WSIS Prize 2018 (e-Science Champion) to the GCdataPR Project

Editorial Office of Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery

The 2018 WSIS Prize (e-Science Champion) was given to the Global Change Research Data Publishing, Repository and Sharing (GCdataPR) Project at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2018 from 19-23 March 2018 at Geneva (Figure 1, 2).

Figure 1  Invitation Letter from Mr. Zhao, H. L., ITU secretary-general for participating in the WSIS 2018 Forum as a Champion of WSIS Prize 2018

Figure 2  Certificate of the WSIS Prize 2018 (e-Science Champion) to Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences

According to the UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183, 21 December 2001, the World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) was held in Geneva, Switzerland from 10-12 December 2003 (Phase I) and in Tunis from 16-18 November 2005 (Phase II). The Geneva Declaration of Principles and Geneva Plan of Action were agreed at the WSIS Phase I, and Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society were agreed at the WSIS Phase II. The annual WSIS conference was held after 2015. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum is a follow up action of the WSIS. The annual WSIS Forum is a global multi-stakeholder platform gathering worldwide ICT for development community for the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines.

According to the WSIS Geneva Action Plan 2003 and Tunis Agenda 2005, the WSIS Prize program was established in 2006. The 18 groups in 11 Action Lines of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development were recognized. They are:

WSIS AL C1: The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development

WSIS AL C2: Information and communication infrastructure

WSIS AL C3: Access to knowledge and information

WSIS AL C4: Capacity building

WSIS AL C5: Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs

WSIS AL C6: Enabling environment

WSIS AL C7: e-Government

WSIS AL C7: e -Business

WSIS AL C7: e -Learning

WSIS AL C7: e -Health

WSIS AL C7: e -Employment

WSIS AL C7: e -Environment

WSIS AL C7: e -Agriculture

WSIS AL C7: e -Science

WSIS AL C8: Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content

WSIS AL C9: Media

WSIS AL C10: Ethical dimension of the information society

WSIS AL C11: International and regional cooperation

There are two categories of the WSIS Prize, one is Winner and the other is Champion. The WSIS Prize is the only platform for recognizing the most successful cases in implementation of the WSIS action lines.

There were 685 nominated projects from the world for the 2018 WSIS Prize, in which only 90 projects, including 18 WSIS Prizes winners and 72 WSIS Prizes champions, were awarded by professional evaluation and citizen votes.

The Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository (GCdataPR) was one of the awarded projects. The GCdataPR was launched in June 2014 by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science (IGSNRR/CAS) and Geographical Society of China (GSC). Prof. Liu, C., Editor-in-Chief of GCdataPR, Associated Chief Editor and Director of Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery, and Dr. Shi, R. X., on behalf of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Project Team of Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository accepted the WSIS Prize 2018 (e-Science Champion) on March 20, 2018 at Geneva (Figure 3)

Data sharing has always been a bottleneck for China’s scientific research and society, and it is also one of the major challenges for the science and sustainable development in

developing countries in the world. In order to solve this problem, Prof. Liu, C. led her team at IGSNRR/CAS and colleagues from geographical society of China with the support from several funding agencies of China to develop the data publishing infrastructure including data publishing software, procedures, policy and standards, data peer review methodology, data archiving and repository management regulations, data publishing and sharing tools, as well as the data networking with DOI, GEOSS, DCI, etc. It was online in June 2014 with a new Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery launched in March 2017. More than 600 data authors (co-authors) from 11 countries contributed their data products successfully and more than 30,000 computer IP users from more than 70 countries downloaded the datasets.

GCdataPR is one of regular members of the World Data System of the International Council of Sciences(WDS/ICSU), China GEO (Group of Earth Observation) Data Publishing Center, Data Provider and Broker of GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems), infrastructure of data publishing and sharing in/for/with developing countries of CODATA, one of the data contributors of the Working Group of Information System and Services, Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS/WGISS), it was on the list of Data Citation Index of Clarivate Analytics.

The overall theme of the WSIS 2018 Forum was “Leveraging ICTs to Build Information and Knowledge Societies for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”

(Figure 4). The conference is organized by 20 UN agencies, including four organizers and in close collaboration with 16 UN agencies.

The organizers are: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The collaborative organizers are: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) (FAO), International Labor Organization (ILO), International Trade Centre (ITC), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Industrial Development Organization) (UNIDO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Universal Postal Union (UPU), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), World Health Organization (WHO), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UNWOMEN) and the United Nations Regional Commission.

Figure 4  Open Ceremony of WSIS 2018 Forum Plenary (March 19, 2018, Geneva)

WSIS officer reported that “More than 2,500 information and communication technology (ICT) experts and implementation actors contributed to and participated in the recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2018 to foster partnerships, showcase innovation, exchange best practices and announce new tools and initiatives to use ICTs to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thousands followed remotely while more than 500 were engaged by intervening remotely. More than 500 high-level representatives of the wider WSIS Stakeholder community graced the Forum with more than 85 ministers and deputies, several ambassadors, CEOs and Civil Society leaders contributing passionately towards the programme of the Forum. More than 250 content rich workshops and open space talks clearly aligned with the WSIS Action Lines and SDGs. There were more than 30 Exhibition Spaces highlighting innovation and projects from the ground (WSIS 2018 Forum Outcome Document, 2018, Geneva).

WSIS 2018 Forum was chaired by Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, Deputy Director General of the United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and Mr. Zhao, H. L., ITU Secretary-General. Mr. Isabelle Durant, Deputy secretary General of UNCTAD, Mr. Getachew Engida, Secretary General of UNESCO, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, Secretary General of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Nikhil Seth, Executive Director of UNITAR, Mahmoud Mohieldin, Vie President of World Bank, Mr. Peter Major, Vice Chair of UN Science, Technology and Development Committee, Mr. John Danilovich, Secretary General of International Chamber of Commerce participated the opening ceremony. Mr António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations delivered the video speech.

Prof. Liu, C., from Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to be one of the panels at the plenary and delivered her speech on CODATA Commitment and the Foot Prints on Bridging Digital Divide during the Last 15 Years (Figure 5). She indicated that CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, International Council for Sciences, was approved to establish the Task Group on Preservation of and Open Access to S&T Data in/for/with Developing Counties in October 2002, Ottawa, Canada. The objective of the task group is for implementation of the WSIS action, especially the Action Line 7: e-Science. As one of the founders and Co-Chair of the task group, she joined the WSIS Geneva 2003 and WSIS Tunis 2005. 

Prof. Liu, C., Dr. Shi, R. X., and Prof. Tao, X. F., were invited to attend the Global Change Data Sharing session of 2018 WSIS (Figure 6).

As the leading academic international organization, ICSU (International Council for Science ) /CODATA gathered in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005 to discuss the WSIS Geneva Declaration and Action Plan and Tunis Agenda and Tunis Commitment for WSIS in scientific and technical data dimension. On behalf of ICSU/CODATA, Professor Shuichi Iwata, President of CODATA, made a commitment at the WSIS Tunis Summit and the CODATA Task Group on Preservation of an Open Access to S&T Data in/for/with Developing Countries (CODATA-PASTD) was assigned to lead this action. 

The CODATA-PASTD took the action lines: (1) Promote the development of strategies and policies for the management of scientific data sharing by convening a series of regional international seminars; (2) Improve capacity for data access and management in developing countries through training courses and south-north, south-south cooperation; (3) Provide help for developing countries to establish and to improve the data sharing infrastructure; (4) show cases and best practices in data applications for sciences and sustainability.

 Since WSIS (Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005), the CODATA-PASTD implemented its action plan with several international organizations, they are: UNESCO, UNDESA, ICSU, WFEO, WDS, GEO, IAM, ISPRS, US Academies, ISDE, IAP, Asia Science Council, APN, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Carrabin Academy of Sciences. A regional series of workshops, seminars and training programs were taken in Asia, African and Latin American, including Pretoria, South African (2002, 2007), San Paul, Brazil ( 2007), Beijing, China (2003, 2004, 2016) , Shanghai, China (2008), Tibet, China (2010), Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (2009, 2011), Havana, Cuba (2010), Bogota, Columbia (2012), Nairobi, Kennya (2014), New Deli, Indian (2017), Antananarivo, Madagascar (2017). Hundreds of young scientists from developing countries jointed these actions; some of them became leaders in data sharing and application in their home countries in most recently.

Acknowledgements: The Global Change Research Data Publishing, Repository and Sharing Project honored the WSIS Prize 2018 (e-Science Champion) was funded by the following projects, including National Natural Science Foundation of China (70240004, 70873117), International Cooperation Key Project, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2008), Open Research Platform Project of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2015, 2017), Chinese Association for Sciences and Technology (2016), Geographical Society of China (2017), Scientific Communication Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017). The contributors include more than 600 worldwide authors, editorial committees of the Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository and the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery. Not only, 36 academic journals jointed the partner team, they are: Acta Geographica Sinica, Journal of Geographical Sciences, Journal of Natural Resources, Journal of Geo-Information Science, Resources Science, Geographical Research, Chinese Journal of Geophysics, Progress in Geophysics, Journal of Resources and Ecology, Progress in Geography, Acta Meteorologica Sinica, Journal of Palaeogeography (Chinese Edition), Chinese Journal of Plant Ecology, Chinese Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, Journal of Meteorological Research, Remote Sensing Information, Chinese Geographical Science, Scientia Geographica Sinica, Wetland Science, Mountain Research, Journal of Mountain Science, Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment, Journal of Meteorology and Environment, Chinese Journal of Polar Research, Advances in Polar Science, Tropical Geography, Journal of Lake Sciences, Arid Land Geography, Arid Zone Research, Journal of Arid Land, Research on Heritages and Preservation, Acta Ecologica Sinica, Acta Ecologica Sinica (International Journal), Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, Journal of Jilin University (Earth Science Edition) and Journal of Remote Sensing.