IMPORTANT - THIS IS NOW JUST AN ARCHIVE - THE NEW MASTER VERSION IS THE WORD FILE SUBMITTED TO ENVIROINFO.DONT EDIT THIS FILE ANYMORE - ASK FOR THE LASTEST WORD FILEAbstractThe dramatic growth in data intensity and software requirements in recent years demanded the sharpening of coding skills of individual scientists and the establishment of a sophisticated digital infrastructure within and across research groups. Several initiatives aim to help individual research to hone their skills, from online programming tutorials and classes (e.g. Khan Academy) to global non-profit organizations like software or data carpentry dedicated to teaching computing and data skills to researchers. Although improved coding skills of individual scientists usually lead to a good vertical reuse of software (by individual researchers and consecutive projects of related topics), horizontal interconnection (between researchers in or across research groups) often remains limited. To address this issue, the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Trondheim - Norway) recently established a Digital Laboratory to foster a common digital infrastructure for the group.Industrial ecology (IE) is in the core of sustainability science, connecting environmental, economic and data research to assess global environmental issues, analyse the life cycle of individual products and the material/energy flows at different geographical scales. IE uses four main methodologies: Life Cycle Assessment, Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output analysis, Impact Assessment and Material Flow Analysis. The Industrial Ecology Programme at NTNU is one of a few places in the world covering all four methodologies, therefore providing an unique opportunity to establish an overarching digital infrastructure for coupling and integrating analytic tools and datasets across the research group. However, despite accumulating a vast amount of data and analysis tools, these were mainly developed for singular research tasks or projects; model integration, reuse of developed software and gathered data across the whole group remained limited. This motivated the establishment of the Digital Laboratory of the IE Programme with the main objectives to(a) consolidate available infrastructure and ease the integration of newly developed tools by providing code and data exchange standards across the group(b) develop novel software based on common needs across the IE programme, thereby building an IE software and data toolbox(c) explore synergies with other research groups by connecting to similar initiatives in the sustainability and environmental research communityCurrently, the permanent staff of the IE Digital Lab consist of a Lead Researcher and a trained software engineer. Specific issues we faced during the first year included the different skill levels of individual researchers, the massive backlog of available software, the use of several programming languages and different data formats in the group as well as the different modelling philosophies across the group. We used a combination of techniques to solve these issues, ranging from establishing a knowledge exchange platform across the group, setting up common code standards and developing digital tools working across programming languages and operation systems. Here, we want to present these first steps taken by the IE Digital Lab in order to (1) share our experience and provide guidance for similar efforts, (2) build a network of Digital Laboratories of groups involved in sustainability/environmental research and (3) give an overview about developed tools which might be of use for other groups and individual researcher for managing a digital infrastructure.IntroductionCutting-edge research often requires the adoption or even novel development of data management and analysis software. This is mostly done by researchers, either building upon available, more generic software tools or developing new analysis routines. Researchers, however, are seldom trained as software developers; quality, re-usability and transparency of software code and data becomes one of the main obstacles for a smooth scientific development.Acknowledging this, there is now a variety of offers available to researchers seeking to improve their coding skills. On the most basic level, in two subsequent articles \cite{Wilson_2014,Wilson_2017} Wilson et al. propose a set of guidelines for developing scientific software and managing data. Initiatives like Software Carpentry \cite{software_carpentry_2017}, data carpentry \cite{datacarpentry_data_2017} or code refinery \cite{coderefinery_coderefinery_2017} provide courses and online education material for researchers. To dive even deeper into the topic, free online course for specific programming languages are available on sites like khan academy \cite{khan_academy_khan_2017}.Following this guidance, researchers can reach expert programming skills with clear benefits for code quality and re-usability. However, almost all these initiatives are targeting individual researchers. This can lead to a skewed distribution of programming skills within an institute. Software tools and scripts developed by these skilled researchers are mostly geared towards their own needs; their development and maintainance often move with the researcher when they switch institutes. As a consequence, although institutes might have researchers with excellent coding skills, their is little build up of a common digital infrastructure for a specific institute.Recognising this issue, the Industrial Ecology (IE) Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Trondheim - Norway) recently established a Digital Laboratory to foster a common digital infrastructure for the group.The Industrial Ecology Programme at NTNUIE studies "the flows [and stocks] of material and energy in industrial and consumer activities, the effects of these flows on the environment, and the influences of economic, political, regulatory, and social factors on the flow, use , and transformation of resources" \cite{White:2004}. It brings together environmental, economic, and data research to analyse e.g. the life cycle environmental impacts of individual products, the material and/or energy flows at different geographical scales, or the social, economic and environmental footprints of nations. In addition, Industrial Ecologists continuously develop and improve the methods and tools to address these issues. As such, IE's objective is to contribute to the scientific basis for sustainable development.The Industrial Ecology Programme, NTNU was initiated in 1994 and established the world's first PhD programme in IE (2003). Currently, the IE Programme has 25 PhD students, 8 PostDocs, 2 senior researchers and 6 core faculty members. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the scientific and engineering background of the staff ranges from biology, chemistry and physics to (industrial) economics, energy science, and environmental policy. Current research at the IE programme is centred around the development and application of three main IE methods: life cycle assessment (LCA) including impact assessment, material flow analysis (MFA), and environmental applications of input-output analysis.Because of the diverse activities in the IE field and the different backgrounds of the researchers (both scientifically and in terms of IT skills), a plethora of different software tools are used within the IE Programme. This ranges from spread sheet macros, custom made LCA analysis software, and GIS analysis tools for spatialized impact assessment, to designated analysis software written in Matlab, Python and R. The activities of the IE Programme in the past decades, combined with continuous rotation of students and scientific staff, have led to the accumulation of software tools varying greatly in quality, complexity, and applicability. Most software was developed for specific projects or tasks, and, being a one-time deliverable, was not developed with re-use and extensive documentation in mind. In general, code reuse and inter-operability between the different areas covered by the IE Programme is currently quite limited. This mirrors the situation of the IE field in general. To address the latter, IE researchers from different institutes recently pushed for more quality and openness in IE software development \cite{Pauliuk_2015}. Recognizing the development of the field towards increasingly complex software tools, the IE Programme opted for the establishment of a Digital Laboratory.The Industrial Ecology Digital LabThe Industrial Ecology Digital Laboratory (IEDL) was established in July 2016. It currently consists of two full time positions, a Lead Researcher/Manager and a research software engineer, with additional short time employees for specific programming task. The main objectives of the IEDL are to
