CODATA Activities and Plans

1. 9th Meeting of the Board on Research Data and Information Tuesday 24 September 2013 CODATA Activities and Plans Simon Hodson ExecutiveDirector CODATA www.codata.org/blog execdir@codata.org @simonhodson99

2. Whatis CODATA? • Mission: To strengthen international science for the benefit of society by promoting improved scientific and technical data management and use. • An Interdisciplinary Body of ICSU, the International Council for Science: http://www.icsu.org/ • CODATA has been working at the forefront of data science since 1966 http://www.codata.org/about/CODATA@45years.pdf • Not-for-profit, membership organisation (national members, scientific unions, affiliate members, members-at-large). • Genuinely global: 23 national members. • Strong links with international scientific unions: 16 union members. • CODATA is… • An international community and network of expertise on data issues. • An influential and authoritative voice in national and international policy regarding scientific data management. • A focal point for international, cross- disciplinary collaboration and communication on key scientific data issues.

3. CODATA Activities • Policy frameworks for data: take the lead in defining a policy agenda for scientific data. • Establishing high level and expert Data Policy Committee. Provide authority and support for data policy issues: international, national, research initiatives. • Contributing to ICSU consultation workshop on OA for publications, data and on the use of metrics for the appraisal of scientific contributions. • Frontiers in data science and technology: coordinate work in key frontiers of data science and interdisciplinary application areas. • CODATA workshop series on Frontiers of Data Science and Technology: looking to partner other organisations and build on work of task groups. • Capacity building activities: curriculum for data science, global outreach activities. • International Science Data Conference, with WDS, New Delhi 2-5 Nov 2014. • Reinvigorate the Data Science Journal. • Task Groups http://www.codata.org/taskgroups/index.htmland Working Groups (e.g. Young Data Scientists). • Data strategies for international science: support major ICSU scientific programmes to address data management needs (including infrastructure, policies, processes, standards). • Future Earth; Integrated Research on Disaster Risk

4. CODATA Data Policy Committee • Core membership: Mark Thorley (chair), Paul Uhlir, Tyng-Ruey Chuang, UshaMunshi. • Expand to 10-12 international experts. • Propose call for members and selection process involving CODATA EC. • Propose CODATA DPC to proposed data principles for Future Earth initiative. • Discussed with Mark Thorley that CODATA DPC should prepare model data policies and engage in a process of validation and iteration with National CODATA Committees (and academies, funders, transnational bodies …), with International Scientific Unions (and Learned Societies, publishers, journal editorial boards ….). • Involves CODATA in expert agenda setting activity. • Engages DPC with National Committees and IUs: opportunity for an informed dialogue around national and disciplinary concerns WRT data policies. • Addresses ICSU initiatives: Future Earth, ‘Report on Open Access and metrics for evaluation’

5. CODATA National Committees • Keen to understand and promote activities of CODATA National Committees. • Opportunity for National Committees to take leading role in addressing data issues – relationships with funders, with National Academies, learned societies. • What issues and debates are being raised at national levels? To what extent can various stakeholders be involved (funders, research organisations, data experts, data centres, research libraries etc)? • Can we build dialogue and exchanges between national committees? • If CODATA rests on national membership, then National Committees must have a prominent role and must benefit from international exchange. • National Data Coordinating Committees (IPY had National Data Coordinators…)? • In the UK the time is ripe for a data forum to build dialogue between funder driven policy, data experts and the demands of particular research disciplines.

6. Frontiers of Data Science • Frontiers in data science and technology: coordinate work in key frontiers of data science and interdisciplinary application areas; capacity building activities. • CODATA workshop series on Frontiers of Data Science and Technology: Identify and address key data issues (workshops, white papers, put together larger initiatives). • Where do you want to see exploratory work done? • Opportunity to partner other organisations… • Build on work of Task Groups, engage with International Unions • Identify and support addressing of data issues in coordination with International Unions. • Current activities: nanotechnology, data for sustainable development. • Possible areas: contextual metadata, data policy/standards/repository ‘interoperability’, • Expand CODATA’scapacity building activities, education and training activities including curriculum development. • Early Career Data Scientists (funding allocated, programme needs to be designed).

7. CODATA Task Groups • TGs are approved for two-years by the CODATA General Assembly; seed funding provided; benefit from community endorsement, linkages. • Task Groups to contribute more directly to realisation of strategic plan: contribute to programme of workshops, white papers, reports on Data Frontiers. • Current TGs • Advancing Informatics for Microbiology • Anthropometric Data and Engineering • Data Citation Standards and Practices • Data at Risk • Earth and Space Science Data Interoperability • Exchangeable Materials Data Representation to support Scientific Research and Education • Fundamental Physical Constants: 2010 CODATA constants http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/bibliography.html • Global Information Commons for Science Initiative • Global Roads Data Development • Linked Open Data for Global Disaster Risk Research • OCTOPUS: Mining Space and Terrestrial Data for Improved Weather, Climate and Agricultural Predictions • Preservation of and Access to Scientific and Technical Data in/for/with Developing Countries

8. Data for Future Earth • Lessons from IPY (Mark Parsons in Nature Article on Data Sharing, 2009, doi:10.1038/461160a http://www.arctic.gov/downloads/Arctic_SAP/Misc/State_of_Polar_Data20100514_distribute.pdf • Particular challenge in interdisciplinary projects. • Disparate data sharing cultures in research disciplines: some disciplines have established cultures of data sharing; others not. • Some disciplines have established data infrastructures others not. • Dependency on funding streams can lead to orphan data. • How readily can established data centres expand to cover other areas in interdisciplinary projects? Need for data archives that can deal with diverse data types. • Despite good intentions a lack of follow through and integration: essential to involve data scientists directly in the science at all levels early in the process and throughout. This means funding data science as part of the scientific effort. • As a result of ‘ “naive assumptions”, [a] lack of planning and other unanticipated obstacles, properly managing the IPY data will require another decade of work.’

9. Proposals for Future Earth • CODATA and WDS seeking to work closely with Future Earth and support the data agenda in Future Earth. • Joint CODATA-WDS SciDataCon to give prominence to Future Earth related themes. • Agreement to nominate some from the FE SC as data champion. • Agreement that data experts need to be directly involved with projects. • Resistance from Future Earth team to overarching data policy… • CODATA and WDS to work on brief data principles text for MoU between projects and Future Earth. • CODATA and WDS to have ongoing dialogue with Future Earth…

10. Thank for your attention! Simon Hodson ExecutiveDirector CODATA www.codata.org/blog Email: execdir@codata.org Twitter: @simonhodson99 Tel (Office): +33 1 45 25 04 96 | Tel (Cell): +33 6 86 30 42 59 CODATA (ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology), 5 rue AugusteVacquerie, 75016 Paris, FRANCE