Capacity Building Workshop in Beijing on Data Sharing in Space Cooperation for Global Health

He, J. F.  Zhuang, D. F.^*

Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resource Research(IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Regional Center for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (affiliated to the United Nations) jointly organized training workshop in Beijing on data sharing in space cooperation for global health from 12 to 26 April 2018. Jointly supported by the International Cooperation Bureau of CAS and China National Space Administration (CNSA), 44 participants from 16 countries jointed this two weeks event. The participants came from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Nepal, Russia, Mongolia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru (Figure 1).

The focus of the training workshop is on “Geography-Health” compound researchers for developing countries, especially for “the Belt and Road” countries, to promote in the field of health geographic information. The specific workshop includes five major sub-topics: they are: (1) Application of remote sensing and geographic information systems in the field of environment and public health; (2) Geography-health: theory and models for spatial analysis; (3) Big data on environment and health; (4) Introduction of GIS software and its newly functions for applications; and (5) Emergency management and decision making and health geographic information system construction. At the same time, the advanced concept of data sharing, data publishing, data opening and data management are all included in training courses. Prof. Zhuang, D. F. and Associate Prof. He, J. F. are responsible for overall arrangement for the training workshop.

In the first session of the training workshop, more than 10 specialists provide the lectures, who are Mr. Xu, Y. S., Director of the International Cooperation Department of the CNSA , Mr. Zhuang, Y., Deputy Director of the International Department of the CAS, Mr. Weng, J. N., Executive Director of Regional Center and the Dean of the International College of Beihang University (previously known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Mrs. Hai, L. M. from RCSC (Red Cross Society of China), Prof. Thomas Krafft from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, Prof. Wang, W. Y. from IGSNRR, Co-Chair of the Commission on Environment and Health of the International Geographic Union (CHE-IGU), Prof. Gong, P. and Cheng, F. from Tsinghua University, Prof. Liao, X. H., Prof. Zhuang, D. F., Prof. Wang, J. F., Prof. Wang, J. L., Associate Prof. Xu, C. D., Zhao, L. M. and Qi, X. P., et al. The lectures were focused on population and health, natural disasters prevention and control, Geographic Information System, earth observation from satellites, applications of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), data sharing, international rescue, policy and technique, etc.

Figure 1  Group Photo of the training workshop (April 12, 2018, Beijing)

In the second session, all participants attended the “Satellite Application and International Cooperation Seminar” of the Forum on Space and Global Health, which was held in Harbin to celebrate 2018 China Space Day (April 24, 2018). The trainees presented their practices. Dr. Krishnamurthy Ramesha from the World Health Organization, and Dr. Shirish Ravan from the United Nations Outer Space Division, made comments to the presentations.

		Figure 2   Trainees’ presentations

At the third part of visit and communication, all trainees of the international training course participated in the principal conference activities of 2018 China Space Day (Figure 3-7). They met Chinese astronaut Liu, B. M., and visited the China Aerospace Achievement Exhibition.

Figure 5  Trainees participated in Opening Ceremoney of 2018 China Space Day

Figure 6  Trainees visited China Aerospace Exhibition

Figure 7  Trainees on China Space News

The last part of this training is about data publishing and sharing. Prof. Liu, C., Editor-in-Chief of Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository introduced data publishing and sharing policy and how to directly download all data sources from internet. She took the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery as an example to explain how to publish the dataset, metadata and data paper together, which was a new model for a quality and timely data sharing. This event was also on the list of big data communication actions from the Geographical Society of China (GSC), it was the 10^th Symposium of Capacity Building on Global Change Research Data Publishing & Sharing in 100 Universities Program, which was jointly initialed by IGSNRR, CAS and GSC since June 2017.

The closing ceremony was held on the last day of training workshop, Dr. Krishnamurthy Ramesha, Dr. Shirish Ravan, Mrs. Jiang, H., Director of International Cooperation Division of CNSA, and Prof. Weng, J. N., Dean of the International College of Beihang University, presented the training certificates to each trainee (Figure 8). All of participates believe this activity will great benefit personals and the countries, where the trainees come from, as well as the understanding and potential cooperation among the countries.  

Figure 8  Certification of 2018 training workshop were issued to each of trainees