility to the data will be governed by the data policy of the MLZ. In a similar manner, standardized messages are available to be ingest-ed into an electronic laboratory notebook that combines automated information on experiment conduction with user annotations. The instrument control NICOS is a modular system in use at most instruments at MLZ. It is flexible for instrument specific configurations, which are auto-matically considered when ingesting data into the metadata catalogue or the ELN. The integrated approach at the MLZ advances the adherence to the FAIR criteria as the data leaves the facility. The research data management at MLZ has been demonstrated in a full prototype and will in future be available for all user experiments. This work was supported by the consortium DAPHNE4NFDI in the context of the work of the NFDI e.V. The consortium is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - project number 460248799. [1] Murphy, B. M. et al., IUCrJ, 12 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1107/S2052252524011941 [2] https://www.nicos-controls.org [3] Lohstroh et al. (2024), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12169110