A data management strategy for scientific research

Abstract

Since the mid 1980's, political and technological changes in UK scientific research have heightened awareness of the economic value and importance to scientific research of quality datasets and Environmental Information Systems (EIS). As a result of these changes, the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has funded more interdisciplinary Thematic Programmes. These programmes have highlighted the need for a coherent data management policy so that maximum long term gain is achieved by the science community. One such programme is the Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS). This is a pound 30 million Programme that involves researchers from both UK public sector Institutes and Universities. This paper discusses the LOIS data management strategy, its problems and its solutions in the large scale data collection and storage that underpins the multi-disciplinary modelling efforts. The establishment of a Data Centre concept has enabled scientists to access, via computer networks, integrated datasets from the air, terrestrial, freshwater, geological and marine phases of the environment.