Greater EU-US collaboration for environmental research
There is a need for multidisciplinary environmental research to effectively communicate and share data to inform about and mitigate the effects of natural and man-made disasters. Linking environmental research infrastructures (RIs) to monitor Earth, oceans and the atmosphere in the two global regions can help to assess and deal with the negative impacts of global climate change. To achieve this, the EU-funded COOPEUS (Strengthening the cooperation between the US and the EU in the field of environmental research infrastructures) project fostered collaboration by bringing together American and European research infrastructures networks and related initiatives from a broad range of environment-related disciplines. Work began by identifying gaps and commonalities among environmental RIs concerning how they make data available. Using the results as a basis, project partners examined ways to overcome barriers to data sharing and exchange among environmental RIs from new scientific domains, such as carbon cycling, biodiversity, ocean observation, space weather and solid-earth dynamics. The COOPEUS team established a minimum set of data policies and standards as a first step towards harmonization of the existing data policies and standards of all involved RIs in Europe and the United States. It has already been used to modify RI data policies. To facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration the COOPEUS project partners identified and worked on use cases that call for interdisciplinary exchange. In this framework links to GEOSS were established and will be pursued in the forthcoming years. Lastly, project members delivered a roadmap that lays down joint objectives and actions for future collaboration. The vision document outlines the current transatlantic RI state of play in environmental sciences and it sets the common mission for 2025 and key actions to achieve the objectives. COOPEUS helped to jointly define future interoperability among environmental RIs in Europe and the US in order to address environment-related issues. Scientists from different disciplines and continents stand to benefit from improved discovery, efficient access and open sharing of data.
Keywords
Environmental research, United States, environmental research infrastructures, COOPEUS, EarthCube, data harmonization, GEOSS, Belmont Forum
