In addition to our coordination and support activities, CODATA is a research-performing organisation. We are active in a range of research initiatives and regularly consult and publish. Our research agenda is focused on high-quality research to advance:
- the promotion of principles, policies and practices for Open Data and Open Science;
- the frontiers of data science;
- capacity-building for Open Science by improving data skills and the functions of national science systems needed to support Open Data.
If you would like to discuss how we can help your organisation or project, please use the contact form to get in touch.
Research-active staff (A-Z by surname)
Arofan Gregory, Standards Expert
- Key skills / interests: SDMX, DDI, DDI-CDI, DataCube, XKOS, GSIM, GSBPM.
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Dr Simon Hodson, Executive Director
Dr Hodson (DPhil, Oxon) (he / him) was a historian of political thought and French history. His doctoral thesis, Sovereigns and subjects: the princes of Sedan and dukes of Bouillon in early modern France, c. 1450-1652 (1999) examines the French Wars of Religion of the early Modern period. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Hull gave him practical experience of digital scholarly technologies, he was programme manager of the Managing Research Data programmes of 2009-11 and 2011-13 at JISC (UK). He became Executive Director of CODATA in 2013.
- Key skills / interests: open data, research data, data policy, date governance, FAIR data, historical data, archival research.
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Dr Laura Molloy, Senior Research Lead
Dr Molloy (she / her) holds a DPhil (PhD) from the University of Oxford in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences, a MA in Scottish Literature and Language, and a MPhil in Humanities Computing, both from the University of Glasgow. Her MPhil thesis investigated the digital preservation attitudes and practices of a group of live and performing artists including musicians, actors and performance artists. Her doctoral thesis Creative connections: the value of digital information objects and their effective management for sustainable contemporary visual art practice (2020) focuses on the extent to which contemporary visual artists use, think about and rely upon digital information technologies including data and digital infrastructures, and won the ASIS&T ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation award for 2021. She became senior research lead at CODATA in 2019. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.
- Key skills / interests: interdisciplinary knowledge exchange, qualitative research, research data policy, open data advocacy, digital skills and curriculum framework development, terminologies.
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Selected reports and other publications
- Hodson, Simon. (2021, May 5). Interoperability and Reusability for Cross Domain Data: the next challenge for FAIR. Hildesheim University Library Coffee Lecture. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4739047
- Dillo, Ingrid, Hodson, Simon, Pittonet Gaiarin, Sara, & Grootveld, Marjan. (2021). Recommendations for a FAIR EOSC – White Paper, FAIRsFAIR Synchronisation Force D5.7, 2021 (Version 1.0 DRAFT). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5793105
- CODATA-Coordinated Expert Group, Berkman, Paul, Brase, Jan, Hartshorn, Richard, Hodson, Simon, Hugo, Wim, Leonelli, Sabina, Mons, Barend, Pergl, Hana, & Pfeiffenberger, Hans. (2020). Open Science for a Global Transformation: CODATA coordinated submission to the UNESCO Open Science Consultation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3935461
- CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council, Hodson, Simon, Pfeiffenberger, Hans, Uhlir, Paul. (2020). Twenty-Year Review of GBIF. https://doi.org/10.35035/ctzm-hz97
- CODATA, Committee on Data of the International Science Council, CODATA International Data Policy Committee, CODATA and CODATA China High-level International Meeting on Open Research Data Policy and Practice, Hodson, Simon, Mons, Barend, Uhlir, Paul, & Zhang, Lili. (2019). The Beijing Declaration on Research Data. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3552330
- European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, (2018). Turning FAIR into reality: final report and action plan from the European Commission expert group on FAIR data, Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/54599
- Molloy, Laura. (2018). Report for EOSCpilot Project: Mapping of WP3 Draft Recommendations to the Landscape: A brief discussion of some contemporary data policy recommendation sets (Version 2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536582
- Participants of the Workshop on Open Data for Science and Sustainability in Developing Countries, ., Liu, C., Uhlir, P., & Hodson, S. (2015). Data Sharing Principles in Developing Countries (The Nairobi Principles). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22117
- Hodson, S., Molloy, L. (2015). Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies: Memorandum to the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation and the Danish Digital Library. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.27872
- (2015). Achieving human and machine accessibility of cited data in scholarly publications. PeerJ Computer Science 1:e1 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1
- Hodson, Simon (2014). CODATA and International Dimensions of Data Policy: Advocacy and Impact on Practice, DataCite Annual Conference 2014. https://doi.org/10.5446/15276
Research experts (A-Z by surname)
In addition to research-active staff members, we have a network of technical experts to whom we reach out for specific skills and knowledge.
Libby Bishop, Ph. D
I worked as a data archivist first at the UK Data Service then at GESIS-Leibniz-Institute for Social Sciences in Germany for over 20 years. My Ph.D. is in Labor Economics (UC Berkeley) where I specialized in qualitative data analysis and methods. I carried that commitment to qualitative research into my archiving work, initially focused on teaching and writing on secondary analysis with qualitative data and specializing in data ethics (e.g., consent, disclosure risk, and ethics of reusing data). Until my recent retirement from GESIS, I was developing solutions for archiving digital behavioral data, such as Twitter and web-tracking data, by adapting metadata standards for data curation and negotiating ethical challenges of reusing these newer forms of data. In addition, I am an experienced project manager, having led a task on developing remote secure access for sensitive data between Germany and the UK as part of the Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cloud Project. As the coordinator for the GESIS-CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) relationship for several years, I successfully delivered numerous projects, some involving more than a dozen partners. I run efficient meetings and do a decent job of getting people I work with to achieve more as a group than we could do as individuals. Overcoming sectarian interests in order to achieve urgent, shared goals will be essential for data-related projects, and beyond.
Stéphane Goldstein
Stéphane Goldstein (he / him) is Executive Director of InformAll, a social enterprise aimed at promoting the relevance, importance and benefits of information literacy (IL) in the library world and beyond. In that capacity, he has undertaken research and analysis, produced reports and tools and facilitated multi-stakeholder working. He is the Advocacy & Outreach Officer on the CILIP Information Literacy Group and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He previously worked at the Research Information Network, where he prepared the ground for InformAll’s independent existence as a community interest company. As well as his work in the realm of IL, between 2005 and 2015 his broad areas of responsibility at RIN included project management, research, facilitation and networking; and before that, he worked in a variety of science policy, public outreach and research management roles at the Medical Research Council and Research Councils UK.
- Key skills / interests: information literacy, media literacy, digital literacy, information policy
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Aitong Li, Ph.D
Dr. Li (she / her) has degrees from Peking University, Yale University and the University of Tokyo, and speaks fluent Mandarin, Japanese and English. She focuses on environmental governance, energy transition and climate change mitigation. She has published papers in journals such as Energy Policy, Ecology and Society, and Environmental Science & Policy.
She has worked for CODATA as regional consultant in several projects such as the CODATA Twenty-year Review of GBIF and the CASEarth Review Project.
- Key skills / interests: Environmental governance, energy transition, climate change mitigation
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Paul F. Ulhir, JD
Paul F. Uhlir, JD (he / him) is a consultant to governments, international organizations and universities in information policy and management. He was Scholar at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, DC in 2015-2016, and the founding Director of the Board on Research Data and Information at the NAS, 2008-2015. Paul was employed at the NAS from 1985-2015 in various senior positions. Before joining the NAS, he worked in the general counsel’s office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. He is the author or editor of 32 books and over 80 articles, and has given several hundred presentations and lectures throughout the world. In 1997 he won the National Research Council’s Special Achievement Award and in 2010 the CODATA International Prize, both for his work on international research data policy. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Paul has a B.A. degree in world history from the University of Oregon (1977), and a Master’s degree in foreign relations and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego (1983, 1984).
- Key skills / interests: research data policy, database law, public data management, international cooperation, institutional reviews, science policy
- Publications: see ORCID profile
Joachim Wackerow
Joachim Wackerow’s current interest is in the work around the DDI Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) specification. He has been working as a data and metadata expert for social science institutes for 37 years. He has been involved in the development of the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) specifications since 2004. He has served in various capacities on committees of the DDI Alliance (Chair of the Scientific Board from 2016 to 2020, member of the Executive Board from 2015 to 2022, Vice Chair of the Technical Committee from 2007 to 2016). He was the main initiator of the annual workshop series on DDI and metadata at Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern, Germany and has been co-organizer of these events since 2007. He was co-initiator of the European DDI Users Conference (EDDI) and chaired it from 2010 to 2018. His previous areas of work included data management and analysis of large data collections such as the German Microcensus and the German Life Course Study. Education: mathematical-technical assistant (apprenticeship occupation), study of sociology at the University of Mannheim.
- Key skills / interests: research data, metadata, social sciences
- Publications: see ORCID profile