Demonstrating our commitment to supporting the International Science Council (ISC) and to working to advance the ISC mission in relation to data issues, CODATA participated actively in the ISC’s Global Knowledge Dialogue (GKD) and General Assembly (GA) in Muscat, Oman.
CODATA was there in force and our contingent comprised:
- Mercè Crosas, CODATA President and Director of Computational Social Science at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center;
- Richard Hartshorn, CODATA Vice-President and Professor of Chemistry, University of Canterbury, Christchurch;
- Daisy Selematsela, CODATA Vice-President and University Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg;
- Steve McEachern, CODATA Treasurer and Director of the UK Data Service;
- Shaily Gandhi, ISC Fellow and former lead of the CODATA Connect Early Career Group and Senior Postdoc at ITU Linz;
- Christopher Zhu, new co-chair of CODATA Connect (sponsored by ISC), and graduate student at Imperial College London; and
- Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director.
The GKD had sessions covering an interesting mix of topics, including the transformations of science due to AI, Open Science and research assessment, the role of science advice, as well as specific sessions on international collaboration in relation to ocean science, polar science and other fields. The CODATA session on “Data policy and skills in a rapidly changing world”, attracted a large and very engaged group of participants.
The keynote presentation from Mercè covered the major transformations of science including the growth in interdisciplinary research, the challenges and opportunities of AI and the implications of this for data stewardship and data science. The presentation generated a lot of discussion and agreement with the core contention that the increasing use of AI requires higher quality data and metadata.
Further presentations from the CODATA team covered the outlines of a policy response (Simon), as well as examples from the social sciences (Steve) and chemistry (Richard). Finally, Shaily discussed what data-related skills researchers need to be ready for these new challenges and opportunities.
The slides from all presentations may be viewed here and the recording is available from the ISC YouTube channel.
The last plenary session of the GKD saw the announcement of the shortlisted Pilot Science Missions for Sustainability. Two Pilot Science Missions for which funding has been secured will start immediately. These are the “Meta-Network Hub for SDGs in Asia” and “Sustainable-use protected areas to catalyse enhance livelihoods in rural Amazonia”: we congratulate these initiatives. A further ten Pilot Science Missions have been selected, for which funding will be sought, including at a meeting of funders convened by ISC and UNESCO in March. Among these is the project “Citizen-driven living labs for urban heat island mitigation”: this proposal was coordinated by Shaily Gandhi and will be led by the Mahila Housing Trust, a women-led NGO. CODATA, ITU Linz, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and CivicDataLab are among the partners. We heartily congratulate Shaily on the success of this proposal and look forward to working on this important project which has so many links to other CODATA activities under WorldFAIR+.
At the ISC GA, CODATA participated in the session for Affiliated Bodies as well as organising a parallel session on the WorldFAIR+ initiative. Like the previous meeting at the ISC Members Forum in May 2023, the Affiliated Bodies session was an extremely welcome opportunity to discuss collaboration with other organisations that work under the ISC umbrella. Particularly important is our commitment to work with Future Earth, IRDR, Urban Health, SCOR and SCAR and the Global Oceans and Global Climate Observing Systems. One of the motivations of the WorldFAIR+ initiative is precisely to provide support for such activities and the interdisciplinary research they promote by making it easier to combine data across domains. We will certainly be following up on the discussions held.
The Interdisciplinary Bodies produced a statement of intent, underlining the value of the ISC Affiliated Bodies, which was later read out in the ISC GA by Saini Yang, Executive Director of IRDR: “Affiliated Bodies of the ISC advance priority and policy-relevant science in a diversity of disciplinary, interdiciplinary, and transdisciplinary areas through the coordination of international scientific communities. Such bodies are crucial for the implementation of the 2025-2028 strategic plan of the ISC. Affiliated Bodies invite further engagement, communication, and participation from all ISC members and scientists globally.”
The CODATA slide for the Interdisciplinary Bodies session can be viewed here.
CODATA also organised an ISC GA parallel session “WorldFAIR+: Making data work for cross-domain grand challenges”. Starting with a set of exploratory activities from 2018, this work accelerated through the WorldFAIR project and is now expanding through WorldFAIR+, a set of parallel project exploring how to better support interdisciplinary research through data and the implementation of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF). Simon presented this narrative and introduced the next steps with an invitation to collaborate. Steve and Richard presented the WorldFAIR social surveys and chemistry case studies; Shaily presented the “Citizen-driven living labs for urban heat island mitigation” Science Missions project. With a lot of parallel sessions, the audience was relatively small but incredibly engaged. We came away from the session with a number of partnerships to follow up.
The slides from all presentations may be viewed here and the recording is available from the ISC YouTube channel.
With so many ISC members present and a large number of parallel sessions, the value of being there in force was clear. The CODATA group was able to engage with a number of ISC members, which we are confident will lead to new membership and collaborations, particularly around WorldFAIR+. Furthermore, we were able to participate in many sessions and make sure that CODATA’s message – that good data stewardship and advanced data science are necessary to advance science as a global public good – was heard frequently and forcefully.

Selfie of some of the CODATA team at the ISC events in Muscat, Oman: Christopher Zhu, Richard Hartshorn, Steve McEachern, Simon Hodson, Mercè Crosas, and (inevitably) Shaily Gandhi taking the selfie!

Steve McEachern, Mercè Crosas and Richard Hartshort in front of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, venue of the ISC GKD and GA.