 |
 |
I'd like to take the opportunity to let the UK and international research data communities, with whom I've communicated and exchanged ideas on this list, that I am changing roles at the end of the month. From 1 August 2013, I'll start as Executive Director of CODATA http://www.codata.org - an international organisation with a long and distinguished history of promoting improved quality and availability of research data. My principal task will be to implement the new CODATA Strategic Plan 2013-18 http://www.codata.org/CODATA_Strategic_%20Plan_2013-2018.pdf which details a range of activities and interventions. CODATA acts, in part, through a set of Task Groups addressing major data needs and policy issues in a wide range of subjects http://www.codata.org/taskgroups/index.html ; alongside these there are a number of working groups (currently not well documented on the website) looking at diverse issues such as the data needs of Early Career Scientists, information standards for Nanomaterials, Legal Interoperability for research data and Ethics. As an interdisciplinary body of ICSU, the International Council of Science http://www.icsu.org , CODATA works closely with other ICSU bodies, in particular the Word Data System http://icsu-wds.org - I am already involved in the WDS Data Publication Working Group http://icsu-wds.org/working-groups/data-publication and I look forward to working closely with Mustapha Mokrane, who is the Executive Director of the ICSU-WDS. Similarly, both CODATA and WDS support ICSU initiatives like Future Earth http://www.futureearth.info CODATA engages closely with National Members, many with very active national CODATA committees, and with International Scientific Unions http://www.codata.org/membership/index.html - this community is one of CODATA's key strengths and it comes together every two years in a major conference (last time in Taipei http://www.codata2012.com) With its mission 'to strengthen international science for the benefit of society by promoting improved scientific and technical data management and use', CODATA is keen to work with scientific and research organisations and those communities that 'care' about data. In particular, the Research Data Alliance https://rd-alliance.org/node will be a key partner. For those who wish to know more about CODATA, I shall be setting up a blog linked from http://www.codata.org and shall carry on tweeting as @simonhodson99 ; you may also wish to follow @CODATANews ! I have very much enjoyed my time at Jisc, leading the Managing Research Data programme http://researchdata.jiscinvolve.org/wp/ and working closely with the Digital Curation Centre http://www.dcc.ac.uk - and I look forward to continued collaboration with all the wonderful people in the 'data community' in the UK and internationally in the future! This is not Goodbye, it's Au Revoir - I move to Paris next week ;-) Kindest regards, Simon. ________________________________________ Dr Simon Hodson From 1 August 2013 Executive Director CODATA http://www.codata.org E-Mail: [log in to unmask] Twitter: @simonhodson99 Skype: simonhodson99 Diary: http://bit.ly/simonhodson99-calendar CODATA 5 rue Auguste Vacquerie 75016 Paris FRANCE