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Research

In addition to our coordination and support activities, CODATA is a research-performing organisation.  We are active in a range of research initiatives and regularly consult and publish.  Our research agenda is focused on high-quality research to advance:

  1. the promotion of principles, policies and practices for Open Data and Open Science;
  2. the frontiers of data science;
  3. capacity-building for Open Science by improving data skills and the functions of national science systems needed to support Open Data.

If you would like to discuss how we can help your organisation or project, please use the contact form to get in touch.

 

Research-active staff

Dr Simon Hodson, Executive Director

Dr Hodson (DPhil, Oxon) (he / him) is a historian of political thought. His doctoral thesis, Sovereigns and subjects: the princes of Sedan and dukes of Bouillon in early modern France, c. 1450-1652 (1999) examines the French Wars of Religion of the early Modern period.  After a postdoctoral position at the University of Hull gave him practical experience of digital scholarly technologies, he was programme manager of the Managing Research Data programmes of 2009-11 and 2011-13 at JISC (UK).  He became Executive Director of CODATA in 2013.

  • Key skills / interests: open data, research data, data policy, date governance, FAIR data, historical data, archival research.
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Dr Laura Molloy, Senior Research Lead

Dr Molloy (she / her) holds a DPhil (PhD) from the University of Oxford in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences, a MA in Scottish Literature and Language, and a MPhil in Humanities Computing, both from the University of Glasgow.  Her MPhil thesis investigated the digital preservation attitudes and practices of a group of live and performing artists including musicians, actors and performance artists.  Her doctoral thesis Creative connections: the value of digital information objects and their effective management for sustainable contemporary visual art practice (2020) focuses on the extent to which contemporary visual artists use, think about and rely upon digital information technologies including data and digital infrastructures, and won the ASIS&T ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation award for 2021.  She became senior research lead at CODATA in 2019.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

  • Key skills / interests: interdisciplinary knowledge exchange, qualitative research, research data policy, open data advocacy, digital skills and curriculum framework development, terminologies.
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Selected reports and other publications

  • Hodson, Simon. (2021, May 5). Interoperability and Reusability for Cross Domain Data: the next challenge for FAIR. Hildesheim University Library Coffee Lecture. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4739047
  • Dillo, Ingrid, Hodson, Simon, Pittonet Gaiarin, Sara, & Grootveld, Marjan. (2021). Recommendations for a FAIR EOSC – White Paper, FAIRsFAIR Synchronisation Force D5.7, 2021 (Version 1.0 DRAFT). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5793105
  • CODATA-Coordinated Expert Group, Berkman, Paul, Brase, Jan, Hartshorn, Richard, Hodson, Simon, Hugo, Wim, Leonelli, Sabina, Mons, Barend, Pergl, Hana, & Pfeiffenberger, Hans. (2020). Open Science for a Global Transformation: CODATA coordinated submission to the UNESCO Open Science Consultation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3935461
  • CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council, Hodson, Simon, Pfeiffenberger, Hans, Uhlir, Paul. (2020). Twenty-Year Review of GBIF. https://doi.org/10.35035/ctzm-hz97
  • CODATA, Committee on Data of the International Science Council, CODATA International Data Policy Committee, CODATA and CODATA China High-level International Meeting on Open Research Data Policy and Practice, Hodson, Simon, Mons, Barend, Uhlir, Paul, & Zhang, Lili. (2019). The Beijing Declaration on Research Data. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3552330
  • European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, (2018). Turning FAIR into reality: final report and action plan from the European Commission expert group on FAIR data, Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/54599
  • Molloy, Laura. (2018). Report for EOSCpilot Project: Mapping of WP3 Draft Recommendations to the Landscape: A brief discussion of some contemporary data policy recommendation sets (Version 2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536582
  • Participants of the Workshop on Open Data for Science and Sustainability in Developing Countries, ., Liu, C., Uhlir, P., & Hodson, S. (2015). Data Sharing Principles in Developing Countries (The Nairobi Principles). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22117
  • Hodson, S., Molloy, L. (2015). Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies: Memorandum to the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation and the Danish Digital Library. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.27872
  • Starr J, Castro E, Crosas M, Dumontier M, Downs RR, Duerr R, Haak LL, Haendel M, Herman I, Hodson S, Hourclé J, Kratz JE, Lin J, Nielsen LH, Nurnberger A, Proell S, Rauber A, Sacchi S, Smith A, Taylor M, Clark T. (2015). Achieving human and machine accessibility of cited data in scholarly publications. PeerJ Computer Science 1:e1 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1
  • Hodson, Simon (2014). CODATA and International Dimensions of Data Policy: Advocacy and Impact on Practice, DataCite Annual Conference 2014. https://doi.org/10.5446/15276

 

Research and technical experts

In addition to research-active staff members, we have a network of technical experts to whom we reach out for specific skills and knowledge.

Arofan Gregory
Arofan Gregory (he / him) is a consultant with a background in technology, especially focusing on metadata standards for statistics and research data. He has contributed to the development of the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) standards, the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) standards, the Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM), the DataCube Vocabulary (QB), and has implemented and helped develop many other standards and specifications in this domain. His technical knowledge covers XML and related technologies, UML modelling, SQL and RDF, as well as a range of programming languages. Currently, he is the Chair of the DDI Cross Domain Integration Working Group, and is involved with CODATA’s Decadal Programme and the INSPIRE projects in Africa. He is also an active member of the DDI Training Working Group, and is an organizer of the IUSSP-CODATA FAIR Vocabularies Working Group.
  • Key skills / interests: SDMX, DDI, DDI-CDI, DataCube, XKOS, GSIM, GSBPM.
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Mercury Fox

Associate Partner, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona (UA)
Executive Director, CODATA at UA

Mercury Fox (she / her) is the first Fulbright Specialist in data diplomacy, a Collaboratory Cultures Communities of Practice Fellow with the US National Science Foundation Online Ethics Center, and the founding director of the CODATA Center of Excellence in Data for Society at the University of Arizona. In these leadership roles, she organizes science diplomacy initiatives, promotes the rights and responsibilities of individuals through innovative data governance, develops provocative projects that expand the role of data assets and technologies in society, and builds international networks of multi-sector stakeholders to advance data in society frameworks. She facilitates cross-functional dialogues in public policy, professional standards, and best practices, while contributing thought leadership related to the enduring and emerging cultural, social, and ethical challenges that data technologies pose. Ms. Fox further leverages special expertise in data diplomacy and collaboratory cultures to advance interdisciplinary research and multilateral science cooperation through an STS practitioner approach.

  • Key skills / interests: data science policy, data and society, data diplomacy, collaboratory cultures, data governance, STS, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, science diplomacy, research design, citizen science, FAIR data policy, science policy, data sovereignty, data privacy, digital colonialism, convergence research, program management, AI bias, fluid commons, science ethics, Track II diplomacy.
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

 

Stéphane Goldstein

Stéphane Goldstein (he / him) is Executive Director of InformAll, a social enterprise aimed at promoting the relevance, importance and benefits of information literacy (IL) in the library world and beyond. In that capacity, he has undertaken research and analysis, produced reports and tools and facilitated multi-stakeholder working. He is the Advocacy & Outreach Officer on the CILIP Information Literacy Group and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He previously worked at the Research Information Network, where he prepared the ground for InformAll’s independent existence as a community interest company. As well as his work in the realm of IL, between 2005 and 2015 his broad areas of responsibility at RIN included project management, research, facilitation and networking; and before that, he worked in a variety of science policy, public outreach and research management roles at the Medical Research Council and Research Councils UK.

  • Key skills / interests: information literacy, media literacy, digital literacy, information policy
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Jay Greenfield

Jay (he / they) is a consultant with a background in business platforms, data standards, multivariate analysis and artificial intelligence. He has contributed to the development of platforms used in healthcare research and development including Obamacare, NHANES, the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, the National Children’s Study, the Statistics Netherlands Blaise computer assisted interviewing system and more recently the African Chapter of the OHDSI research platform. Much of his experience with these platforms goes to the construction of data pipelines both prospectively and retrospectively in support of observational demographic, health care and exposures (exposome) research as well as simulated clinical trials. He has contributed to standards that animate these platforms and make them FAIRer including DDI, DDI-CDI, the Generic Statistical Information Model and more recently the CODATA cross-domain interoperability framework. Jay’s technical knowledge covers Structural Equation Modeling (LISREL), causal analysis, SQL, RDF, XML, XSLT, the RDF Data Cube Vocabulary, ShEx, schema.org and JSON-LD.

  • Keywords: data pipelines, real world data, causal analysis, FAIR data, DDI, DDI-CDI, provenance, OHDSI.
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

 

Aitong Li, Ph.D

Dr. Li (she / her) has degrees from Peking University, Yale University and the University of Tokyo, and speaks fluent Mandarin, Japanese and English. She focuses on environmental governance, energy transition and climate change mitigation. She has published papers in journals such as Energy Policy, Ecology and Society, and Environmental Science & Policy.

She has worked for CODATA as regional consultant in several projects such as the CODATA Twenty-year Review of GBIF and the CASEarth Review Project.

  • Key skills / interests: Environmental governance, energy transition, climate change mitigation
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Paul F. Ulhir, JD

Paul F. Uhlir, JD (he / him) is a consultant to governments, international organizations and universities in information policy and management. He was Scholar at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, DC in 2015-2016, and the founding Director of the Board on Research Data and Information at the NAS, 2008-2015. Paul was employed at the NAS from 1985-2015 in various senior positions. Before joining the NAS, he worked in the general counsel’s office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. He is the author or editor of 32 books and over 80 articles, and has given several hundred presentations and lectures throughout the world. In 1997 he won the National Research Council’s Special Achievement Award and in 2010 the CODATA International Prize, both for his work on international research data policy. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Paul has a B.A. degree in world history from the University of Oregon (1977), and a Master’s degree in foreign relations and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego (1983, 1984).

  • Key skills / interests: research data policy, database law, public data management, international cooperation, institutional reviews, science policy
  • Publications: see ORCID profile

 

Joachim Wackerow

Joachim Wackerow’s current interest is in the work around the DDI Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) specification.  He has been working as a data and metadata expert for social science institutes for 37 years. He has been involved in the development of the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) specifications since 2004. He has served in various capacities on committees of the DDI Alliance (Chair of the Scientific Board from 2016 to 2020, member of the Executive Board from 2015 to 2022, Vice Chair of the Technical Committee from 2007 to 2016). He was the main initiator of the annual workshop series on DDI and metadata at Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern, Germany and has been co-organizer of these events since 2007. He was co-initiator of the European DDI Users Conference (EDDI) and chaired it from 2010 to 2018. His previous areas of work included data management and analysis of large data collections such as the German Microcensus and the German Life Course Study.  Education: mathematical-technical assistant (apprenticeship occupation), study of sociology at the University of Mannheim.

  • Key skills / interests: research data, metadata, social sciences
  • Publications: see ORCID profile