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CODATA’s Mission

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CODATA’s mission is to connect data and people to advance science and improve our world.

As the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (ISC), CODATA helps realise ISC’s vision of advancing science as a global public good.  CODATA does this by promoting international collaboration to advance Open Science and to improve the availability and usability of data for all areas of research.  CODATA supports the principle that data produced by research and susceptible to be used for research should be as open as possible and as closed as necessary.  CODATA works also to advance the interoperability and the usability of such data: research data should be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).

CODATA’s strategic activities are divided into four priorities:

  1. Decadal Programme ‘Making Data Work for Cross-Domain Grand Challenges’ and the Global Open Science Cloud Initiative.
  2. Data Policy: promoting principles, policies and practices for FAIR Data and Open Science;
  3. Data Science: advancing the frontiers of the science of data;
  4. Data Skills: building capacity for Open Science by improving data skills and the functions of national science systems needed to support open data.

CODATA achieves these objectives through a number of standing committees and strategic executive led initiatives, and through its Task Groups and Working Groups.  CODATA supports the Data Science Journal and collaborates on major data conferences like SciDataCon and International Data Week.  CODATA encourages its Task Groups, Working Groups, and Committees to follow principles of diversity and equality in membership, leadership and operations.

CODATA supports the principles of Open Science and follows them in the work we do. CODATA projects and activities abide by the principles laid out in the UNESCO Recommendation and other core documents on Open Science to which we have contributed (including the Leiden Declaration on FAIR Digital Objects, the Beijing Declaration on Research Data, Open Data in a Big Data World, the OECD Principles of 2007 and 2021).