We are pleased to announce that the DFG-funded project “Information Infrastructure for BioImage Data” (I3D:bio) has been approved for its second funding phase. Over the past years, I3D:bio has played a transformative role in bringing direct support and training for OMERO-based research data management to more than 20 institutions across Germany. The project will now continue for another 36 months, further advancing FAIR data management practices for the bioimaging community. Reshaping the strategic focus to include multimodal data integration and novel data formats, I3D:bio brings together an experienced, interdisciplinary team: Stefanie Weidtkamp-Peters (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), Elisa Ferrando-May, Jan-Philipp Mallm, and Ivo Buchhalter (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ, Heidelberg), Sven Nahnsen and Luis Kuhn Cuellar (Quantitative Biology Center, QBiC, University of Tübingen), and Janina Hanne representing German BioImaging (GerBI) as a full project partner. We are honored to join this outstanding team and to contribute our community network and expertise to the project’s mission. We also take the opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to Susanne Kunis (University of Osnabrück) and Roland Nitschke (University of Freiburg) for our successfull collaboration on the first funding phase.
In its second funding phase, I3D:bio will address key challenges in modern bioimaging research data management: integrating imaging data with spatial omics, supporting cloud-ready data formats such as OME-Zarr, and further developing OMERO as a platform for scalable, interoperable data management. GerBI’s role in the project centers on community engagement, training, and, importantly, the development of a sustainable OMERO Services Portfolio that will ensure long-term availability of deployment support, coaching, and training for the bioimaging community well beyond the project’s funding period. We look forward to this collaboration and to working with the entire community to make FAIR bioimaging data management an integral part of everyday research. For more information about the project, visit www.i3dbio.de.
