A direct continuation of the project’s work is already underway through an initiative coordinated by CODATA, named ‘WorldFAIR+’. As part of the ‘Making Data Work for Cross-Domain Grand Challenges’ programme of activity to help deliver a specific part of the International Science Council (ISC) Action Plan with the same name, CODATA will expand and sustain the vision and methodology being advanced through the WorldFAIR Project. The purpose is to provide practical guidance and technical recommendations to help ensure that the data needed for interdisciplinary research is FAIR and has maximum utility. CODATA is seeking partners around the world for this initiative, to explore case studies to use and further refine the WorldFAIR methodology. Additionally implementation pilots will test and feed back on the CDIF recommendations.
‘WorldFAIR+’ will aim to achieve the following objectives:
- Refining the WorldFAIR methodology, particularly concerning the use of FIPs and the CDIF.
- Expanding the number of case studies (or petals in the WorldFAIR flower diagram and logo).
- Exploring and enabling implementations of CDIF, improving the model and demonstrating the benefits of the approach.
- Securing funding in various countries of a suite of projects implementing the methodology.
- Establishing one or more International Programme Offices to coordinate the activities and provide secretariat support and expertise.
Following the receipt of a grant from the International Science Council, two further case studies relating to data in emergencies will be launched: these are concerned respectively with earthquake data (Turkey) and flooding and infectious disease data (Malawi). They build on some of the existing work A further case study in earth sciences as part of a collaboration with International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and Deeptime Digital Earth is also in discussion at the time of writing.
The CDIF Recommendations and the work of Work package 7, will be implemented in a new Wellcome-funded project ‘Data Science Without Borders’, which brings together health scientists, data specialists, AI experts and policy analysts to work with institutes in Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal and Cameroon.
Discussions are ongoing with a number of partners, including the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration, The Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) , the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), the African Open Science Platform (AOSP), the Malaysian Open Science Platform, the LIFES Institute in Leiden, the CivicDataLab India, and others.