Communiqué from the Second ICSU-CODATA Workshop on Data Integration: 'Science and the digital revolution: data, standards and interdisciplinary integration'

Our world faces serious challenges which require innovative solutions based on improved understanding of interrelationships between complicated earth and societal systems.   Science has the potential to provide that understanding, but scientific progress is hampered by challenges accessing, combining, and analyzing the ever-expanding volume of diverse data.

Recognizing this problem, ICSU and CODATA convened a workshop in the Spring of 2017 to launch a new initiative to bring together experts on diverse science data and experts on global challenges to develop new data integration and analysis approaches that will improve scientific efficiency.   In November 2017, a second expanded workshop “Science and the digital revolution: data, standards and interdisciplinary integration” was held at The Royal Society in London to further develop the initiative.  

The present document is a Communiqué from the second workshop entitled 'Science and the digital revolution: data, standards and interdisciplinary integration'.  The Communiqué summarises the main result of that workshop: the initiation of three pilot projects that will explore methods for advancing understanding in the domains of sustainable cities, disaster risk reduction, and infectious diseases.  The ultimate objective is to use knowledge gained through these pilots to develop generic approaches for more widespread application.