Organized by Task Area Alex of the NFDI4ING consortium, the three-day program guided participants through the full data lifecycle of a small experiment conducted using Raspberry-PIs.

The agenda followed a practical experimental workflow:

• Day 1 focused on designing and documenting the experimental setup,
• Day 2 covered data collection, analysis, and workflow documentation,
• Day 3 concluded with the publication of data and visualizations as FAIR digital objects.

Throughout the event, participants gained valuable insights into RDM practices and learned how NFDI4ING tools can be effectively integrated into daily research routines. While the focus was on a physical experiment, the methods discussed are broadly applicable to simulation and other scientific workflows.

The summer school aligns with the larger NFDI4ING mission to make research more transparent, sustainable, and reproducible by integrating FAIR data management practices into the everyday routines of engineering researchers.

In total 14 researchers from different German (TU Dortmund, Hochschule Rhein-Main, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Uni Rostock, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, TU Chemnitz, Leibniz Universität Hannover) and Austrian (Universität Innsbruck) universities participated in the Summer School. The positive reception by participants reflects a growing recognition of RDM as an important academic competency. Faculty members interested in embedding similar practices into their curricula or research groups are encouraged to engage with NFDI4ING and future iterations of the summer school.