Dr David Strong to head National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data

Ottawa, ON – March 25, 2004 – The National Research Council (NRC) Canada says that Dr David Strong, former president of the University of Victoria and an authority in the earth sciences, has been appointed to chair the blue ribbon task force responsible for overseeing the forthcoming National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD).

The NCASRD will seek to help Canada maximize the value received from its publicly funded natural and medical sciences research by recommending an appropriate framework and guidelines, which will facilitate open and long-term access to data coming from that research.

“The pressures around the preservation and archiving of scientific and technical data are mounting,” said Dr Arthur Carty, NRC president. “Without concerted action, we risk losing many potentially significant collections of data – a loss that will be felt for generations to come.”

The NCASRD stems from an NRC seminar held in May 2003, in which over 50 representatives from the natural and medical sciences community recommended that a comprehensive study, complementary to the National Data Archive Consultation for the social sciences completed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the National Archives of Canada, be conducted to examine access to scientific research data.

A two-day national forum for Canadian researchers in the science, engineering and health is planned for the fall of 2004. The forum’s recommendations will form the basis of a report to be submitted to federal granting agencies, the partners and the federal government.

The NCASRD is a partnership initiative of the NRC, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).