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Draft Report of the
Strategic Committee for Information and Data
of the International Council for Science

A Briefing for the Australian Scientific Community

Ray Norris, 30 March 2008

Overview

Background

The International Council for Science (ICSU – see http://www.icsu.org/index.php) is the peak body of world science, and is the parent body for the Scientific Unions such as the IAU, IUGG, IUBS, URSI, etc. ICSU also has a cross-disciplinary organisation called CODATA (see http://www.codata.org/ ), which Australia joined in February 2008, and which promotes and coordinates data issues across all of science. CODATA is represented in Australia by the new multi-disciplinary National Committee for Data in Science. Australian scientists are well aware of the changing nature, volume, and complexity of scientific data. Most of us are aware that next generation instruments in several disciplines, with Terabyte databases, are going to present enormous challenges to the way that we process data, and that our current ways of working with scientific databases will probably no longer work.  

The Australian government and funding agencies are also aware of the changing nature of scientific data, and data infrastructure is being set up under NCRIS to handle these changes. However, IT infrastructure alone is not sufficient – scientists must also devise new methodologies within their disciplines to manage and handle these large volumes of data. So there are a number of initiatives within the Australian scientific community, such as the Virtual Observatories in astronomy and the geosciences, which aim to address these. Similar challenges are being met in many disciplines (e.g. astronomy, geosciences, life sciences, etc) and similar solutions are being sought. Naturally, it makes sense for scientists in one discipline to see what can be learnt from fellow-scientists in other disciplines.  

Similarly, the interests of Australian scientists need to be represented in global initiatives such as the Global Information Commons for Science Initiative, which is being promoted by CODATA.  

ICSU has a brief to look after global issues that affect all of science, and so the ICSU Strategic Plan includes the following goal: “To facilitate a new coordinated global approach to scientific data and information that ensures equitable access to quality data and information for research, education and informed decision-making.”

In order to achieve this it proposed, amongst other things, that ICSU should establish a Strategic Committee on Information and Data (SCID).

Strategic Committee on Information and Data (SCID)

SCID is a committee of 13 people drawn from all the sciences. Its membership is listed in Appendix A, and it includes three Australians (Ray Norris, Kim Finney, and Peter Fox).   The draft SCID report proposes a number of measures to help bodies like ICSU and CODATA achieve their goals of delivering more real value to the scientific community.  

The major draft recommendations of SCID are that:

1. ICSU assert a much-needed strategic leadership role on behalf of the global scientific community in relation to the policies, management and stewardship of scientific data and information;
2. a new World Data Services system be created (as an ICSU Interdisciplinary Body), incorporating the WDCs and FAGS as well as other ‘state of the art’ data centres and services;
3. CODATA focus its activities on the three main initiatives identified in its draft strategy and extend its links to other organisations and networks to play a more prominent role within ICSU and within the wider scientific community;
4. a new ad hoc ICSU Strategic Coordinating Committee for Information and Data be established to provide broad expertise and advice to ICSU in this area;
5. ICSU National Members and Unions be strongly encouraged to establish committees or commissions, where these do not already exist, focussing on data and information issues;

Relevance to Australian Science

From the point of view of Australia, a critical test of the success of this report will be whether it can deliver real value to the data-intensive sciences in Australia, to organisations like the Virtual Observatories, and to major data-intensive facilities of the near future (e.g. ASKAP).  

While the current SCID report doesn’t yet set up infrastructure which will do this, it does propose to set up the bodies and processes which will do so. You are invited to read the draft report and send your comments to Jeanette.Mill(at)science.org.au who will coordinate them on behalf of the Academy of Science, from where they will be fed back to ICSU. 

Appendix A: Members of SCID

Roberta Balstad, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, USA  

Nicole Capitaine, Observatoire de Paris, France

Michael Diepenbroek, Institute for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM), University of Bremen, Germany

Kim Finney, Australian Antarctic Division, Department of Environment & Heritage, Kingston, Australia

Peter Fox, High Altitude Observatory, Earth Sun Systems Lab, National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA

Alexei D. Gvishiani Director, Geophysical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Ray Harris [Chair], University College London, Department of Geography, London, UK

Toshio Koike, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan

Jean-Bernard Minster, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, USA

Ruth Neilan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA

Ray Norris, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, Australia

*Alejandro PisantyDirector General de Servicios de Computo, Academico, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Mexico  

Daisy Selematsela, Knowledge Management & Strategy Directorate, National Research Foundation, Pretoria, South Africa

*Alejandro Pisanty was unable to attend the SCID meetings in person but provided extensive input and comments on the various issues under discussion and on the text of the final report.

Appendix B: SCID Terms of Reference  

Taking the report of the CSPR Assessment Panel on Scientific Data and Information as its starting point, and in the light of developments subsequent to that report:

1. To guide and oversee the reform of the World Data Centre (WDC) system and Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical data analysis Services (FAGS);

2. to liaise with CODATA in the development of its strategic plan;

3. to advise CSPR on any other actions that might be appropriate for ICSU to consider in order to facilitate a coordinated global approach to scientific data and information, including the potential need for a Scientific Data and Information Forum (SciDIF).