[CODATA-international] The Beijing Declaration on Research Data

[Asha CODATA]

Grand challenges related to the environment, human health, and
sustainability confront science and society. Understanding and mitigating
these challenges in a rapidly changing environment require data[1] to be
FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and as open as
possible on a global basis. Scientific discovery must not be impeded
unnecessarily by fragmented and closed systems, and the stewardship of
research data should avoid defaulting to the traditional,
proprietary approach of scholarly publishing. Therefore, the adoption of
new policies and principles, coordinated and implemented globally, is
necessary for research data and the associated infrastructures, tools,
services, and practices. The time to act on the basis of solid policies for
research data is now.

The Beijing Declaration is intended as a timely statement of core
principles to encourage global cooperation, especially for public research
data. It builds on and acknowledges the many national and international
efforts that have been undertaken in the policy and technical spheres on a
worldwide basis.  These major contributions are listed in the Appendix.

 Several emergent global trends justify and precipitate this declaration of
principles:


   - Massive global challenges require multilateral and cross-disciplinary
   cooperation and the broad reuse of data to improve coherence concerning
   recent UN landmark agreements, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, the
   Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development
   Goals (SDGs), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Plant Treaty, the
   World Humanitarian Summit, and others. The comprehensive agendas for
   action provided by these agreements requires access to and reuse of
   all kinds of data.
   - Research and problem-solving, especially addressing the SDG
   challenges, are increasingly complex and driven by ‘big data’, resulting in
   the need to combine and reuse very diverse data resources across multiple
   fields. This poses an enormous challenge in the interoperability of data
   and responsible stewardship, with full respect for privacy.
   - Rapid advances in the technologies that generate and analyze data pose
   major challenges concerning data volume, harmonization, management,
   sharing, and reuse. At the same time, emerging technologies (including
   machine learning) offer new opportunities that require access to reusable
   data available in distributed, yet interoperable, international
   data resources.
   - Changing norms and ethics encourage high-quality research through
   greater transparency, promote the reuse of data, and
   improve trustworthiness through the production of verifiable and
   reproducible research results. Increasing the openness of research data is
   efficient, improving the public return on investment, and generating
   positive externalities.
   - Open Science initiatives are emerging globally, including in less
   economically developed countries. There consequently are opportunities for
   these countries to take advantage of technological developments to develop
   a greater share in scientific production. Without determined action, there
   is also a risk that the divide in scientific production will widen.


In September 2019, CODATA and its Data Policy Committee convened in
Beijing to discuss current data policy issues and developed a set of data
policies adapted to the new Open Science paradigm. The Declaration proposed
below is the result of that meeting and is now put forward for public
review.


*The Beijing Declaration on Research Data read here
<http://www.codata.org/uploads/Beijing%20Declaration-19-11-07-FINAL.pdf> -
Attached.*

[1] In the attached document we deliberately use the word data very
broadly, to comprise data (stricto sensu) and the ecosystem of digital
things that relate to data, including metadata, software and algorithms, as
well as physical samples and analogue artefacts (and the
digital representations and metadata relating to these things).

Thanks,
Asha

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*October 2019 Publications*
<http://codata.org/blog/2019/11/01/october-2019-publications-in-the-data-science-journal/>*
in
the CODATA Data Science Journal <https://datascience.codata.org/> *

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----------------------------------------------
Asha Law | Program Assistant, CODATA | http://www.codata.org

E-Mail: asha at codata.org
Tel (Office): +33 1 45 25 04 96

CODATA (Committee on Data of the International Council for Science), 5 rue
Auguste Vacquerie, 75016 Paris, FRANCE
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