Four major international science organizations are calling for global endorsement of an accord to help ensure open access to volumes of “big data,” that increasingly are the basis of research and policymaking. Leaders of these organizations met on the sidelines of Science Forum South Africa in December to discuss the accord and the plans to seek endorsements in a 12-month global campaign.
The accord—developed by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the InterAcademy Partnership, the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) for the advancement of science in developing countries—includes a set of guiding principles on open access to big data necessary to protect the scientific process and ensure that developing countries can participate more fully in the global research enterprise. Limits on access to big data knowledge, they warn, raises the risk that progress will slow down in areas such as advanced health research, environmental protection, food production, and the development of smart cities.
Geoffrey Boulton, President of CODATA, ICSU’s Committee on Data, and leader of the working group that developed the accord, said, “As the data revolution accelerates and the scientific potential of big data becomes clearer, it is timely that the major representative bodies of international science promote the importance of open data as a means of maximizing creativity, maintaining rigor and ensuring that knowledge is a global public good, rather than just a private good.”
The digital revolution has created an unprecedented explosion in the data available for analysis by scientists, policymakers, and others. Extremely large data sets, or big data, help researchers to recognize subtle but powerful patterns in areas ranging across the sciences, from security to genetic research and human behavior. Such data will be crucial for analyzing and achieving the United Nation’s new Sustainable Development Goals, according to the Department of Science and Technology in South Africa. The “privatization of knowledge,” however, could constrain this research.
The accord identifies the opportunities and challenges of the data revolution as an overarching interest for global science policy. It proposes 12 principles to guide the practice and practitioners of open data, focusing on the roles played by scientists, publishers, libraries, and other stakeholders, and on technical requirements for open data. It also assesses the “boundaries of openness.”
According to the accord, “Open data should be the default position for publicly funded science. Exceptions should be limited to issues of privacy, safety, security and commercial use in the public interest. Proposed exceptions should be justified on a case-by-case basis and not as blanket exclusions.”
“Open access to data will be essential if developing countries are to join in the benefits of the big data revolution,” said Romain Murenzi, Executive Director of TWAS. “If developing nations are left behind, if they are unable to make a full contribution to the global research enterprise, that will be costly, not only for them and their people, but for all nations.”
Organizers and working group members from about 10 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America participated in the meetings to shape the accord. Over the next 12 months, the campaign will collect endorsements for the accord from other science, education, and policy bodies, with final results anticipated in the third quarter of 2016.
ICSU President Gordon McBean of Canada said, “Data is the fabric of modern science. The challenge for science today is to keep pace with the digital revolution, and for that we need a strong international framework setting out the principles for an open data regime that enables all nations and societies to benefit equally from the opportunities it presents.”
