Towards a data strategy for the Fifth International Polar Year (IPY5)

As I wrote this during the week of the solstice, the sun never set at the South Pole, and it never rose at the North Pole. That difference – the tilt of the Earth relative to the sun – drives the climate system. It gives us the seasons and the temperature differences that move the atmosphere and ocean.

The poles are also bellwethers of change. Glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice are rapidly receding. Ground frozen for millenia is thawing and buckling. Coasts are flooding. People are displaced, and species are dying.

Understanding the poles is critical to understanding the Earth, but it is difficult to study a place that is often dark, cloudy, and frozen. Studying the poles requires coordination.

Initially, Western study of the poles was more about heroic exploration and conquest rather than scientific understanding. Then in 1875, one of those heroic explorers, Karl Weyprecht of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, realized that they needed to be better about collecting good data, and he proposed an internationally coordinated program of scientific observations. This ultimately led to the first International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882-83.

Since then, there have been three more International Polar Years in 1932, 1957, and 2007. Each of these marked a milestone in scientific coordination and data stewardship. IPY1 established meteorological stations that still collect ongoing records today. IPY2 established more stations and made major advances in radio science but also highlighted the vulnerability of data during major social upheaval (World War II). IPY3, the International Geophysical Year, launched the modern scientific era and established the World Data Centers to share scientific data across geopolitical divides. IPY4 made real the nascent concepts of ethically open data policy, federated data search, and respectful inclusion of Indigenous knowledge.

Indeed, as the timeline below illustrates, IPY has been intertwined with the roots of international scientific organizations and data systems.

Now we plan IPY5 (2032-33). What advances will it bring? CODATA has a keen interest in ensuring that IPY5 is a success and marks another step forward in data stewardship. We believe that with adequate resources, the data stewardship community should be able to support major international science initiatives almost as a matter of course. We know how to do this, and at the same time we can take advantage of modern technologies and what we have learned to accelerate Earth system science understanding even more.

The purpose of IPY5 is to unite scientists and Indigenous knowledge holders to advance polar research and produce actionable insights for mitigating and adapting to environmental changes, while promoting international collaboration and inclusivity. It is based on seven core principles (with items of direct relevance to the data community highlighted here):

- Fostering the widest possible international collaboration to produce knowledge for action with direct societal relevance.
- Committing to inclusive and diverse practices, including the implementation of equitable and ethical standards for engagement and cooperation with Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems.
- Striving for holistic, systemic, transdisciplinary research approaches that minimise environmental footprints. This includes co-design of research programs and co-production of knowledge across different knowledge systems, as well as ensuring that funding programs are directly supporting and financing Indigenous People´s comprehensive participation for the benefit of all parties.
- Ensuring balanced involvement and information flow, identification of areas of common interest, and effective knowledge exchange across Arctic and Antarctic polar research communities and networks.
- Encouraging open science and open data, according to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) data principles.
- Encouraging effective and inclusive science communication, polar education, and public engagement, both in the polar regions and globally.
- Engaging in capacity building and sharing for early-career scientists, Indigenous Peoples and those from historically under-represented groups across the polar regions and polar research disciplines.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Science Council (ISC), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have established an IPY5 Planning Group, and CODATA was recently accepted as a member. I am acting as the CODATA representative and want to involve the broad data community. Let’s make sure data stewardship is embedded in IPY planning and action.

To that end, a group of us have proposed an IPY5 Data Task Group to develop an initial data strategy for data to be FAIR, handled with CARE, and preserved with TRUST. It will be an approximately 16-month effort to provide resources and develop recommendations, building on existing systems while identifying gaps. Chantelle Verhey (Arctic Data Committee), Jonathan Kool (WDS and Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management), and Michaela Miller (Southern Ocean Observing System) co-chair the task group, and I am acting as a coordinator or secretary. The task group is open to all, so please contact me if you are interested. We want to make sure we connect to relevant systems and repositories beyond traditional polar organizations.

Although formal acceptance of the task group is still pending, CODATA supported my attendance at International Data Week and the subsequent Polar Data Forum. At IDW, we took a broad view. Michaela, Chantelle, and I led a working session entitled “So much going on!” How to best coordinate international efforts for data management. The idea was to identify ways where repositories can work “glocally” and serve the idiosyncratic needs of their immediate community while also fitting into global and interdisciplinary initiatives.

After some discussion we focussed on one key tension: Data providers do not adhere well to standards making integration into common systems difficult. We recognized that increasing automation and AI can help mitigate this, but contextual information from the provider is still essential. For example, repositories should be able to accept any common data format, but providers must still define the variables they used. The general takeaway was that researchers need to improve their data hygiene and data repositories need to relax their standards. This is not groundbreaking, but it illustrates the need for collaborative effort.

At the Polar Data Forum in Hobart the following week, we held an initial, half-day workshop to delve more deeply into IPY data planning. Participants divided into groups addressing different data planning topics. Each group identified relevant resources and initiatives and proposed recommendations to address the issues.

The four topics addressed were:

The minimum set of ideas and considerations that should be front of mind when planning large international initiatives.
An inventory of existing polar archives, data tools, protocols, vocabularies, and systems.
Data advocacy and education for researchers and students.
Funding for data planning, management, and coordination.

Each group produced detailed notes. The first group took a big picture view while the other three dug into more specifics. One online individual worked independently and clarified and reinforced several recommendations.

A central theme was that data management must be planned in advance and throughout a project. Data repositories must be identified and data systems defined before IPY begins, and this should be a requirement for IPY project approval. In that regard, an annotated inventory of data stewardship resources will be essential. We plan to develop a database or knowledge graph of these resources and welcome ideas and input. We would also like to see basic data training be a requirement of IPY participants. Ideally, a data professional would be embedded in every IPY project. At a minimum, data management funding must be included in every project and for the initiative as a whole.

Perhaps most critically, we as data professionals need to be looking forward. We need to be considering new and advanced methods using machine learning, cloud computing, and trusted research environments while remaining grounded in core principles such as FAIR, CARE, and TRUST. Equally important is the active and ethical inclusion of Indigenous knowledge. We only touched on this during the workshop. More dedicated effort is required.

CODATA sees IPY5 as an opportunity to demonstrate how solid data management is central to the success of any major scientific initiative. We aim to build on the history of past IPYs and ensure that the next IPY represents a step change in global data stewardship. Please join us: get in touch with Mark Parsons <parsonsm.work@icloud.com>.

January 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Author Once, Publish Everywhere: Portable Metadata Authoring with the CEDAR Embeddable Editor Author: Martin J. O’Connor, Marcos Martínez-Romero, Attila L. Egyedi, Mete U. Akdogan, Michael V. Dorf, Mark A. Musen URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-002
	Title: Integrating Machine Learning Standards in Disseminating Machine Learning Research Author: Scott C. Edmunds, Nicole Nogoy, Qing Lan, Hongfang Zhang, Yannan Fan, Hongling Zhou, Chris Armit URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-001

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: January 2026 Edition

The pulse of the planet

The explosion of data offers new ways to understand the economy—and change what gets measured, not just how.

Digital technologies are redefining how we see and manage the global economy. As Kenneth Cukier writes in Finance & Development, the earth is developing a “digital nervous system” through satellites, sensors, and AI that measure everything from deforestation and traffic to crop yields and emissions. These vast data streams give policymakers and businesses an almost live view of the planet’s condition—a continuous “heartbeat” of global activity. But Cukier notes that the benefits come with risks: interpreting billions of signals at once requires new rules of governance, privacy, and judgment to ensure that data enlightens decision‑making rather than distorts it.

What is the global water cycle and how is it amplifying climate disasters?

In the past few days, hundreds of bushfires have ignited in south-east Australia during an extreme heatwave. And communities in north Queensland have been lashed by heavy rain and flash flooding from ex-tropical Cyclone Koji. This is the seventh cyclone so far this season.

Behind these disasters is a deeper and less visible influence: ongoing shifts in the global water cycle. Our latest report shows how changes in rainfall, air temperature and humidity combined to amplify water-related disasters across the world in 2025.

These floods and fires are not simply isolated weather extremes, but signs of a water cycle that is being increasingly destabilised by global warming. The result: more volatile floods, droughts, and fires shaping new extremes worldwide.

Crisis data that saves lives

CRAF’d drives faster, more targeted, and more dignified crisis action. Since inception, partners have committed over $40 million to crisis data, analytics, and AI, advancing the Fund’s mission to finance, connect, and reimagine data that saves lives. CRAF’d-funded data and insights help shape over $12 billion in emergency funding each year, with more than 96,000 users across 390 organizations using them to anticipate risks, prevent impacts, and respond when crises strike.

Major river delts are sinking faster than sea-level rise

A new global study led by Virginia Tech and published in Nature finds human-driven land subsidence now outpacing sea-level rise in many of the planet’s major river deltas. More than 236 million people live on these sinking floodplains, where water extraction, urban development, and sediment loss are driving the ground downward.

The findings warn of a growing coastal vulnerability, from the Mekong to the Mississippi, as deltas lose their natural elevation buffer faster than climate change lifts the seas.

Inside new science exposing how humidity can escalate a heat wave

When Floridians talk about extreme weather, hurricanes dominate the conversation. Each season brings updates on storm tracks, cone predictions and wind speeds, all in the hopes of predicting the unpredictable. But a quieter, more deceptive threat is already reshaping the way people live and work in the Sunshine State: extreme heat.

“Heat waves actually kill more people in the U.S. than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, or any other form of extreme weather,” said David Keellings, Ph.D., associate professor of geography. “The Centers for Disease Control attribute over a thousand deaths annually to hyperthermia, but that number is probably really underestimated considering subsequent complications of dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.”

The invisible costs of wildfire disasters in 2025

Wildfires burned through 390 million hectares in 2025 – equivalent to 92% of the European Union’s land area – yet the costliest event of the year, the January fires in and around Los Angeles, burned just 23,000 hectares while causing more than USD 53 billion in damage.

In 2025 the total cost of damages caused by natural hazards has been calculated at USD 224 billion, of which USD 108 billion was insured, according to the global reinsurance company Munich Re. UNDRR highlights that the non‑financial costs—including damage to health, livelihoods, and ecosystems—greatly extend the human toll of wildfire disasters and call for stronger systemic responses worldwide.

Joint effect of sleep duration and sleep quality on self-rated health among Canadian adults: estimating relative excess risk due to interaction from a nationwide survey

A Commentary from the CODATA TG FAIR-DRR has just been published in Frontiers in Public Health. This commentary examines how FAIR data principles can improve research quality and impact. It aligns with the Task Group’s mission to break down data silos and build a harmonised data ecosystem for disaster risk reduction. The authors illustrate the importance of rigorous, transparent data practices in driving reliable findings. “It demonstrates how methodological compromises and insufficiently justified analytic choices can produce imprecise or potentially misleading findings,” the commentary notes, underlining why embracing FAIR principles is crucial for credible research and beyond.

Bridging the €6.5 Trillion Water Infrastructure Gap: A Playbook

Water infrastructure lies at the centre of the world’s economic and climate resilience. To deliver equitable, resilient, sustainable and technologically advanced drinking water and sanitation systems for all, global spending will need to double by 2040. The total investment required amounts to €11.4 trillion ($13.2 trillion), revealing a financing gap of about €6.5 trillion compared with current trajectories. Bridging this gap could generate €8.4 trillion in additional GDP and support more than 206 million full-time jobs worldwide by 2040, equivalent to 14 million jobs each year.

The new insights report outlines how water infrastructure can become a catalyst for sustainable growth and resilience through coherent policy, innovative finance and collaboration.

Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator Impact Report 2020-2025

The UNDP-Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) Impact Report captures five years of locally led innovation, community leadership and resilience-building across the Global South. Since 2020, UNDP-AFCIA has supported 44 locally rooted initiatives in 33 countries with US$8.3 million in grants and an additional $6 million in technical assistance, reaching more than 2.6 million people.

This report showcases how small, flexible grants—paired with technical support, business coaching and investment brokering—can unlock powerful change. 59 percent of supported organizations now generate revenue, 14 percent created entirely new markets and many turned early-stage ideas into viable models for scale. Communities restored over 29,000 hectares of land, improved livelihoods for more than 21,700 households, piloted 12 new climate innovations—from Indigenous seed banks to floating farms.

Publication: Handbook for Livable and Resilient Cities: Integrating Hazard and Risk Information into Urban Planning

Rapid urbanization worldwide is creating significant environmental, social, and economic challenges. Cities face greater exposure to extreme weather, climate impacts, pollution, poverty, shrinking green spaces, and heightened risks to lives, livelihoods, and assets. As these risks intensify, national and local governments must collaborate to strengthen urban livability and resilience through risk‑informed planning. This handbook defines livable, resilient cities as urban areas that promote green growth, social inclusion, resilient built environments, and shared prosperity. It emphasizes preventing and reducing the impacts of natural hazards and climate change. In such cities, planned and sustainable growth ensures access to healthy environments, affordable housing, basic services, jobs, and low‑carbon transport and economic opportunities.

Cities need an integrated and holistic approach to health adaptation in climate planning

Despite clear links between climate impacts and public health, barriers to implementing health adaptation persist, and stronger city‑level commitment is needed. We reviewed 55 city climate adaptation plans (2016–2024) for health comprehensiveness, dimensions of health, equity and vulnerability, and implementation readiness. We found that 20% of cities did not meaningfully include health; 29% acknowledged climate‑related health impacts but lacked health‑focused strategies; 40% included some health‑related adaptation; and 11% had health‑specific strategies, yet none met our definition of a prioritized, holistic approach. Only six cities—Chennai, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Salvador, Singapore and Tshwane—had comprehensive interventions beyond heat and air pollution. Mental health, social capital, equity and justice are frequently overlooked. Our analysis shows that the awareness of health impacts is prevalent at the city level, but the integration of holistic health strategies in adaptation plans still lags.

Integration of large vision language models for efficient post-disaster damage assessment and reporting

Traditional natural disaster response requires coordinated teamwork, where speed and efficiency are essential. However, human limitations can delay critical actions and increase human and economic losses. Agentic Large Vision Language Models (LVLMs) offer a way to address this challenge, with potential for significant socio‑economic impact, particularly by improving resilience and resource access in underdeveloped regions. We introduce DisasTeller, a multi‑LVLM framework that automates post‑disaster tasks such as on‑site assessment, emergency alerts, resource allocation, and recovery planning. By coordinating four specialised LVLM agents with GPT‑4 as the core, DisasTeller accelerates disaster response, reduces human execution time, and structures information flow. Our evaluation highlights both benefits and challenges, emphasising the need for human validation to prevent error propagation and ensure trustworthy deployment.

Women in scientific organizations: global evidence from science academies and unions

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the International Science Council, the InterAcademy Partnership and the Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science will present the findings of their new global study on gender equality in scientific organizations.

The study examines how women access, participate in, lead, and are recognized within science academies, academies of engineering and medicine, and international disciplinary unions worldwide. It draws on institutional data from 136 scientific organizations, survey responses from nearly 650 scientists, and targeted qualitative interviews to analyse both formal structures and lived experiences shaping participation and leadership.

Date and time: 11 Feb 2026, 2-4pm UTC

Masterclass series: Disaster Forensic Investigations – Uncovering Root Causes and Drivers of Disaster Risk and Disasters

The three‑part course “Disaster Forensic Investigations – Uncovering Root Causes and Drivers of Disaster Risk and Disasters”, developed by UNDRR and partners, provides an essential overview of disaster forensics and its role in supporting resilient, risk‑reducing decisions and effective development policy. As disasters grow in frequency and severity, understanding the social, economic and institutional processes that generate risk is critical. Disaster forensics helps uncover these underlying dynamics and guides transformation toward sustainable and equitable development. Its analytical approach can significantly inform new development initiatives and strengthen post‑disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts.

Date and Time (London time): 3 Feb 2026, 02:00 PM, 10 Feb 2026, 02:00 PM, 17 Feb 2026, 02:00 PM

WWRP Weather and Society Conference 2026

Extreme hydrometeorological events affect society, economies and the environment as never before in human history. Government agencies, science and decision makers face an unprecedented extreme event management challenge to reduce risks to citizens.

The World Weather Research Programme’s Working Group on Societal and Economic Research Applications (SERA) will host the 3rd “Weather and Society” Conference. The event brings together leading researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders to explore the critical intersection of meteorological science and societal applications.

Date (Europe/ London): 23 Feb 2026 – 27 Feb 2026

World Impact Summit 2026

The World Impact Summit 2026 will cover themes including (1) Agriculture, Food, & Health, (2) Construction, development, sustainable cities and territories, (3) Circular economy & recycling, (4) Energy, transport, & mobility, (5) Financing & sustainability, (6) Training, integration, employment and socialites, (7) Green industry & decarbonisation, (8) Digital, data and responsible AI, (9) Natural Resources, Environment & Biodiversity.

The Summit is a place to discover concrete testimonials from companies and communities that are successfully transitioning, share and co-create innovative solutions adapted to your challenges, and participate in immersive workshops that turn your ideas into tangible actions.

Date: 5 – 6 Feb 2026 | Where: Paris, Grande Halle de la Villette

December 2025: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Mapping Research Data at the University of Bologna Author: Chiara Basalti, Giulia Caldoni, Sara Coppini, Bianca Gualandi, Mario Marino, Francesca Masini, Silvio Peroni URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-038
	Title: Benchmarking Tabular Data Synthesis: Evaluating Tools, Metrics, and Datasets on Prosumer Hardware for End-Users Author: Maria Fernanda Davila Restrepo, Benjamin Wollmer, Fabian Panse, Wolfram Wingerath URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-037
	Title: Research Data Management Practices Across the Research Data Lifecycle and Their Potential for Collaboration in an International Higher Education Alliance Author: Sonja N. Kralj, Matthias Landwehr URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-036
	Title: Data Organization Made Easy: Comprehensive Folder Structure Template for Early Career Life/Natural Science Researchers Author: Yasmin Demerdash, Ron Dockhorn, Jeanne Wilbrandt URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-035
	Title: A Closer Look at Seabird and Marine Mammal Bycatch Data in Alaska’s Longline Groundfish and Pacific Halibut Fisheries: A Reassessment with Open Access and Machine Learning Ensembles Explicit in Space and Time Shows Deficiencies Author: Simone Tava, Falk Huettmann URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-034

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: November and December 2025 Edition

Glaciers to Farms (G2F) Regional Program: Advancing Climate Resilience & Sustainable Development in Central and West Asia

Glacier systems in the Pamir and Tien Shan ranges are retreating rapidly; projections indicate over 50 per cent of glacier volume could be lost by 2100. This cryosphere meltdown is disrupting water cycles, threatening the livelihoods and food security of over 340 million people across nine countries. Without urgent intervention, communities risk worsening poverty, displacement, and instability.

The Glaciers to Farms (G2F) Programme responds to this crisis by integrating climate science into development planning and deploying concrete adaptation measures in glacier-dependent river basins. The programme focuses 100 per cent on adaptation and aligns with national priorities, including National Adaptation Plans (NAP), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Excessive heat harms young children’s development, study suggests

Climate change—including high temperatures and heat waves—has been shown to pose serious risks to the environment, food systems, and human health, but new research finds that it may also lead to delays in early childhood development.

Published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study found that children exposed to higher-than-usual temperatures—specifically, average maximum temperatures above 86 °F (30 °C)—were less likely to meet developmental milestones for literacy and numeracy, relative to children living in areas with lower temperatures.

Warm oceans seem to be turning even ‘weak’ cyclones into deadly rainmakers

The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives, hundreds are still missing, and damages ran into multiple millions of US dollars. Sri Lanka’s president even described it as the most challenging natural disaster the island has ever seen.

Primed to burn: what’s behind the intense, sudden fires burning across New South Wales and Tasmania

Since the megafires of the 2019–20 summer, Australia has had multiple wet years. Vegetation has regrown strongly. In recent months, below-average rainfall has dried out many landscapes, resulting in dry fuels ready to burn. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned these fires point to a “difficult” season ahead.

Do these fires mean Australia is facing another terrible fire season? Not necessarily. The growth of fuel is one thing. But a lot depends on the weather.

Five ways cities across Europe and Central Asia are adapting to extreme heat

Extreme heat is now one of the most urgent and fastest-growing climate risks across Europe and Central Asia. The summer of 2024 was the hottest ever recorded in Europe, while Central Asian cities are experiencing rising average temperatures, more frequent heatwaves and mounting stress on water, energy and health systems. Heat already causes more deaths than any other weather-related hazard, and urban growth is amplifying the risks.

Yet cities across the region are demonstrating that with the right tools, partnerships and planning, meaningful progress is possible.

Estimating Economic Resilience to Climate Impacts: The Gross Resilience Product

Climate impacts are reshaping economic realities across Africa. To understand what this means for future growth, the GCA Resilient Economies Index introduces an important new measure: the Gross Resilience Product (GRP). GRP identifies the share of a country’s GDP that remains resilient under projected climate impacts—offering a clearer picture of how climate hazards influence long-term development trajectories. Built using the Green Economy Model (GEM), it provides a quantitative, comparable estimate of climate-related risks to national economies.

From vulnerability to value: The economic payoff of adaptation in small island states

The economies and livelihoods of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to their geographic characteristics and economic structure, often dependent on tourism and trade. Critical infrastructure in SIDS is typically located near coasts or in areas at high risk of climate impacts. Countries such as the Maldives, with low-lying areas and roads, and hotels located in hazardous zones; and the Marshall Islands, which is at risk of being submerged due to rising sea levels, illustrate how SIDS are at risk of large economic damage from climate impacts.

Macroeconomic models can help create a clearer picture of the long-term implications of climate change and how adaptation action has the potential to create economic stability in SIDS.

Climate change and food prices

Food and climate change are closely linked. Food systems account for about one-quarter of all heat-trapping pollution. Meanwhile, extreme events fueled by climate change can damage crops, reduce yields, and disrupt supply chains — all of which can drive food prices higher. The availability, quality, and affordability of food reflect a complex set of climatic and socioeconomic factors. A recent study suggests that projected warming by 2035 would drive food price inflation in North America up by 1.4 to 1.8 percentage-points per-year on average. There are also examples of short-term price spikes in coffee, cocoa, California vegetables, and Florida oranges following exceptional heat, drought, and heavy rainfall in recent years.

Financing adaptation: 11 financial instruments that help build climate resilience

Climate adaptation has emerged as a high-return investment opportunity. A recent WRI analysis found that adaptation and resilience investments can unlock broad economic, social and environmental benefits that go far beyond simply avoiding losses, even when an extreme event doesn’t occur. The study — which evaluates the expected public benefits of 320 adaptation and resilience investments across agriculture, health, infrastructure and water — found that, on average, $1 invested in adaptation and resilience has the potential to generate more than $10 in benefits over 10 years.

Extreme Heat: The emerging science and its implications for Asia and the Pacific

This paper examines the potential for unprecedented heat events now and into the future and looks at how heat forecasting capabilities are evolving. It considers the compound effects when extreme heat combines with other hazards, and the socioeconomic and sector impacts of increased frequency and scale of extreme heat. The paper highlights how policymakers in Asia and the Pacific can harness this new knowledge to protect people from extreme heat using improved risk tools and warning systems, and heat-resilient public services and infrastructure.

Towards climate and extreme heat resilience: Lessons from African and Asian communities

The latest issue of Southasiadisasters.net brings together powerful insights from Africa and Asia on how communities are confronting climate change and extreme heat. From informal workers adapting to rising temperatures and girls’ education strengthening long-term resilience, to community-led early warnings in Tajikistan, agroforestry in Ghana, and heat-safe urban practices in India, the issue showcases practical, scalable solutions emerging from the ground up. Featuring contributions from 16 authors across the region, it highlights one message clearly: communities are not waiting—they are innovating, adapting, and leading the way toward a more climate-resilient future.

Mapping the impact and informing economic resilience

In response, this joint publication by the WMO and the UNDP presents a sectoral analysis of 91 weather, climate, and water-related Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs) conducted between 2000 and 2024. The report highlights the socioeconomic impacts of hydrometeorological hazards, with recurring patterns of losses and damages observed in key sectors such as agriculture, housing, and transport. These sectors face both direct physical destruction and long-term disruptions to services, supply chains, and livelihoods.

The findings emphasize the need to move beyond reactive disaster response toward proactive, risk-informed development. Strengthening early warning systems, integrating National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, and improving access to standardized hazard-impact data are essential for effective preparedness and resilience investments.

Global Environment Outlook 7: A future we choose – Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all

The report finds that investing in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet can deliver trillions of dollars each year in additional global GDP, avoid millions of deaths, and lift hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty in the coming decades.

Following current development pathways will bring catastrophic climate change, devastation to nature and biodiversity, debilitating land degradation and desertification, and lingering deadly pollution – all at a huge cost to people, planet and economies. Instead, the world can follow another, better path laid out in the report. This involves whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches to transform the systems of economy and finance, materials and waste, energy, food and the environment – all backed by behavioural, social and cultural shifts that include respect for Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge.

While there are up-front costs, the economic cost of inaction is much higher and the long-term return on investment of transformation is clear: the global macroeconomic benefits start to appear around 2050, grow to US$20 trillion per year by 2070 and rise thereafter.

Disaster risk management tipping points: impacts of extreme wildfire events and the resulting need for layered disaster risk management solutions

This paper depicts several limits of conventional wildfire risk management measures towards Extreme wildfire events (EWEs) and introduces the concept of disaster risk management tipping points (DRM TPs) as critical thresholds that necessitate a revised set of disaster risk management strategies. Recent research shows that the number of extreme fire events is increasing exponentially and events such as the most recent fires in Los Angeles in the U.S. (2025), the Hawaii fires (2023), Canada’s record-breaking fires (2023), the largest recorded fires in Greece-Europe (2023) and the 2025 European fire season underpin this observation.

Building on a bibliographic review, the authors depict the novelty of the concept and apply it to selected illustrative examples. They propose that this conceptualisation is useful when developing “layered” or diversified risk management approaches for different types of wildfire events including extremes. It may also leverage and shift the discussion around responsibilities in managing risk in terms of public versus individual contributions, the distribution of investments as well as related aspects of justice.

Highlights from the extreme heat and agriculture report

Extreme heat is one of the central, interconnected drivers of the climate crisis in agriculture. It threatens global food security and the livelihoods of billions. More than an independent hazard, it acts as a powerful risk multiplier, amplifying drought and triggering wildfires, leading to compound negative outcomes for crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and forests. These impacts directly endanger the health and productivity of agricultural workers, who are on the frontlines of this crisis. Effective adaptation opportunities exist, particularly through the use of predictable heat forecasts to enable effective risk management. However, these actions must be supported by interdisciplinary research and integrated risk governance. Building resilience is imperative, but ultimately there are profound limits to adaptation.

Severe floods significantly reduce global rice yields

This paper’s findings highlight the need for flood-resistant rice cultivars to mitigate risks and support global food security, and implement adaptation strategies against both flood and drought rice yield losses. Research suggests that as climate change accelerates, intensifying extreme weather events, the stability of future rice production is at considerable risk.

Although rice is a semi-aquatic crop that benefits from controlled inundation—such as irrigation or shallow flooding during early growth stages—uncontrolled or severe flood events can substantially reduce yields. Globally, the increasing frequency of climate-related disasters, such as droughts and floods, has placed substantial pressure on rice yields, historically leading to famine, supply shortages, and regional price volatility.

Climate finance landscape in arid and semi-arid counties of Kenya

The report identifies several opportunities and innovative approaches for enhancing climate finance in the arid and semi-arid counties, including leveraging international support, strengthening local institutions, promoting sustainable investment models, and adopting nature-based solutions. Recommendations are provided to address challenges hindering effective mobilization and utilization of climate finance, such as limited access to financial resources, weak institutional capacity, fragmented coordination, and uncertain policy environments.

Science House – World Economic Forum, Davos

Science House is a new global space putting transformative science at the center of the conversation, spotlighting innovations and solutions that will shape healthy lives on a healthy planet. Nobel laureates, pioneering researchers, policy-makers, business leaders, and philanthropists will convene for high-energy debates, showcases, and strategic roundtables.

The purpose? Translating discovery into lasting impact beyond Davos. Championing open science and fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors, Science House is the platform where scientific knowledge can inform decisions that define the future.

Webinar on strengthening regional cooperation mechanisms for disaster preparedness and response in West Africa

This webinar will translate the ECOWAS Directorate of Humanitarian and Social Affairs (DHSA)–UNDRR partnership under the ECHO-funded project into action by operationalizing regional cooperation mechanisms that reinforce ECOWAS’s mandate for coordinated disaster response. It will engage stakeholders across government, civil society, academia, and communities to ensure inclusive and sustainable preparedness frameworks, while leveraging international expertise from the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), Copernicus Emergency Management Services, and the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) to strengthen West Africa’s disaster resilience.

Date: 16 December 2025; Time: 10:00-14:00 GMT

Workshop on strengthening climate prediction capabilities within WMO Regional Climate Centres and focus countries in the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific regions

The training workshop aims to enable RCC and NMHS experts to provide high-quality climate services using state-of-the-art methodologies and tools. The workshop will comprise practical, hands-on and interactive sessions, including expert-led presentations on relevant tools and WMO approaches.

Date: 26 January 2026, 19:00 – 31 January 2026, 03:00: UTC: 26 January 2026, 06:00 – 30 January 2026, 14:00)

WCRP – Climate and cryosphere: open science conference 2026

The World Climate Research Programme is pleased to announce that the Climate and Cryosphere – Open Science Conference (CliC) will take place in Wellington, New Zealand from 9-12 February 2026.

The conference will include a diverse and cross-discipline town hall meeting, providing space for the international and interdisciplinary cryospheric community to make connections, discuss needs, find synergies, and plan meaningful action.

Marking 30 years of CliC, the Climate and Cryosphere Open Science Conference will contribute to the UN Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034) and prepare the community for the 5th International Polar Year (2032-2033).

Bridging Two Worlds: Reflections from the IDW2025 Panel on Research Data and Data Science

At IDW2025, a group of speakers from around the globe gathered to address a long-standing problem: although data is the common currency of both research data management and data science, the two communities often work in parallel worlds—each with its own conferences, training pipelines, infrastructures, and priorities. As Christine Kirkpatrick noted in her opening remarks, this separation persists despite converging challenges around stewardship, reproducibility, education, and ethics. She framed the session as an invitation to rethink how these domains might come together.

What followed was a set of short talks revealing just how interdependent—yet disconnected—these communities have become, and how much potential lies in more intentional collaboration.

From Observation to Interpretation: A Research Lifecycle View (Leo Lahti)

Leo Lahti opened with a fundamental question: How do we move from raw observation to meaningful interpretation in modern research? His answer traced the entire research lifecycle, positioning openness, interoperability, and transparency as essential ingredients. Drawing on studies that show how different choices in data preparation lead to drastically different results, Lahti made a compelling case for shared standards and methodological clarity.

His overarching argument: bridging data science and research data management is not merely technical, it is epistemic. It requires both communities to adopt shared infrastructures, shared educational foundations, and shared norms that elevate transparency as a scientific value.

The Human Infrastructure of Data (Daphne Raban)

Daphne Raban shifted the lens to data stewardship which she called a “bridge profession” sitting at the intersection of technology, governance, and human judgment. As data volumes grow and automated tools proliferate, she reminded us that stewardship is what keeps data meaningful, contextualized, and ethically sound.

Raban illustrated the diverse impact of stewards across healthcare, finance, government, and research institutions, grounding her argument in the data cycle perspective advanced through the Israeli national initiative on data science education. In her framing, stewardship is not just about compliance; it’s about building trustworthy, reusable data ecosystems sustained by communication, documentation, and collaboration.

Parallel Universes: Awareness Gaps in Data Education (Phil Bourne)

Phil Bourne then highlighted a striking and often overlooked fact: students in data science programs worldwide typically have no exposure to organizations like CODATA, RDA, or WDS. Meanwhile, those global data organizations often operate with limited awareness of the educational and research priorities of academic data science. These are, Bourne argued, parallel universes that urgently need bridges.

His proposed actions were concrete: connect student groups, align leadership networks, embed governance into data science curricula, and convene joint thematic workshops on AI, synthetic data, and data ethics. He framed data as a continuum – from production to engineering to analysis to societal impact – and argued that without collaboration across these steps, sustainability and trustworthiness will remain elusive.

Data Literacy for Everyone: K–12 and Community College Pathways (Padmanabhan Seshaiyer)

Padmanabhan Seshaiyer expanded the conversation into the educational pipeline, urging the community not to wait until university to introduce data literacy. He showcased innovative K–12 and community college bridge programs that pair culturally relevant pedagogy with inquiry-based learning grounded in the Data Cycle.

Students move from no-code tools to higher-code environments, tackling authentic problems—from geometry-based triangulation tasks to investigations of social issues such as bullying and community safety. These programs embed ethics, design thinking, social justice, and civic reasoning alongside technical skills.

Seshaiyer’s message was clear: building an equitable data future requires early, inclusive, and context-aware data education.

Embedding FAIR into Australia’s Climate Modelling Software (Kelsey Druken)

Finally, Kelsey Druken offered a concrete case study of integrating data stewardship directly into infrastructure within Australia’s national climate modelling system, ACCESS. Climate modelling, she reminded the audience, is intensely data-rich, but native model outputs often lack documentation, standards, and consistent metadata. FAIR compliance tends to happen afterward, manually, and inconsistently.

ACCESS-NRI is now working to embed FAIR principles inside the software workflows themselves. By developing versioned data specifications, harmonized naming conventions, controlled vocabularies, and comprehensive metadata at the point of production, they aim to ensure that FAIR becomes the default, not the afterthought.

Druken’s work powerfully illustrates what it looks like when practice and infrastructure finally align—a challenge raised repeatedly throughout the panel.

Across these five talks, several themes emerged:

Interoperability and transparency must be built into workflows—not bolted on later.
Education is the shared foundation, from K–12 to graduate programs to professional development.
Stewardship is central, not peripheral, to both science and data science.
Organizational silos hinder progress across global and academic communities.
A roadmap is needed, and the audience’s input will help shape one for future CODATA, RDA, and ADSA collaborations.

Possible next steps include forming a CODATA Task Group or RDA Interest Group, coordinating ecosystem tools and shared training resources, and proposing a companion session for the next ADSA meeting. Though there was not broad support for creating a new (interest or task) group, the people assembled were interested in further opportunities for continuing the conversation.

Amy Nurnberger (MIT), who attended the session, has already taken action following the IDW session. She and others have proposed a follow-on session at the upcoming Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) virtual conference to ensure the information science and library communities weigh in on bridging this divide.

The Future of Data Depends on Us Learning to Work Together

If there was one message that resonated across the session, it was this: No single community can build the data ecosystem and the community needed; it requires data stewards, data scientists, educators, and the infrastructure providers working together.

Bridging the gaps between these worlds is not simply a matter of efficiency or coordination. It is a matter of scientific integrity, ethical responsibility, and global impact.

The panel made clear that the future of data – open, FAIR, ethical, and societally meaningful – will be built only when we stop treating research data and data science as parallel tracks and instead recognize them as parts of a shared, interdependent community.

November 2025: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Digital Transformation in Materials Science: A User Journey of Nanoindentation, Image Analysis and Simulations Author: Hanna Tsybenko, Sarath Menon, Fei Chen, Abril Azocar Guzman, Katharina Grünwald, Steffen Brinckmann, Tilmann Hickel, Tim Dahmen, Volker Hofmann, Stefan Sandfeld, Ruth Schwaiger URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-033
	Title: How the DS-I Africa Consortium Is Harnessing the Power of Partnerships for Data Science in Africa Author: Francis E. Agamah, Amit Mistry, Tino Muzambi, Gifty Dankyi, Laura Povlich, Michelle Skelton URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-032
	Title: Evaluation of FAIR Principles in Indigenous Water-Climate-Environment (WCE) Data Repositories Author: Parisa Sarzaeim, Grace Bulltail URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-031

Data Without Borders: Reflections from International Data Week 2025, Brisbane

By Bylhah Mugotitsa, Agnes Kiragga, Steve Cygu and Miranda Barasa, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).

If there was ever a place where coffee, curiosity, and code met perfectly, it was International Data Week 2025 in Brisbane. You could feel the excitement from the minute you walked into the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the kind of energy that tells you something important is happening here. It wasn’t just about machine learning models or the latest frameworks; it was about people, relations, and future collaboration. From early-morning panels on open science to late-afternoon debates on ethical AI, every conversation carried the same heartbeat: data is no longer the property of machines; it is the language of humanity.

In our presentations and panel discussions by African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) (Agnes Kiragga’s exploration of building sustainable data science ecosystems in Africa, Miranda Barasa’s insights on co-designing data infrastructures for collaborative research through the Data Science Without Borders (DSWB), and Mugotitsa Bylhah’s reflections on longitudinal data harmonization and integration under the INSPIRE Mental Health project), we found ourselves returning to a shared conviction: data must always return home. It must speak back to the communities it comes from, in language they understand, so that it can truly serve.

The Philosophy of Data in a Changing World

Philosophers have long said that progress begins with understanding ourselves. In today’s world, that self-understanding is captured through data. Yet, as the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye once said, “Knowledge must carry moral weight. It must serve community.” That is what Africa’s data movement is slowly but surely coming to embody: the moral dimension of measurement. From Nairobi to Dakar, Lusaka to Kampala, we are learning that data is not just about precision. It is about people, policy, and purpose. In Africa, we now promote data innovations developed by Africans, using African datasets and the broader African community.

At IDW2025, the sense of connection was real. Everyone seemed to recognize that the next chapter of data science will not be written in isolation. The conversations around “data without borders” were not just technical. It was about the idea that collaboration should transcend institutions, countries, and disciplines, allowing knowledge to move freely and ethically where it can do the most good. This aligned well with the purpose of the APHRC’s Data Science Without Borders Project (DSWB).

Our Work at APHRC: Building Cohesion Out of Complexity

In our session on ‘Operationalizing Ethical Data Governance in Africa: Applying CARE Principles and Developing of Data Sharing Agreements in African Institutions’, we shared how the INSPIRE Mental Health Initiative at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is harmonizing longitudinal health data across multiple African Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) sites. Using frameworks like the OMOP Common Data Model and DDI-Lifecycle metadata, we are building bridges across diverse datasets, from clinical notes to community surveys, to make them comparable, reusable, and meaningful for policymakers.

We also discussed some of the key challenges from early data mapping like inconsistent data quality checks and how proper investment in digital infrastructure and training can drive AI innovation. Yet, with AI increasingly shaping health, governance and economic systems across Africa, the need for conversations around context-appropriate AI governance frameworks emerges. It is painfully obvious that Africa simply importing models built elsewhere is not working, instead homegrown approaches grounded in local realities and societal norms are what is needed. Collaborative initiatives like DSWB show the potential of AI becoming a catalyst for inclusive, sustainable development when African institutions co-design solutions grounded in shared governance and ethical use.

Our DSWB project aims to build a new generation of African data scientists who can work collaboratively across borders, sharing tools, models, and ideas while respecting the sovereignty and privacy of national datasets. It’s a space where African researchers from Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, and South Africa come together to co-create solutions that work for their communities. Through DSWB, we have begun exploring federated learning, an approach that allows models to be trained across multiple datasets without moving sensitive data. This is a quiet revolution in the making. It means we can collaborate globally while keeping data local and secure -and maintaining data sovereignty.

Beyond the Numbers: The Human Moment

What made IDW 2025 truly special was both the advancements in data technology but also the people. The hallway chats, the coffee-break laughter, and the sense of shared curiosity were as valuable as any keynote. We found ourselves among a community that understood both the rigor and the heart behind the numbers. These moments reminded us that behind all the servers, scripts, and dashboards, the data community is really a people community. We might speak in lines of code, but what connects us is a simple truth: we care about the same world.

And then there were the lighter, unforgettable moments, the kind that conferences rarely put on the agenda but everyone remembers. One evening, we hopped onto the CityCat ferry for a boat ride down the Brisbane River to an event at Eat Street Northshore. By the time we docked, the air was filled with music, laughter, and the irresistible scent of global cuisines. Somewhere between sampling Thai noodles, Ethiopian coffee, and Australian doughnuts, the serious talk of algorithms gave way to dancing!!

There was something about those small, human moments that made Brisbane feel like home. IDW2025 reminded us that being “home away from home” doesn’t always mean missing where you came from; sometimes, it means discovering that belonging can happen anywhere people share purpose, curiosity, and good humor. For a few days, we weren’t just researchers and programmers; we were a floating global village of storytellers, dancers, and friends who just happened to love data.

Looking Ahead

As we return from Brisbane, the invitation is clear: It is important to strengthen the pipelines we have established, engage in meaningful engagement with communities before publicizing our findings, and take action based on our discoveries.

Preparations are now underway for the next IDW, which will take place in South Africa, where we hope to enhance debates with an even bigger representation of African voices, develop cross-institutional collaboration, and increase our impact.

In the end, what we carried home from IDW2025 was that in a world often divided by borders, data has given us a new kind of unity. A reminder that the pursuit of knowledge, when done ethically and inclusively, is a global act of humanity.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest lesson we carried home from Brisbane!!

Connections for a Sustainable Open-Science Future

Lili Zhang, Director of the Global Open Science Cloud International Programme Office (GOSC IPO), Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

On my first day in Brisbane for SciDataCon and International Data Week (IDW) 2025, I was captivated by local exhibits, especially the keyword ‘connection’ that stood out to me. ‘Connections bring people together and are vital in preserving cultural knowledge, strengthening identity, fostering belonging, and tethering past, present, and future generations.’ The same applies to open science infrastructures.

As a key pillar of Open Science, e-infrastructures connect advanced technologies with domain-specific solutions for robust development; they connect cloud services to the widest possible audience; and they tie digital revolutions to sovereignty, ensuring a fair and equitable future. As part of extended and ongoing collaborations and discussions, the Global Open Science Cloud initiative (GOSC) connects us with an IDW session titled ‘Open science actions toward achieving the SDGs: an infrastructure dialogue with the Global South’ on September 15th in Brisbane, Australia.

The UN 2030 Agenda has become a cornerstone of global science and policy efforts, demanding urgent, collective action to tackle poverty, inequality, climate change, and other systemic problems. The Global South remains at the forefront of the risks and opportunities within the SDGs framework. These regions face the most significant development challenges, but they also possess a wealth of untapped knowledge systems, scientific talents, and emerging infrastructures.

Co-organized by the Global Open Science Cloud International Programme Office (GOSC IPO), the session featured discussion on fostering a dialogue about how trusted, cross-national, and cross-regional e-infrastructures can promote science and innovation in line with the SDGs. Dr. Tshiamo Motshegwa, Director of the African Open Science Platform (AOSP), highlighted regional efforts in developing pan-African cyberinfrastructure that support the SDGs. He sparked conversations around the need and impetus for creating a federated and policy-aware research environment in Africa, including one that addresses the impacts of the SDGs. He highlighted the opportunity to advance these conversations at International Data Week (IDW) 2027, which will be hosted in South Africa. Dr. Motshegwa also shared African perspectives on managing data sovereignty and human rights. He highlighted that navigating data sovereignty and human rights is a complex, delicate task that often involves balancing and carefully managing related tensions. He also provided African examples of policy tools, including the AU AI Strategy, AU Data Policy Framework, and AU Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) 2034, along with projects on the continent being used to promote open science.

Additionally, Dr. Huajin Wang from CNIC, CAS, introduced the Research Data Collaboration Network (RDCN) and CoNet as cross-domain data toolkits for open collaboration. RDCN is a novel reference architecture designed to facilitate seamless, end-to-end collaborative analysis. CoNet, meanwhile, is a production-level implementation of the RDCN architecture, deployed across the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) data center system to enable complex, cross-domain scientific analysis. Dr. Rania Elsayed Ibrahim from the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences in Egypt virtually shared insights on sustainable North-South collaboration driven by capacity development frameworks. For my part, I discussed GOSC’s efforts to develop advanced e-infrastructures for the Global South, supporting SDG research and capacity building. The following panel discussion broadened the conversation, with Dr. Pankaj Kumar of the International Geographical Union (IGU) stressing the importance of AI-focused training and the implementation of the SDGs. Dr. More Manda, Director of the National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) from South Africa, stressed the urgent need to develop integrated solutions to boost investments in e-infrastructures for the Global South.

Building on ISOSC 2025, this GOSC IDW discussion deeply impressed me by addressing the SDGs challenges we face and affirming the importance of co-developing interoperable technical solutions for open science infrastructures. Acting as a bridge to connect trust across various sectors, we hope that future GOSC events will continue to promote Open Science and the SDGs. Let’s connect in the next IDW series to be hosted in South Africa in 2027!

More information is available as follows:

GOSC Initiative: https://codata.org/initiatives/making-data-work/global-open-science-cloud/
ISOSC 2025: https://www.cstcloud.net/news/200.jhtml
IDW 2025 GOSC session: https://www.cstcloud.net/news/203.jhtml

Building Participatory Data Infrastructures Across Disciplines and Geographies

Reflections on the ECR-organized session ‘Perspectives on Data Repositories across Disciplines, Geographies, and Cultures’ from CODATA Connect leads Pragya Chaube, Louis Mapatagane, and Cyrus Walther.

At International Data Week 2025, the Early Career Researcher (ECR) session, “Perspectives on Data Repositories Across Disciplines, Geographies, and Cultures,” was more than just a panel; it served as a quiet manifesto. It reminded us that data repositories are not storage systems; they are knowledge goods. And knowledge goods, by their very nature, depend on participation, inclusion, and shared stewardship.

The session presented a rare cross-section of real-world frictions: genomic data implicate sovereignty, particle-physics data that overwhelm infrastructure, human rights data requiring machine readability for accountability, disparities in climate science data, and open research data cultures where practice lags behind aspiration. The ECR panel converged on a single truth: if data are to serve humanity, then the design architecture of the next generation of repositories that hold them must overcome these frictions and reflect humanity’s diversity.

Sovereignty Before Structure

The scientific and infrastructural requirements of genomics highlights to us that repositories are never merely technical artefacts. But as Claire Rye reminded us through her work on genomic data in Aotearoa New Zealand, no repository is ethically sound if it fails to respect sovereignty. Te Tiriti o Waitangi (‘Treaty of Waitangi’ – founding document of New Zealand, signifies partnership between the British Crown and Māori) affirms that taonga Māori (full chieftainship of indigenous possessions), including genetic data, remain under Indigenous authority. This is not an afterthought to FAIR; it is the foundation of what the CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles demand. When we speak of openness, we must first ask: open for whom, and on whose terms? Without community control and benefit-sharing encoded in governance and metadata, openness risks becoming another form of extraction.

Scale Without Participation Reproduces Inequality

In high-energy physics, the problem is not a lack of collaboration or data but the asymmetry of participation. As Cyrus Walther illustrated, experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO) generate petabytes of data — but access to those data, and to the computational ecosystems required to analyse them, is not always given. Here lies a paradox: the most open scientific projects can still be closed in practice. Membership fees, specialised software, and critical know-how determine who gets to participate in knowledge production. If repositories are to be truly open, they must democratise capability. That means designing open collaboration structures such as Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) and open methods that allow researchers from the Global South and early-career scientists to contribute meaningfully as co-authors of discovery.

Machine Readability as a Justice Technology

Adriana Bora’s Project AI against Modern Slavery (AIMS) demonstrated a different frontier: how data infrastructure can define accountability itself. By converting thousands of corporate modern slavery statements into machine-readable datasets, AIMS transforms what was once bureaucratic reporting into a living, searchable archive for justice. In this context, machine readability is not pedantic; it is ethical. A PDF is a barrier; a CSV serves as an invitation – — because when information is locked in static documents, it excludes most people from engaging with it, but when data is structured and open, it empowers anyone to analyse, question, and act on it. Metadata and semantics in line with the FAIR principles provide a guide and make the data easier to use consistently and programmatically. When governments require and resource standardised, machine-readable reporting, they shift the cost of use from the vulnerable to the powerful. That is what participatory infrastructure looks like: when format embodies ethics.

Regional Data as Global Equity

Louis Mapatagane’s call to action on climate data inequalities strikes at the core of global disparity. Most climate data reside in the Global North, while communities suffering the harshest effects remain invisible within global systems. Without locally produced and managed data, adaptation policies are based on borrowed evidence. His call for universities to host regional repositories grounded in FAIR + CARE principles redefines such repositories as civic institutions that connect research, education, and local resilience. In this perspective, data justice begins with agency, not access. Regional capacity forms the foundation.

Culture Eats Policy

Pragya Chaube’s reflections on open research data in India brought the conversation full circle: even the best global frameworks falter without supportive cultures. India is the world’s third-largest research producer, yet data-sharing remains low, with fewer than one in ten researchers depositing data in repositories. The barrier is not just technical, it is institutional and cultural. Many institutions lack the policies, incentives, and infrastructure that enable researchers to share confidently and be recognised for doing so. Mandates alone do not create a culture of sharing — incentives, literacy, and recognition do. When researchers are rewarded for curation, not just publication, repositories begin to serve their true purpose: collective advancement.

Toward Participatory Data Futures

The throughline across these talks is unmistakable: data repositories must evolve from being mere collections to become commons. By commons, we refer to data repositories conceived as community-governed public goods, enabling shared stewardship and equitable access for the common benefit. Their legitimacy will depend not on the terabytes they host but on the diversity of those empowered to use them. Participatory design is not an embellishment; it is the architecture of trust.

As we look towards International Data Week 2027 in South Africa, the challenge before us is clear: to shift from access as a mere slogan to the reality shared analytical power as a global norm. That is how we turn repositories into living knowledge goods, and knowledge goods into instruments of equity.

L to R: Louis Mapatgane, Adriana Bora, Pragya Chaube, Claire Rye, Cyrus Walther

CODATA Blog

News from the CODATA community and from Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director