Scientific IT Consulting

• Helmholtz Cloud Services
  Collection of useful software and resources for researchers in the Helmholtz Association.
  Contact: support@hifis.net - Provider: HIFIS
   
• YLVA
  Similar to Wikipedia, users can create content via a web browser to collect and document knowledge and information. These documents can then be stored and organized with YLVA in shelves, books, chapters and pages, similar to a library.
  Contact: help@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB

• Helmholtz AI (HAI)
  HAI offers tailored consulting, computing resources, and funding opportunities to democratize and accelerate the application of artificial intelligence in science – supporting a wide range of use cases, from foundation models to domain-specific solutions.
  Contact: contact@helmholtz.ai - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Helmholtz Imaging (HI)
  HI provides access to cutting-edge imaging resources, funding opportunities, and expert consulting – enabling researchers to unlock new insights from complex image data across all research domains, and make accessible to everyone the innovative modalities, methodological richness, and data treasures of the Helmholtz Association.
  Contact: support@helmholtz-imaging.de - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Helmholtz Open Science (HOS)
  The Helmholtz Open Science Office supports the Helmholtz Association and its research Centers in shaping the cultural change towards Open Science. It collaborates with national and international stakeholders to improve the quality and impact of research, guided by Open Science principles and in the spirit of the Helmholtz mission. Through its activities, events, and publications, the Open Science office informs the community regarding the latest developments and guides the transition towards Open Science.
  Contact: open-science@helmholtz.de - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC)
  HMC provides internationally aligned data management concepts, tools, services and training to support the Helmholtz Association – ensuring your data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) for collaborative research and advanced science.
  Contact: helpdesk@helmholtz-metadaten.de - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Helmholtz Federated IT Services Cloud (HIFIS)
  HIFIS provides and brokers federated cloud services hosted across Helmholtz centers and delivers training and support on using those services, as well as on Research Software Engineering.
  Contact: support@hifis.net - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy (HIDA)
  HIDA offers a rich portfolio of training, networking, and funding opportunities, fostering the next generation of data scientists and supporting up-skilling across all career stages.
  Contact: contact page - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• Enabling the Digital Transformation (EDiT)
  Enabling the Digital Transformation (EDiT) supports our core mission of building a climate neutral society through science and innovation. The Digital Transformation does not start from scratch but consolidates existing solutions while integrating new digital technologies and concepts. EDiT encompasses the scientific, scientific-technical, and administrative areas of HZB.
  Contact: Dr. Britta Höpfner - Provider: HZB

• Scientific IT @ BESSY
  Scientific IT department, providing compute, storage, server ressources to the scientific units including lab network and other scientific IT infrastructure related topics
  Contact: sci-it@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB

• RAYX - Beamline Simulation
  RAYX is a powerful, multi-component simulation platform designed to streamline the design and optimization of beamlines in synchrotron light source facilities. At the core of the platform is rayx-core, a high-performance library that delivers precise light tracing capabilities on both CPUs and GPUs. This core library ensures that users can achieve detailed and accurate simulations at high speeds, making it an ideal solution for complex beamline designs.
  Contact: Dr. Peter Baumgärtel - Provider: HZB
   
• BESSY II Beamlines Overview
  Overview of BESSY II Beamline status "full operation", "limited operation", "Test/Inhouse", "under construction".

• Beamlines & Support
  Our team specializes in the design, development, and construction of beamlines for all applications. In addition to the planning and setup of new beamlines, we handle the commissioning, modifications, and upgrades of existing systems, as well as ongoing support. Our expertise includes optical and mechanical beamline design (with ray tracing and CAD work in AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and Creo), specification and procurement of specialized components, and on-site optical alignment.
  Contact: Dr. Stefan Hendel - Provider: HZB
   
• Optical Simulation, Theory and Advanced Concepts
  We focus on research topics in optical physics and technology that are relevant for the development of beamlines at modern synchrotron light sources such as BESSY II+ and BESSY III.
  Contact: Dr. Peter Baumgärtel - Provider: HZB

• Bluesky - Beamline Control
  Framework for experiment orchestration, facilitating advanced data acquisition strategies and automation. This enables researchers to design and execute sophisticated experiments more efficiently and with greater reproducibility.
  Contact: bluesky-team@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB
   
• EPICS IOCs - Experiment Control
  Controlling and monitoring equipment in real-time. EPICS allows for robust and scalable control systems, essential for complex experimental setups.
  Contact: William Smith - Provider: HZB

• ROCK-IT
  ROCK-IT (Remote, Operando Controlled, Knowledge-driven, and IT-based) is a Helmholtz-funded project that aims to develop all necessary tools for the automation and remote access of in-situ and operando experiments, aiming for users of all experience levels. The catalysis operando experiments on synchrotron radiation lightsources -for which no automation exists so far- have been identified as a pilot development case within ROCK-IT. 
  Contact: William Smith - Provider: HZB, KIT, HZDR, DESY

• Automation and Motion Controls
  Our team focuses on the topics motorization, automation and control of beamline and measurement equipment at BESSY II and adjoint labs.
  Contact: Maxim Brendike - Provider: HZB

• Beamline and Experiment Control
  Our team provides dedicated support to selected beamlines and instruments within the experimental hall to enhance research capabilities and experimental outcomes. We are responsible for EPICS IOCs and Bluesky.
  Contact: William Smith - Provider: HZB

• EDiT Team Bluesky
  Bluesky is a collection of open source Python libraries initially developed at NSLS-II and now adopted by many international large-scale research facilities. The individual components can be used together or separately. Bluesky puts the collection of metadata at it's core and helps enable FAIR data management. The project also facilitates remote access, experiment automation and the use of AI methods.
  Contact: bluesky-team@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB

• Nextcloud nubes
  Sync&Share platform, supports cooperation and collaboration across centers and user groups, inclusion of external users. Completely web-based, optional mobile client apps, any WebDAV clients including additional Apps like Notes and News.
  Contact: support@hifis.net - Provider: HIFIS

• HZB-Storage01
  Long-term data storage: Cache: 80 TB, Tape-Set: netto 2 PB.
  Contact: Yannic Kerkhoff - Provider: ZIB

• EDiT Team Experiment Data Storage
  The team is working on a storage system concept for so called warm experimental data at HZB. The proposed storage system should be a central place where HZB experimental stations and labs can deposit data for further processing such as remote data analysis,
  Contact: edit-team-storage@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB

• Z3 HTC Cluster
  HTC cluster z3: The node z3.zib.de can be used to submit jobs to the Slurm resource manager / batch processing system as well as for interactive sessions. The login node provides access to your usual ZIB /home and /data (group) directories, as well as the dedicated HTC-home (profile, scripts) and HTC-scratch (workspace) filesystems available on the HTC compute nodes.  z3 features over 180 compute nodes with about 15k CPU cores, 100 TB of memory and 128 GPUs on premise. It is hosted at ZIB but can be used by HZB researchers on request.
  Contact: support@zib.de - Provider: HZB, ZIB
   
• Athena Cluster
  HPC cluster from HZB, accessible to researchers of HZB.
  Contact: Teresia Olssson - Provider: HZB
   
• HAICORE
  The "Helmholtz AI computing resources" (HAICORE) provide easy and low-barrier GPU access to the entire AI community within the Helmholtz Association. Researchers of the Helmholtz AI community are eligible to apply for HAICORE.
  Contact: contact@helmholtz.ai - Provider: HAI

• AI Methods for Experiment Design
  The complexity of current experiments and methods in fundamental natural and engineering sciences and the amount of data extracted is ever increasing. This necessitates completely new methods for data analysis, and, even more importantly, for developing the experimental methods by themselves. The Joint Lab Artificial Intelligence Methods for Experiment Design (AIM-ED) targets these challenges by integrating the full scope of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Methods into the development of experiments and efficient data analysis as an integral part.
  Contact: Gregor Hartmann - Provider: HZB

• Unified Helmholtz Information & Data Exchange (UnHIDE)
  The Unified Helmholtz Information and Data Exchange (UnHIDE) Project aims to build a sustainable, interoperable, and inclusive digital ecosystem for all stakeholders. Existing and emerging data systems are linked via the Helmholtz Knowledge Graph, with the ultimate goal of coordinating action and capacity to improve access to scientific publications, software, data and knowledge. 
  Contact: HMC@fz-juelich.de - Provider: HMC
   
• NOMAD – Manage and Publish Materials Data
  NOMAD lets you manage and share your materials science data in a way that makes it truly useful to you, your group, and the community. Free and open source.
  Contact: support@nomad-lab.eu - Provider: NFDI
   
• NOMAD Oasis @ HZB Energy
  Different Nomad Oasis for electro catalysis, HySprint, PVcomB, EMIL and CE-AME, and Batteries, the Oasis are run at different locations and maintained by the data stewards energy and IT-ED
  Contact: Michael Götte - Provider: HZB

• NeXus - neutron, x-ray, and muon data format
  NeXus is a common data format for neutron, x-ray, and muon science. It is being developed as an international standard by scientists and programmers representing major scientific facilities in order to facilitate greater cooperation in the analysis and visualization of neutron, x-ray, and muon data.
  Contact: Sonal R. Patel - Provider: Others

• SEPIA - Sample data base
  SEPIA (Sample Essentials, Persistent Identifiers & Attributes) is a FAIR-compliant sample metadata platform designed for ICAT-based research infrastructures. It enables centralized registration, persistent identification, and full provenance tracking of scientific samples across their lifecycle.
  Contact: Mojeeb Rahman Sedeqi - Provider: HZB

• Team FAIR-Data Management
  We support our users and beamline scientists to manage their (meta)data to make their data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Our efforts include the standardization of beamline and experiment data in terms of NeXus instrument definition and NeXus application definition, respectively.
  Contact: Sonal R. Patel - Provider: HZB
   
• EDiT Team Data Management
  The team is working on a storage system concept for so called warm experimental data at HZB. The proposed storage system should be a central place where HZB experimental stations and labs can deposit data for further processing such as remote data analysis, data transfer services or ingest to our existing long term archive.
  Contact: data-management@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB
   
• Data Stewards Energy
  Loose Group of Data Stewards for supporting Scientific Departments with data consulting support. Active in electro and thermal catalysis as well as solar cells.
  Contact: Michael Götte - Provider: HZB
  
  
• HMC Hub matter
  Hub matter develops general strategies for research data management across the three programs in research field matter
  Contact: helpdesk@helmholtz-metadaten.de - Provider: HMC

• Helmholtz Research Software Directory (RSD)
  Collection of research software developed by Hemholtz members. Add your own research here!
  Contact: support@hifis.net - Provider: HIFIS

• HZB Research Software Engineering (RSE)
  HZB-RSE (aka "The Enki Initiative") explores and establishes a centralized research software engineering capability within HZB. Its goal is to improve scientific efficiency, sustainability, and reproducibility by identifying existing software expertise, supporting researchers who develop critical code, and consolidating engineering effort where it creates clear value. The initiative focuses on understanding how software is currently produced across the research center, reducing single-person dependencies, and enabling scientists through shared expertise, tools, and collaboration—without interfering with scientific autonomy.
  Contact: mattermost - Provider: HZB
   
• Helmholtz Information: Research Software Engineering (HiRSE)
  This project brings together research software engineers, domain scientists, and community experts to support research software and the people behind it within Helmholtz Information. HiRSE has two main ingredients: 1. Providing targeted, sustainable funding for strategically important codes organised via Community Software Infrastructure groups. 2. Organizing community-focused activities both for the project participants and the research software engineering community across Germany.
  Contact: hirse@fz-juelich.de - Provider: HZB, HIDA, FZJ, KIT
   
• Helmholtz Open Science: Task Group Research Software
  Dedicated to the topic of Open Research Software and addresses the following aspects: Incentives and metrics, Software development and documentation practices, Accessibility, publication and transfer strategies, Infrastructures, Archiving, Quality assurance, Licensing and other legal issues, Education and training, Guidelines and directives.
  Contact: Lea Maria Ferguson - Provider: Helmholtz Association
   
• EDiT Team Sustainable Research Software Guidelines
  The EDiT team is working on guidelines for the sustainable development, publication, and maintenance of research software as a basis for the coordinated and organized use of research software.
  Contact: NA - Provider: HZB

• SciFlow
  SciFlow is an easy-to-use text editor for writing papers, dissertations and other scientific texts. Collaboration, reference manager integration and more than 5,000 journal templates for automatic formatting are the main features of SciFlow. Complementing grammar and style checking, the LanguageTool Premium service in SciFlow is also available for Helmholtz users.
  Contact: support@sciflow.net - Provider: HZB
   
• HMC Zenodo Community
  Collection of Posters, Presentations and Publications from Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration.
  Contact: NA - Provider: HMC

• HZB Library
  The HZB library supports and advises on publishing in scientific journals (with a focus on Open Access) and concludes publication agreements with publishers. It ensures the quality of the literature database and records all publications from the HZB environment there.
  Contact: library@helmholtz-berlin.de - Provider: HZB

• Blablador
  Blablador is an evaluation server for Large Language Models (LLMs). Users can access a chat interface and an API to get hands-on experience with LLMs. In its current state, it is not ready for production use, but great for experiments. Blablador, the Helmholtz AI's Large Language Model (LLM) hosts both open-source models and those created by the Helmholtz Association.
  Contact: support@hifis.net - Provider: FZJ
   
• Ollama ZIB
  A scientific chatbot based on ollama and Open WebUI hosted at the servers of the ZIB, allows for a secure way to use LLMs with your research data. It is planned to provide a portfolio of customized advisor models for specific research areas to complement the base modells like mistral, gpt and deepseek.
  Contact: Yannic Kerkhoff - Provider: ZIB
   
• HAIflow
  Connecting 18 Helmholtz centers to share projects, repositories, and intelligent scripts. A centralized platform for advancing AI in management. 
  Contact: haiflow.de/contact - Provider: HAI

• KI-Kommission
  tbc
  Contact: NA - Provider: HZB

Policies

• HZB Data Policy
• AI-Guideline (german only)
• Cloud-Guideline (german only)
• Rules of Good Scientific Practice

PS-GMX: AI-Supported Enzyme Design
In this project we use literature data mining to link enzyme sequence and activity data to train novel diffusion models for enzyme design. The AI-generated enzyme sequences will be tested for activity in vitro to validate the prediction accuracy of the trained models. A first proof of concept is planned with the ß-lactamase enzyme. The framework will later be applied to PET hydrolases to allow for optimization of plastic degrading enzymes.

Together with: Gert Weber, Nada Salsabila