International Union of Crystallography

Relationships with ICSU bodies

[ICSU logo]
[ICSTI logo]
[CODATA logo]
The IUCr is a member of ICSU, the International Council for Science. The acronym ICSU represents its original role as the International Council of Scientific Unions, but in 1998 the official name was changed and its membership broadened to allow it to take on a more strategic role in representing science at the international policy level.

Over time, ICSU has generated a number of more specialised bodies. Two of these are of particular relevance to the IUCr's interests in publication and data management: ICSTI, the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information; and CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology. In 2004, ICSU conducted an extensive strategic review programme that included three Priority Area Assessments (PAA). One of these, addressing scientific data and information, resulted in a comprehensive account of the major challenges for science in the effective use and curation of digital information, which nowadays includes published literature and primary research data. The PAA outlined strategic issues within this area, and identified roles in which CODATA and ICSTI could be effective agents for change.

It also recommended closer cooperation between these two organizations on matters of common or overlapping interest. In response to the PAA, both ICSTI and CODATA have produced Strategic Plans that take note of ICSU's strategic vision, and are emerging from the review process with a reinvigorated sense of purpose.

Over the course of the end February/beginning March weekend, the Executive bodies of both ICSTI and CODATA met at ICSU headquarters in Paris to develop their individual activities, but also, for the first time, to meet together in social and formal sessions to explore active routes to collaboration. Among the weekend activities was a workshop establishing a consortium of major scientific libraries to act as registration agencies for unique identifiers for data sets, and to improve the curation and management of scientific data in the library sector. Among the topics discussed at the workshop was the question of citing data sets, and specifically of citing particular views or subsets of the data. The IUCr was able to contribute to this discussion on account of its experiences in electronic publishing.

The IUCr has active representation on both CODATA and ICSTI. For this meeting, I was able to represent the IUCr on the ICSTI Executive Board as alternate for our usual delegate John Helliwell, former Editor-in-Chief of IUCr journals (who was on this occasion involved as President in European Crystallography Association duties). As the usual IUCr delegate to CODATA, I found it an excellent opportunity to renew or make new relationships with members of both bodies.

The IUCr commends this active collaboration, which will allow the joint energies of ICSTI and CODATA to be focussed on some of the many difficult problems that they face in common, and can only help to improve the practice of international and interdisciplinary scientific information activities.

Brian McMahon
IUCr Representative to CODATA
6 March 2009