WorldFAIR: Continuing to transform data to tackle complex challenges in a follow-up project

The major global scientific and human challenges of the 21st century – including climate change, sustainable development, and disaster risk reduction – can only be addressed through cross-domain research that seeks to understand complex systems through machine-assisted analysis at scale.

Our capacity for such analysis is currently constrained by limitations in our ability to access and combine heterogeneous data within and across domains. Sub-optimal data practices are a major and costly limiting factor on research: it is estimated that 80% of research expenditures are used to prepare inconsistent data for use.

In recognition of this challenge, ISC provided CODATA with seed funding for an initiative ‘Making data work for global grand challenges’, which was part of the Council’s first Action Plan 2019-2021.

WorldFAIR

The crucial early financing allowed CODATA to expand its secretariat, build collaborations and develop a case-study methodology. This led to the creation of WorldFAIR, with funding from the European Commission, to join up disconnected initiatives on data management, data stewardship, and FAIR data practices, within and across disciplines and internationally.

Upon its completion in mid-2024, WorldFAIR had produced an impressive set of recommendations and other support mechanisms: (cross)disciplinary case studies, policy recommendations, interoperability frameworks, and more.

Carrying on under WorldFAIR+

Expanding and sustaining the WorldFAIR objectives and methodology, CODATA has already launched a direct continuation through the WorldFAIR+ initiative.

WorldFAIR+ will be a growing federation of projects, with parallel funding and support from a CODATA-led coordinating mechanism with technical expertise. The initiative will focus on providing practical guidance and technical recommendations to help ensure that the data needed for interdisciplinary research is FAIR and has maximum utility.

• The ISC is supporting a project on ‘FAIR Data and Emergencies’ which applies the WorldFAIR methodology to case studies on earthquake response data (with colleagues in Turkey), and on flooding and cholera as cascading hazards (focusing on Malawi).
• CODATA is part of a consortium for which funding has been approved for a project on climate adaptation starting in 2025, upon completion of the grant agreement preparation process. The project will implement the CDIF and related FAIR-enabling technologies for three case studies: on urban heat; oceans and coastal management data; clay soils and insurance.
• CODATA is a partner in the Data Science Without Borders project, funded by Wellcome and coordinated by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). It will implement CDIF-components and other FAIR-enabling technologies to support federated analysis, including AI (requiring data interoperability and privacy management) across African health research centres in Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Cameroon.

If you would like to get involved, please contact Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director, at [email protected].

Webinar – The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF): Practical Guidelines for FAIR Interoperability

The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) is a major output from the WorldFAIR project, and has been published as an initial draft with the completion of project deliverables. CDIF is a set of implementation recommendations, based on profiles of common, domain-neutral metadata standards which are aligned to work together to support core functions required by FAIR. CDIF will continue to be developed and maintained, based on feedback from implementers and the broader FAIR community.

This webinar will: 

1. present the core CDIF profiles and discuss future directions;
2. invite feedback and provide details on how this can be done;
3. discuss plans to expand the CDIF initiative and broaden the participating community. 

The webinar will take place on Thu 25 July at 15:00-16:30 CEST / 13:00-14:30 UTC

Register at: https://bit.ly/RegistrationCDIFwebinar240725.

Picture by Maxim Berg on Unsplash