The Asia Pacific Advance Network (APAN) and the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (CODATA) have formalised a strategic partnership through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to underline their commitment to leveraging scientific discoveries and results to address global challenges, and to providing researchers with improved tools and resources to generate them. Simon Hodson, Executive Director of CODATA, and Markus Buchhorn, Advisor to the APAN Board and co-chair of the APAN Open and Sharing Data working group, celebrated this agreement in conjunction with the 2025 International Data Week.
Background
APAN
APAN (the Asia Pacific Advanced Network) refers to both the organisation representing its members, and to the backbone network that connects the research and education networks of its member countries/economies and links them to research networks around the world. APAN members are the entities representing research and education network interests in the countries/economies of Asia and Oceania.
APAN coordinates activities related to network technologies, services, and applications among its members, discipline communities and with its peer international organisations. APAN is also a key driver in promoting and facilitating network-enabled research and education activities. These include research collaboration, knowledge discovery and sharing, tele-health and natural disaster mitigation.
CODATA
CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (ISC), is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing science as a global public good through the promotion of open, accessible and usable data for all areas of research. CODATA champions the FAIR principles and advocates for data openness to foster global collaboration and scientific progress through an extensive programme of task groups, working groups (including the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework CDIF), strategic partnerships, and collaborative international projects such as Climate-Adapt4EOSC.
Initial areas of collaboration
The collaboration is based on information sharing and leveraging synergies between activities and events of the organisations, including major international conferences, such as APAN meetings and International Data Week, as well as focused, continuous activities of the task and working groups of APAN and CODATA. The initial topics of specific interest include:
- Citizen Science
- Disaster/hazard preparedness/Monitoring/
Response - Data discoverability, interoperability and reusability (especially semantic interoperability and FAIR), including exploring the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) as means of addressing the FAIR principles.
- Assessing and enhancing discipline, institutional and national maturity around research data stewardship best practices
- Supporting workforce and skills development to support data-related research and education – capacity and capability building
- Development of suitable, and sustainable, data infrastructures to support research and education across the Asia-Pacific region.
Contacts
- CODATA: Simon Hodson; simon@codata.org;
- APAN: Markus Buchhorn; markus@apan.net;
Launch webinar
APAN and CODATA will organise a joint webinar on 26th November, 12.00 – 13.30 CET to present selected joint activities in more detail. The agenda will be published soon, but registration is already open.