The API-01 project helps make research data easier to share and reuse across the ETH Domain by improving the connection between electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) and data repositories. Researchers at PSI, ETH Zurich and Empa generate large volumes of experimental data and record them using ELN systems such as SciLog, Aare (PSI's newer, broader-scoped platform for crystallography data acquisition -- previously Heidi --), and openBIS, but linking this data to the SciCat data repository previously required laborious manual export and upload. The goal of this project was to create open, API-based interfaces between SciCat and these three ELNs, so that experimental data and its associated metadata can move between systems.

Over the past two years, the project partners built open, API-based interfaces connecting SciCat with SciLog, Aare, and openBIS. A key part of this work involved discussing and agreeing on the right standard for transferring information between systems, with a particular focus on choosing an approach that allows data and metadata to be shipped together as a consistent, self-contained bundle, rather than as separate, loosely linked pieces. Building on this standard, the partners developed interfaces that make it possible to publish datasets, descriptions, and metadata directly from an ELN interface to SciCat. Previously, no such connection existed at all: researchers had no way to transfer their records to the repository other than through laborious manual export and upload. The work done in this project enabled the publication of data captured in different ELN environments to a shared data repository in a consistent way, using a common format across systems.

The project also encouraged closer collaboration between data service providers across the ETH Domain, improving shared understanding of how to store, preserve, and connect research data in support of Open Research Data principles.

In the final phase of the project, the focus is on closing the remaining deliverables, collecting users’ feedback, and writing documentation.

The API-02 project helps make research data easier to share and use across the ETH Domain institutions. Researchers at institutions such as PSI, ETH Zurich, WSL, Empa, and CSCS generate large amounts of valuable scientific data, but these data are often stored in different systems that do not communicate easily with one another. The goal of the project is to create a common way for users and software applications to access open research data, regardless of where it is stored.

Over the past two years, the project partners worked together to agree on a shared solution for accessing data and to test it in their own environments. They developed and evaluated prototypes that connect data catalogues, storage systems, and scientific software through a common interface. This showed that data stored at different institutions can be accessed in a consistent way without requiring researchers to learn different tools or procedures for every platform.

The project has also encouraged closer collaboration between data service providers across the ETH Domain and across the other API Measure 2 projects. By working together, the partners improved their understanding of different approaches to storing and preserving research data and identified opportunities to share data more effectively. This supports the principles of Open Research Data, helping research results become easier to find, access, and reuse by others.

In the final phase of the project, the focus is on documenting the solution, providing practical examples, and demonstrating how data can be accessed across different institutions using the common approach. These results will help future services adopt the same standards and contribute to a more connected and efficient research data ecosystem.

Open research data (ORD) are essential for transparency, reproducibility, and scientific progress. Scientific publications generate valuable datasets, and the availability of data repositories in the ETH Domain supports sharing ORD according to FAIR principles. However, the relation of datasets with publications that describe them is often not properly tracked in the dataset metadata. Moreover, differences in metadata standards persist even across repositories within the ETH Domain, making research outputs difficult to discover and reuse by both people and machines.

The project improves the data lifecycle at the interface between data publishing and computational platforms used for data processing and analysis in the ETH domain. We focus on three primary points of interaction: (i) ingestion of published data for downstream analysis; (ii) publication of data products; and (iii) discovery of data use. The three platforms used are the Renku (SDSC/ETHZ/EPFL) collaborative data science platform and two data repository systems, namely EnviDat (WSL) and SciCat (PSI).