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Group Session December 4, 2019

Uniting Earth Space and Environmental Science Data from the Global North and the Global South to make valuable contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Plenary: ESIP/RDA Earth, Space, and Environmental Sciences IG

Submitted by

Meeting objectives


  1. Identify barriers to the Global South and Global North integrating ESES data infrastructures

  2. Explore how the Global North and Global South can unite to contribute ESES data to the SDGs, and participate in interdisciplinary collaborative science.

  3. Learn from the Global South about Earth, space and environmental science (ESES) research infrastructure initiatives in their countries and ensure that they are in the ESIP/RDA catalogue 

Meeting agenda

  1. 0-10 Minutes (10 minutes): Introduction

  2. 10-15 Minutes (5 minutes); Review the current status of the ESES IG (5 minutes), including the catalogue which contains both groups working within ESES, and those that include ESES as part of cross domain initiatives. Invite new additions, particularly from the Global South. 

  3. 15-45 Minutes (30 minutes): Provide 5-minute project presentations on Key ESES data infrastructures in the Global South. Speakers will be sought from Asia, Africa and South America

  4. 45-75 Minutes (30 minutes): Breakout sessions discussing:

    1. The barriers to integrating ESES datasets/data components from the Global South and the Global North

    2. Identifying projects that include partners from  the Global South and North that currently do work together as exemplars of what is possible.

  5. 75-85 Minutes (10 minutes): Report back

  6. 85-90 Minutes (5 minutes): Wrap up and next steps.

Target audience

Our target audience includes participants and their organizations associated with ESES research projects and efforts, as well as users of ESES datasets in other domains anywhere in the world.  

We would like participants to help us determine: 

  1. What are the most important ESES global data integration projects and which are relevant to the UN SDGs;

  2. What are the challenges of interoperating between the Global North and the Global South – are they cultural, technical, logistical, financial?; and

  3. How do we ensure that the ESES-IG has active participating representatives from both the Global North and the Global South

We will welcome participation from other RDA WGs/IGs, particularly those from other discipline-focused WGs/IGs .

Additional links to informative material

  1. International Science Council, 2019. Advancing Science as a Public Good: Action Plan for 2019-2021 (https://council.science/ActionPlan in particular, pages 20-23).

  2. The United Nations Sustainability Development Goals https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/ 

  3. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld 

Short Group Status

The Earth, space, and environmental science communities are developing, through multiple international efforts, both general and domain-specific leading practices for data management, infrastructure development, vocabularies, and common data/digital services. This Interest Group will work towards coordinating and harmonizing: 

  1. Efforts within the ESES to reduce possible duplication, increase efficiency, share use cases, and promote partnerships and adoption in the community; and

  2. Cross domain initiatives to accelerate the uptake of ESES data in other domains. 

Estimate of the required venue room capacity

50