Data and information issues pervade all scientific
endeavours and, as such, are of concern to the entire ICSU family.
The International Network for the Availability of
Scientific Publications (INASP)
is an Interdisciplinary Body, which was established to help bridge the
information divide between developed and developing countries
The International Council for Scientific and Technical
Information (ICSTI)
is an important associate member of ICSU.
ICSU also has several interdisciplinary bodies, whose
principal focus is the management and use of large scientific data sets:
the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA),
the Panel of the World Data Centres (WDC) and
the Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services
(FAGS).
The Scientific Committee on Frequency Allocations
for Radio Astronomy and Space Science (IUCAF) has a very focussed co-ordination role
relating to the activities of the WDC and FAGS, and the Global Observing
Systems (GTOS, GOOS, GCOS), which
are co-sponsored by ICSU.
Either individually or working together, many Members
of ICSU are very active with regards to scientific data. For example
in 2002 an ad hoc Inter-Union
Bioinformatics Group produced an authoritative report and recommendations
regarding biological databases.
