The CMIP TT Data Citation for a sustainable continuation of a requested and established service

Data citation has become a core service for data infrastructures and data repositories, integrated in author guidelines and project proposals. It provides an essential piece in Open Science supporting reuse and enabling credit by integration into the established scientific credit system of scientific references (Scholix) and the envisioned FAIR Digital Object framework. Humans and machines need to be supported for provision and access of the information.

Modern data infrastructures are federated and without central funding, especially that of international collaborations. Providing and maintaining state-of-the-art data services does not fit within current funding structures, even though these infrastructures provide core services to a broad community, like the data infrastructure of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). 

For the citation service of CMIP6, currently a single person effort, the newly established CMIP Task Team (TT) Data Citation is exploring a set of options for a sustainable data citation service for CMIP7 and further WCRP activities in a cost-benefit approach. Due to the different experiences of its members, the TT brings infrastructure aspects together with the needs of researchers. A governance structure for sustainability, standard agreements and the coordination of further developments will be framed. The background to the TT and first experiences are shared.