International Scientific Unions Data Forum

Inspired by the success of the CODATA National Committees Forum, and the CODATA engagement with Unions through the Digital Representation of Units of Measurement (DRUM) Ambassadors, CODATA, with the support of the International Science Council, is keen to convene a similar forum for international scientific union and associations. The purpose of the forum is to better understand the concerns and objectives of international scientific unions and associations in relation to data issues and to identify opportunities for greater collaboration and joint projects.

Unions that are not yet members of CODATA are invited to join the forum and consider CODATA membership in light of their interests relating to data issues.

The first meeting of the Forum on 19 June 2024 will serve to discuss and agree on the purpose, objectives, scope and activities of the forum. The overarching purpose of the forum would be to provide unions with an opportunity to articulate to each other, to the ISC and to CODATA their priorities and desiderata in relation to a range of data issues. In turn, a number of specific opportunities for collaboration will be identified.

In this context, there are a number of activities that CODATA would like to pursue, and which could be of utility to the International Scientific Unions:

• Invite and scope Union participation in WorldFAIR+ activities (see WorldFAIR project and the current working document on WorldFAIR+);
• Update and add detail to previous CODATA work to survey Union data activities and involvement in standards, terminologies and nomenclatures;
• Review and compare union data / open science recommendations (technical and policy);
• Review and compare union recommendations in relation to AI;
• Review and compare union recommendations in relation to data policy and ethics;
• Possible collaboration in data skills and Early Career Researcher (ECR) activities.

Early discussions would test unions’ interest in these topics and identify complementary topics and areas of activity. 

Registration

The first meeting will be convened on 19 June. To accommodate participants from various time zones, two meetings will take place on this day.

All international scientific unions and associations are invited to nominate attendee(s) by contacting the CODATA Secretariat at [email protected] and to share the above registration links with the nominees. There is no limit regarding the number of participants per organization: possible participants could be existing CODATA delegates, existing DRUM Ambassadors, members of Unions’ leadership or other nominees.

Indicative Agenda

1. Welcome and round of introductions
2. What are Union priorities and pain points in relation to data?
   1. Examples (e.g. from IUPAC, IUPAP, IUPsyS, IUPESM)
   2. DRUM
   3. Discussion
3. CODATA activities and suggestions for Unions (see above)
4. Objectives, scope and activities of the Forum

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash