CODATA General Assembly 2002

Montreal, 4-5 October 2002

Beyond the administrative affairs of CODATA, the main function of the General Assembly is the appointment or re-confirmation of Task Groups or Working Groups charged with furthering the objectives of CODATA. Because financial support may be provided, and because the groups act as a visible face of CODATA activities, they report to and are elected by the General Assembly. The Task Groups approved by the 23rd General Assembly for the period 2002-2004 are as follows (those marked with an asterisk are continuations of existing Task Groups):

• Fundamental Constants *
• Global Species Data Networks *
• Data Sources in Asian-Oceanic Countries *
• Data, Information and Visualisation *
• Natural Gas Hydrates *
• Data Management and Virtual Laboratories *
• Biological Collection Data Access
• Preservation and Archiving of Scientific and Technical Data

The Preservation and Archiving Task Group is a continuation of a Working Group established at the last General Assembly; based in South Africa it has specific concerns about preservation and access in the developing world. The Biological Collection Data Access Task Group is also a continuation of an existing Working Group. A proposal was advanced for a new Working Group on ethics, and continued work arising from the Task Group on standardisation of physicochemical property electronic datafiles was invited within the structure of a Working Group.

The Officers of CODATA through the next General Assembly are

President	Shuichi Iwata (Japan; 2002-2006)
Vice-Presidents	Alexei Gvishiani (Russia; 2002-2006)
	Honglie Sun (China; 2002-2006)
Secretary General	Paul Mezey (Canada; 2002-2004)
Treasurer	Jean-Jacques Royer (France; 2000-2004)
Past President	John Rumble (USA; 2002-2004)
Ordinary Members (2002-2004):
	Robert Chen (USA; environmental geography)
	Jean Garnier (IUPAB; biology/bioinformatics)
	Horst Kremers (Germany; information theory)
	Takashi Kunasawa (Japan; biophysics/molecular biology)
	Krishan Lal (India; metrology)
	Steve Roussouw (South Africa; communications)
	Gordon Wood (Canada; physics)
	Vladimir Yungman (Russia; thermodynamics)

Thailand, Ukraine and the Czech Republic were welcomed as new National Members to the CODATA family. The German National Committee has lost its funding source, and is actively looking for new sponsors to pay the membership dues. Concern was expressed at the failure of certain National members to pay dues within a reasonable time, and the Executive Committee was charged with investigating appropriate changes to the Constitution to permit the levying of appropriate sanctions if required. A resolution was passed requesting the Executive Committee to explore ways of attracting young scientists to CODATA meetings, by such means as travel grants and poster prizes.

The successful launch of the peer-reviewed Data Science Journal was noted.

Brian McMahon
CODATA Representative

7 October 2002