Richard Hartshorn is CODATA Vice-President, and Professor of Chemistry in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He was Secretary General of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) from 2016 to 2023.
Representatives from the ISC Affiliated Bodies met at the ISC Midterm Membership Meeting in Beijing on Thursday 22 October. The Affiliated Bodies are a group of organisations based around specific themes, data and information, and global monitoring and observation.
The meeting began with reports from the organisations present and then developed into a discussion of issues to be raised in the report back to the ISC plenary session:
- There is increased pressure on funding and that is especially true for projects and organisations that involve international coordination and integration. Many of the Affiliated Bodies are finding it challenging to secure necessary financial support.
- The Affiliated Bodies noted how much they valued involvement with other ISC members, including scientific unions and national/regional bodies, and they wanted to see more of it. These involvements could and should include:
- More and better communication
- Operational integration
- Sharing good practice
- Working together to achieve greater impact on policy
- The Affiliated Bodies were also very interested in the ISC convening discussions on the impact of AI and emerging technologies on science, but the group noted that there were real challenges in doing so simply from the rates at which these advances are being made and their impacts felt.
CODATA is proud to be one of the most active and impactful Affiliated Bodies, as noted by Sir Peter Gluckman, the outgoing president of the International Science Council, in his valedictory plenary speech. We look forward to working with a wider group of scientific unions and expanding our national and regional reach.
As testament to this engagement, CODATA was strongly represented in this meeting by Virginia Murray and Burçak Başbuğ, co-chairs of our International Data Policy Committee and of the UNESCO-CODATA WG on Data Policy for Times of Crisis and our International Data Policy; Cyrus Walther, Executive Committee Member; Pragya Chaube and Ntsundeni Louis Mapatagane, co-chairs of CODATA Connect, our early career network; Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director and myself.