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Making the case for international data sharing

The case for international data sharing, particularly overcoming challenges in developing countries, took centre stage at an international symposium that took place in Washington DC in April.
Making the case for international data sharing

International data sharing

The symposium—organized by the US National Academies Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO) and the US Committee on Data for Science and Technology, under the Board on Research Data and Information (BRIDI), in consultation with the ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science (CFRS)—discussed the barriers and challenges to international data access and sharing, with a special focus on developing countries.

Scientific research and problem solving—especially for global issues, such as disaster mitigation and response, environmental management, epidemiology of infectious diseases and sustainable development—are increasingly dependent on access to diverse sources of data generated by the scientific community. However, there are many challenges to accessing and sharing this data, such as scientific and technical, institutional and management, economic and financial, legal and policy, and normative and socio-cultural aspects. Researchers in developing countries are affected most by these challenges, especially:

  • limited access to research results published in scientific journals;
  • lack of norms and traditions of more open data sharing for collaborative research;
  • governments in many developing countries treating  publicly generated or publicly funded research data either as secret or commercial commodities; and
  • a lack of local data centres or digital repositories for researchers to submit their data for use by others.

ICSU advocates data and information through various entities, such as CFRS, the International Network for Access to Scientific Publications (INASP), the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), the World Data System (WDS) and the Strategic Coordinating Committee for Information and Data (SCCID). CFRS is involved from a rights and responsibilities perspective and is developing an Advisory Note on this issue as an outcome of the symposium.

The conference proceedings will be published by the National Academies Press.

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