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ICSU Conference confirms widespread support for World Data System
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The first International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data System conference was held in September at Kyoto University, Japan.
The ICSU World Data System (WDS) provides a revised architecture and infrastructure for the collection of ICSU World Data Centres, some of which have been in existence for more than 50 years. The World Data System represents the ‘hard science’ open data resources available to all - quality assured, peer-reviewed, and conforming to requirements for proper governance and long-term preservation.
After rescheduling on account of Typhoon Talas (which passed just to the west of Kyoto on September 3), the conference got under way on September 4 – with more than 150 delegates from 21 countries participating.
SAEON was involved in two presentations at the conference – An update on progress with the establishment of the World Data Centre for Biodiversity and Human Health in Africa, presented by Dr Daisy Selematsela of the National Research Foundation (NRF) with assistance from SAEON Systems Engineer Wim Hugo, and A Proposal for a Maturity Model for Scientific Data Centres, presented by Wim Hugo.
The conference agreed on a ‘Statement of Shared Understanding’, which is significant in that it solidifies the widespread support for the World Data System concept from scientific data centres globally. Read the preliminary report here.
Scientific Committee
Wim Hugo was recently appointed to the Scientific Committee of the World Data System, and spent September 3, 7 and 8 on committee work. Together with Michael Diepenbroek of Bremen University and Kostiantyn Yefremov of the Ukraine Technical University, Wim will be responsible for a ‘Network of Networks’ architecture to support and improve data exchange and interoperability between WDS components, and to allow data discovery through a WDS portal and shared services linked to all components.
