Discussion Leads: R.J. Samors (Belmont Forum e-Infrastructures and Data Management Coordination Officer), Robert Gurney (Belmont Forum e-Infrastructures and Data Management Project Lead)

This Town Hall will discuss the accomplishments made by the Belmont Forum to date on its goals and future activities for sharing scientific, global change research data and discoveries across agencies, organizations, and international geopolitical boundaries. The Belmont Forum e-Infrastructures and Data Management (e-I&DM) Project invites attendees from the research and informatics communities to this Town Hall to discuss ongoing data management challenges for collaborative research and possible solutions, present case studies, or ask questions.

The Belmont Forum, a consortium of 25 international, governmental science funding agencies established in 2009, is enabling natural scientists, social scientists, and researchers from different nations to accelerate the pace of science discovery and collaboratively address 21st century global change through interdisciplinary, trans-disciplinary and transnational research. The Belmont Forum’s official policy of open data focuses on data discovery, open access, sharing and interoperability, with a goal of international convergence on data management systems for research funded by its member research agencies. Towards that end, four internationally-integrated Action Themes are collaboratively developing a large-scale awareness of global data policy and standards, identifying best practice and existing barriers to data sharing, and assessing the training needs of researchers and data managers. These activities are undertaken by the e-I&DM Project in cooperation with international data sharing organizations including ICSU, CODATA, RDA, GEO, and others, with the goal of developing globally organized e-infrastructures drawing from existing components, protocols, and standards.

Accomplishments to date include a 2-day workshop to identify barriers to data management and dissemination that will form the basis for a future funding call for data management and e-infrastructure exemplars; exploration of collaborations and synergies with international data organizations; a data management plan requirement for all future Belmont Forum-funded projects; and a survey to identify training gaps and issues regarding the human capacity aspect of international research collaborations that need to be addressed to accelerate open data sharing, data dissemination and improved data management. Ongoing and future activities include a new Belmont call for proposals for e-infrastructures exemplars, collaboration with existing efforts on a Map of the Landscape for e-infrastructure and data management resources, a Curriculum Scoping Workshop, and development of an evaluation matrix to enable self-assessment for continuous improvement of the Belmont Forum templates, best practices , and training courses in an iterative process toward open data and interoperability.