Workshop Report for “Planning for a Community Study of Scientific Data Infrastructure” Released

August 11, 2014 – The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), in conjunction with the National Academy of Science’s Board on Research Data Initiatives (BRDI), held the workshop, “Planning for a Community Study of Scientific Data Infrastructure”, on January 7, 2014 in Washington, D.C. The workshop was designed to frame a community study of challenges and opportunities associated with scientific data infrastructure (SDI).

The diverse workshop participants envisioned a sustained SDI and associated technical and cultural changes that better enabled science in the face of major challenges now and into the future. “The “tsunami” of Earth science data that threatens to engulf us has been warily anticipated for more than two decades. The sheer magnitude presents considerable technical challenges to receive, manage, and responsibly steward this vast archive that chronicles how our planet is changing. We have a pressing responsibility to the generations that follow to ensure that these tasks are done carefully.” said Peter Fox, ESIP Federation President.

In order to be well-positioned to address these challenges, participants felt our nation needs an overarching, unifying strategy for collaboratively addressing the management of scientific data across domains and throughout the data lifecycle. Fox added that, “By envisioning, predicting and investing in modern competitive scientific data infrastructures, the tsunami offers opportunities to gain unprecedented insight into how the Earth system works in all its complexity so that we might leave future generations a healthier planet.”

This workshop was made possible with generous support from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the National Consortium for Data Science and the ESIP Federation. We are also grateful to William Michener for facilitating the workshop and for the support of the ESIP workshop steering committee. For the full workshop report see: http://commons.esipfed.org/node/2635

The ESIP Federation is dedicated to transforming research data and information into useful and usable data and information products for decision makers, policy makers and the public. Initiated by NASA in 1997, the ESIP Federation is a broad-based, distributed community of science data and information technology practitioners spanning government (NASA, NOAA, EPA, USGS, NSF), academia and the private sectors (both commercial and nonprofit). The Foundation for Earth Science provides administrative and staff support to the ESIP Federation.

Contacts:

Peter Fox

President, ESIP Federation

president@esipfed.org

Charles Hutchinson

Interim Executive Director, Foundation for Earth Science

Chuck@earthsciencefoundation.org | 520-403-4963