Which legal issues do I need to consider in research data management?
Legal issues also play a recurring role in research data management (RDM). FAIRagro has set itself the task of making this aspect of RDM accessible and understandable to the agrosystem research community.
Legal topics
Law takes various forms in RDM.
However, one focus is on the legal classification of data and the resulting rights to data:
What rights exist in terms of data? → Data rights
Access to various types of “IoT data”1 (such as from measuring sensors) can be opened up by the EU Data Act:
What is the EU Data Act and what data access does it enable? → EU Data Act
Automation of various agreements and contracts is intended to make researchers' work easier:
What are automated contracts and what are they used for? → Automated Contracts
Legal Blog
Our FAIRagro Blog contains several articles by our legal science colleagues. The following (legal) questions arise in this context:
- Do you speak legal? Legal language: why it is peculiar but necessary
- Pseudonymous, anonymous – what is it and what are the consequences? Discussion of the Verdict of the EuG from 26.04.2023, T-557/20
- We love trust – but we prefer certainty of evidence Why I should put agreements around field experiments in writing
- Copyright as the final boss Friend or foe for scientists?
- Knock Knock: who’s there? – The Reform Of The Genetic Engineering Laws?
- Why not only data, but also groups of people are to be protected Sharing is CAREing – now more than just „Goodwill“
- Unity and justice and (academic) freedom Why it is more than just a sentence on paper
- No copyright, no problem? The consequences of incorrect citation
- Text- and Data Mining vs. AI Hamburg Regional Court Rules on the Creation of a Training Data Set
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Wo ein Richter, da kein Schöpfer? A special blog post on the topics of copyright and level of creativity (German only)
- Von der Forschung zur Verschwörung: Mittel gegen Missbrauch von Publikationen What to do when research is misused to spread conspiracy theories? (German only)
- Freie Fahrt? Die Schranken des Urheberrechts About copyright (German only)
- CCPL-Praxiskommentar und Handbuch: Gute Nachrichten für die Forschung! On the publication of the first legal commentary on all issues relating to the Creative Commons Public Licence (CCPL) (German only)
Training opportunities
Legal issues are (almost) always addressed in our FAIRagro training courses. However, they are of particular focus in our Legal Workshop Series “Don't panic! Survival guide for Law and Ethics in Research”, which we conduct in cooperation with NFDI4Biodiversity and NFDI4Earth.
Further information on the (general) training opportunities can be found here.
Contributors
Lucia Vedder 
,
Constantin Breß
(Last Update: 2025-11-14)
How to cite this page?
Vedder, L. & Breß, C. (2025). RDM & Legal. FARagro Knowledge Base. https://knowledgebase.fairagro.net/en/legal/. Under: CC BY 4.0.
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IoT stands for Internet of Things. It refers to the network of physical devices equipped with sensors and software that can communicate with each other via the internet. ↩