Open data stays open only as long as somebody is there to serve it. This page answers the uncomfortable question: what is left of the i6eal data if i6eal stops existing tomorrow?
The honest way to test a preservation claim is to fail it. Switch us off and see what still resolves. The bottom three layers sit with institutions that have nothing to do with us and do not need to ask us.
Operated by us
Live tools, API, DCAT catalogue, daily updates
The only layer that depends on our continued existence. If it goes, currency and the API go with it.
i6eal.de/tools/dataOperated by CERN
Published dataset releases under a concept DOI that always points at the newest version
Each deposited version also keeps its own version DOI, so a figure cited on a given date stays verifiable.
10.5281/zenodo.21452970Operated by Harvard University
Independent mirror of the same dataset
A second archive on another continent under different governance. An outage at Zenodo does not touch this copy.
10.7910/DVN/YBXYGQFederal public-law institution
Legal deposit copy of the i6eal Research Notes, catalogued and permanently archived
A statutory collecting mandate. The archived copy sits with the library rather than with us, and is permanently addressable through a URN.
d-nb.info/1415328242What is deposited, where it lives, and for how long.
Published dataset releases are deposited as a complete package: result data, codebook, licence text, and a methods description explaining how the numbers were produced. A dataset without its methodology cannot be interpreted later, so the methodology travels with it.
Primary deposit at Zenodo, operated by CERN, under a concept DOI that permanently resolves to the newest version. Mirror at Harvard Dataverse. The serial publication additionally goes to the German National Library as legal deposit and is addressable there through a URN.
Retention is set by the archives, not by us. That is precisely the point: we cannot withdraw a copy held by the national library because a result has become inconvenient.
Everything deposited is in formats readable without our software: CSV, JSON, JSON-LD, PDF and plain text. No proprietary container, no database that has to be installed first.
Who pays for this, and how much that assurance is worth.
i6eal is operated by Syka Ventures UG (haftungsbeschränkt) in Hofgeismar, Germany, a two-person company. The same company also sells EU AI Act advisory services. The data and tools are free and published independently of that.
The project is financed out of ongoing business. There is no grant, no third-party funder, and no project term at the end of which funding would lapse. That is good news and bad news at the same time.
With no funding commitment there is no guaranteed end date, but equally no guaranteed continuation. That is why this page rests on redundancy rather than on a promise: the data should not need us in order to survive.
If operations end, the deposited releases remain reachable under their DOIs, and the CC BY 4.0 licence lets anyone continue the compilation. Neither our consent nor our involvement is required for that.
The part preservation pages usually leave out. Without these limits, everything above would read better than it deserves.
If you cite i6eal data, use an identifier from this table rather than an address on i6eal.de. These identifiers keep resolving even when our domain does not.
The compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0. For attribution, i6eal, Syka Ventures UG (haftungsbeschränkt) is sufficient, together with the identifier used and the date of access.