Leveraging Investment in Global Change Research, Development,

and InnovationWim Hugo

Chief Data and Information Officer, SAEONChief Data and Information Officer, SAEONICSU-WDS Scientific Committee

wim@saeon.ac.za

National Conference on Global ChangeBoksburg, November 2012

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) invests inthe order of R 10 billion per annum in Research, Developmentand Innovation through its National System of Innovation.

Situation

and Innovation through its National System of Innovation.

A large proportion of this expenditure is project-based orgrant-based, has a finite lifetime and supports specific goalsor outcomes.

The situation locally is partly mirrored internationally.

∗ Data sharing and availability of publicly funded RDI outputs at no cost.

∗ Increasing support from the scientific community for peer-

Trends

∗ Increasing support from the scientific community for peer-reviewed data publication. ∗ Improved accessibility to and description of data sets, driven

by scientists’ desire to publish;

∗ Freely available in the public domain, supported by transparency demands.

∗ A need for the infrastructure to publish, curate, and disseminate published research outputs is implied

Two principles:∗ Free access:

∗ Free of charge if possible

Free and Open Access

∗ Free of charge if possible∗ Reasonable cost of availability and dissemination∗ Often funded as a public good

∗ Open access:∗ Equal opportunity to discover, obtain, and use the data without

prejudice.

Developing countries stand to benefit considerably from trendstowards free and open access to data, and are already doing so.

∗ Governments invest large sums of money into science as a driver for data acquisition, knowledge creation, capacity building, and innovation. This is a virtuous circle that is fed by availability of data, information, knowledge, and capacity.

Benefits of Free and Open Access

capacity.

At a basic level, reduced access to the outputs of such funding diminishes the

return on investment. What is often overlooked, though, is that reducing the

efficiency of this feedback loop hurts the return on investment even more by

limiting indirect returns and collaboration. It is the equivalent of removing

compound interest from a financial investment.

∗ Secondly, the public has funded the outputs from state department data collection and state funded research, and owns it already. Allowing selective access infringes basic rights of citizens in general, and the scientific community in particular.

This right has to be balanced by reasonable measures to allow researchers to

exploit the academic value of their work without undue competition, typically in

the period leading up to publication of a paper or thesis.

Indirect benefits of RDI investment are impeded by:

∗ lack of access to and standardisation of funded RDI outputs;

Lack of Compound Interest…

outputs;

∗ lack of policies/ licensing in respect of availability, usage parameters, and cost, if any, of funded RDI outputs, and

∗ poor preservation of knowledge generated by short projects and studies.

All exacerbated by duplication of effort, lack of funding, and unwarranted embargoes.

∗ Developing Countries often indicate that they regard some of their research data as sensitive, based on the (possible) future commercial

value of such data, or on its conservation implications – especially in the

Counter-Arguments

value of such data, or on its conservation implications – especially in the case of natural resources.

∗ The data has current commercial value, and the state entity depends on the income derived from it to fund its operations.

∗ It is obvious that some data held by the state is private to companies or individuals.

∗ The users will apply the data incorrectly, will apply it to challenge

government, or gain financially from it.

There is a tension between the drive towards free and open access, and current or future legislation.

∗ Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act (Act No 51 of 2008)

Legal Aspects

Development Act (Act No 51 of 2008)

∗ Spatial Data Infrastructure Act (Act No 54 of 2003)

∗ South African Weather Service Amendment Bill

∗ Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (Act No. 2 of 2000)

∗ Protection of Information Bill

∗ National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act, 1996 (Act No. 43 of 1996)

The concern is, in almost all cases, not the intent of the Act but the potential

to abuse the Act and unduly or unfairly restrict access thereby harming

knowledge creation and socio-economic development.

Intervention 1Infrastructure

DIRISA Infrastructure

Secure Services

Science Gateways

Web-Based

HPC

Computational Facilities

Domain-Specific Software

Mainstream Application Environments

DMZ

Virtual Research Environments

Web-Based Applications and

Content Management Frameworks

Portal Environments

Data/ Object Storage Facilities

(iRODS, WOS)

Facilities(Clusters, Grid)

Support Software enabling Research

Channels

Meta-DataSemantic

Interoperability Tools

Communications(SANReN)

Stakeholders and CoPs

Research Institutions,

HEIs

External Systems and

VREsFunders

Collaborators

DIRISA: RDI/ Science Ecosystem

Research and Joint/ Collaborative projects

Knowledge Bases, Courseware, Implementation Assistance, and Workshops

Community and Domain-Specific Special Initiatives

Products, Services, Cloud-Based Portal/ Gateway Implementations, SLAs

Service-Oriented, Standards-Based Components

Basic Infrastructure

WOS SANReNHPC

DIRISA

Open, Aligned Infrastructure

DLDL

DDA

DDL

Science Gateway

DL

DDA

DDL

DDLScience

Gateway

Quality Assurance

Filters

World Data System

Component

IndicatorAggregation

DL: Digital Library | DDL: Digital Data Library | DDA: Digital Data Archive

Intervention 2Policy

Process ModelRDI

Grant Funding

Research

Publication

Embargo

Restricted

AccessMeta-Data

Protection

under IPR Act

Conservation, Conservation,

Privacy, Legal

Restriction

Free and

Open Access

State-

Generated

Data

Information

Classification

Filter

Restricted

Access – No

Meta-Data

Significant

Budget

Contribution

Open Access

at Cost

∗ All RDI outputs generated by state-funded means should ideally be included in a national policy. This includes grant-funded university research, and data generated by state departments.

Policy Recommendations

university research, and data generated by state departments.

∗ It specifically excludes contract research performed for private entities.

∗ The data so described should be exempted or declassified in terms of the Protection of Information Bill, as provided for in the authority of each state department.

∗ The legal meaning of ‘custodian’ of a publicly funded database should include the provision of free and open access.

∗ Exceptions and qualifications are valid, based on∗ Privacy afforded to legal entities and individuals;∗ Conservation considerations;∗ Infringement of rights afforded by the Intellectual Property

Policy Recommendations - 2

∗ Infringement of rights afforded by the Intellectual PropertyRights Act;

∗ Infringement of current or future legal rights to exploit naturalresources.

∗ Government should fund and support the electronic infrastructurewhereby research outputs are preserved, discovered, and accessed.

∗ Where state departments or agencies derive a significant proportion oftheir income from the sale of publicly funded data should bediscontinued over time and mitigation measures should be put in placeto replace the loss of income.

∗ Scientific Data is an ASSET

∗ OECD/G20 Governments and Public Companies spend 1.8% of GDP on average on R&D

Funding Model: Open Access

GDP on average on R&D

∗ Translates to approximately $ 600 billion a year on R&D (GERD)

∗ 3% Management and Preservation Fee: $ 18 billion per annum.

∗ Publishing Industry: $ 19 billion per annum (2008)

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2010-enMcGuigan GS, Russell RD. (2008).

Intervention 3Networks of Networks

A New Description of Science

Meta-Data Mining Tools and Projects

Network of Networks

Repositories

Publications and Citations

Tools for Query and Retrieval

Visualisation and

Presentation

Mediators/ Judgment

Tools

Maintain Inventory of Sources

Supporting Standards, Schema, and Specifications linked to a Reference Model

19

schema.org -based scrapers

Network/ Institutional

contributions

Voluntary/ Crowdsourcedcontributions

Other RDF and LOD

Resources

Build Reference Implementations

Create and Operate Repository

BILLIONS of smart devices

Traditional Meta-Datais mostly hierarchical …

Citation

Coverage(Temporal,

Spatial, Topic)

Meta-Data

Title, Abstract and

PublisherAuthor(s)

20

Topic)

Use, Caveats, Lineage,

Methods, and Licenses

(Online)Resource(s)

Meta-DataManagement

Meta-DataAuthor(s)

Institution

Institution

Liberalised Meta-Datais a network

Citation

Coverage(Temporal,

Spatial, Topic)

Publisher

People

RDI Outputs/ Online

Resources

21

Citation

Use, Caveats, Lineage,

Methods, and Licenses

Institutions

Projects

Initiatives

Networks

Funders

Relationships are contributed by (1) meta-data mining (2) information from websites conforming to schema (3) social-media-type sites and VREs (4) existing network contributions (5) scraping existing websites (6) ontologies and vocabularies (…)

∗ DST – DIRISA Steering Committee and Sector Working Groups: Cannot finish soon enough!

Wish List

Groups: Cannot finish soon enough!

∗ NRF/ DST: Policy for Grant-Funded Research

∗ Leading to broader policy adoption

∗ Ring-fenced Allocations for RDI Output Preservation

Thanks!