Board on Research Data and Information

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National Academies Establish Board on Research Data and Information through National Research Council's Policy and Global Affairs DivisionFederal government agencies make public investments of many billions of dollars each year in producing or externally funding the generation of huge and diverse data streams as inputs into the research enterprise. They also produce or fund the creation of ever-increasing volumes of scientific information?both peer-reviewed and "gray" literature?that embodies the results of much of the research output. As the nation's stewards or funders of these digital research assets, they have a major stake in continually improving their management, policies, and utilization. Despite the large expenditures on producing research data and information, the investments and policies for managing, preserving, disseminating, and reusing the data and information resources are lagging and are generally perceived to be inadequate. Many unresolved issues arise at different levels of the research system in this regard, affecting established research strategies and priorities. They involve not just scientific and technical elements, but institutional, economic, legal, and socio-cultural aspects. The most pervasive dysfunctions occur at the interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, and international boundaries, and in public-private partnerships. The problems in successfully managing and using digital knowledge resources can have significant negative effects, such as structural inefficiencies and lost opportunity costs for our national research and innovation systems, our economic competitiveness, and the greater social welfare.Because research data and information are of great importance to the progress of science and the nation's competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy, these issues need to be well understood by the various stakeholders in our nation's research enterprise. Those who have a stake in this include not only the research communities in government, academia and industry, but also research policymakers and managers in the Administration and Congress, and ultimately the public that both support these activities and the benefit from their improved effectiveness. Acting through the National Research Council (NRC), the new Board on Research Data and Information will establish an interdisciplinary advisory mechanism and focal point for bringing greater understanding and visibility to these issues, for adding value to the National Science Foundation's and other sponsors' objectives and priorities in these areas, and for helping to improve returns on the federal agencies' investments in a time of increasingly constrained budgets. The Board on Research Data and Information will maintain surveillance of the field and propose initiatives that might be undertaken at the NRC, targeted at challenges of national and international significance of particular interest to the board's sponsors. The Board will engage in planning, program development, and administrative oversight of projects launched under its auspices, dealing with the management, policy, and use of digital data and information for science and the broader society. As part of its activities in the first year, it will organize and hold a national symposium and workshop on The Future of Open Knowledge Environments in the Digital Age and an international symposium on Designing Microbial Research Commons.