The December solstice was 22:23 UTC on Friday 21 December, so this comes a ‘little’ late. Nevertheless, I would like to send the warmest best wishes to everyone involved in CODATA activities and to the wider global research data community. 2018 has been a significant year for CODATA and you may find some of the following interesting:
‘A milestone in the history of science’: the redefinition of the International System of Units was based on the work of CODATA and the Task Group for Fundamental Constants.
International Data Week, held in Gaborone, Botswana was an enormous success with 850 participants. Selected paper will be published in the CODATA Data Science Journal.
The vision and strategy for the African Open Science Platform was launched at Science Forum South Africa, in a presentation by co-chair Khotso Mokhele. A founding members’ meeting will be hosted at the Biblioteca Alexandrina later in 2019.
The ISC CODATA initiative on Data Interoperability Integration for Interdisciplinary Research made progress, notably through a very successful Dagstuhl Workshop co-organised with the DDI Alliance: this will result in a series of articles on data integration challenges in cross-disciplinary research areas.
Other notable activities include the work of the Data Policy Committee, a major contribution to the European Commission report on Turning FAIR into Reality and the ongoing series of CODATA-RDA Data Schools.
Finally, we are grateful for the enormous contribution that Past President Geoffrey Boulton has made to CODATA. The CODATA General Assembly at the University of Botswana 9-10 November elected a new President, Barend Mons, and a new Executive Committee. We look forward to further increasing CODATA’s impact and to promoting international collaboration for Open Science and FAIR data.