The International Council ofScientific Unions (ICSU)World Data System
Françoise Genova
SPS15, IAU GA 2012
Thanks to Mustapha Mokrane who provided WDSviewgraphs

Foundation
ICSU 29th General Assembly in Maputo (Oct.
2008) decided:• To confirm that ICSU will continue to assert
a strategic leadership role in relation toscientific data and information;• to establish a new ICSU-World Data System
as an Interdisciplinary Body
to replace the WDCand FAGSICSU Data Track RecordPAST

World Data Centers
Federation of Astronomical andGeophisical services

PRESENTICSU International Scientific Unions data bodies
ICSU National Members data bodies
ICSU Interdisciplinary Bodies data activities

WDS Scientific Committee
2012-2015• Bernard Minster (Chair, USA)
• Michael Diepenbroek (Germany)• Kim Finney (Australia)• Françoise Genova (France)• Wim Hugo (South Africa)• Jane Hunter (Australia)• Vasily Kopylov (Russian Federation)• Guoqing Li (China)• Ruth Neilan (USA)• Lesley Rickards (UK)• Ryosuke Shibasaki (Japan)• Ariel Troisi (Argentina)
Ex-Officio• Howard Moore (ICSU)• Yasuhiro Murayama (NICT)Objectives
The WDS ensures theand provision ofand data services to the international science communityand other stakeholders. The WDS incorporates new scientific dataactivities into a common,, distributed data system.

The WDS advances interconnections between data management
components for. WDS has a broad disciplinary and geographic base andstrives to become adata.

for scientific

WDS first steps
1. Constitution
2. Data Policy
3. Certification criteria
4. Applications for Membership
5. International Programme Office (Tokyo,2012)

Requirements

 Full and open access data policy
 Broad disciplinary and geographic coverage Trustworthiness Adoption of data standards/conventions

Membership typesRegular

Data curation and data analysis services.

NetworkGroups of regular members, umbrellaorganizations

Partner

Do not deal directly with data collection,curation, and distribution, but contributesupport to WDS

AssociateOrganizations interested in the WDS
endeavourWDS Membership (Aug.
2012)• 39 Regular Members• 2Network Members• 2Partner Members• 6
Associate Members
150 Expressions of Interest, 60 applications
Evaluation by the WDS Scientific Committee
Many applications were discouraged
Many other applications are in progress…

Why does this concern astronomy?
• WDS is fully interdisciplinary ‐ Earth Sciences
are at present widely represented by legacy ofthe World Data Centres• The Federation of Astronomical andGeophysical Centres is a parent body of WDSand IAU has been associated to thebrainstorming which led to the creation ofWDS

Why does this concern astronomy?
• Open Scientific Data is a very hot topic• Astronomy has historically been at theforefront and astronomy data centres andservices are fully WDS‐compliant• It is important to keep astronomy visibility• Astronomy has the capacity to enrich WDS
with its wide variety of potential WDS
members

Examples fromEurope but a hot
topic in MANY countries

Open access to publications
has long dominated thedebate. Now understoodthat data is one of theresearch infrastructures

Astronomy data centre and services• A Census of European Data Centres andServices by the Euro‐VO Data Centre Allianceproject (2007‐2008)• An inclusive definition: provide a service to thecommunity, with some added‐value built onexpertise, some kind of sustainability, concern
for quality• ~70 answers

European Census results• A huge diversity of resources– Large services provided by international agencies, with archivesof the large ground‐based and space instruments– Large systematic surveys of the sky, results of large simulations– Generalist data bases and services– Smaller, focussed contributions of scientific teams which share
their expertise• There are ‘historical’ data archives and data centres(CDS is 40 years old this year!)• The provision of data & services has clearly beenstrongly encouraged by the development of the VO(including theory but not only)• In practice, membership applicationquestionnaire is do‐able and the evaluation
process is fair
• IVOA applied as a Network member and theapplication has been approved• Huge, widely used data and services to expose
to a wider audience• We should be more present in WDS