Long-term digital preservation of scientific data is a burning question around the world, for more and more data is continuously being produced. In 2007 the amount of data produced exceeded the storage capacity available, and the trend is becoming stronger every year. Long-term preservation is a many-sided question, and inter-organizational collaboration across national boundaries is needed to find answers.

APA has worked for several years already. It has built relationships with, for example, political decision-makers, European research funders, and several information producers, distributors and custodians.

Major European information producers are members in APA: CERN, the European Laboratory of Particle Physics, the European Space Agency ESA, the European Science Foundation (ESF), and several archives, museums and libraries. CSC became a member of the alliance in summer 2009. In addition to CSC, the Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters is also a member of APA.

The main goal of APA, headed by Dr. Wouter Spek, is to build a permanent infrastrucrure for the preservation of scientific information. Image (c) Anni Jacobsson

Long-term preservation is a grand challenge

“Our goal is to secure research data and publications concerning their accessibility, long-term preservation, and reuse,” says Dr. Wouter Spek, executive director of APA, who visited CSC at the end of September. “The amount of information continuously being produced by science is so huge that its preservation with the currently available means is becoming impossible. Therefore, the problem relating to long-term preservation should be solved without delay, because the use and utilization of new information largely depends on how well we can utilize existing data.” The main goal of APA is to build a permanent infrastructure for the preservation of scientific information.

According to Spek, all organizations struggling with the problem of long-term preservation agree that something has to be done, and quickly. “Outside Europe, extensive investments are already being made to solve the problem. In Europe the situation is scattered: many fields have their own projects and activities, but broad-scale cooperation is missing.”

How, then, should we proceed to make things better? “It would be an over-simplification to say that we are doing a bad job at the moment, because a lot of good work is being done. This is shown by the fact that scientists are still delivering new and useful data for society. But of course, things can always be made better,” says Spek. “Now we need to initiate concrete activities to guarantee accessibility and long-term preservation for research data. We need to collaborate and concentrate on developing procedures and a strategy.” Money is an essential factor also in this aspect. “We must convince financiers that we can perform concrete activities to preserve scientific information.”

CSC became a member of APA in summer 2009. “In many things, Finland is recognized as a model country, able to show how things should be done. If a country actively works on preserving its scientific data, APA would like to know how it is being done, what resources are needed, and what kind of collaboration can be reached with this country. If a country already has a well-working operational model, we could spread it around Europe.” Surprisingly, there are no member organizations from Sweden, Norway, or Denmark in APA. Therefore, Spek considers CSC’s role as a bridge builder to the Nordic countries. “We would also like to work with the other Nordic countries to see how they have secured and managed accessibility and long-term preservation of research information.”

CSC is a member in several international networks and working groups. For example, the Partnership for Accessing Data in Europe, the PARADE consortium, strives for pan-European cooperation to be able to meet the increasing challenges of managing scientific information. “We invited CSC to join APA partly because CSC is a member in the PARADE consortium and other networks,” says Spek. Another reason is the fact that APA wanted to have a supercomputing center as a member. “The more diversity we have within our members, the more diversified expertise we have at our disposal.”

“Being a member of APA is important to CSC, because through APA we can create contacts to different types of organizations and enhance international collaboration. Permanent preservation of information is playing an increasingly important role within CSC’s activities: our Data Services for Science and Culture has a wide operational area, providing services not only to research but also, for example, to libraries and archives. By working together with different international organizations we can deliver higher-quality services meeting a broader range of needs," says CSC’s Managing Director Kimmo Koski.

Spek considers CSC an active participant that collaborates with other member organizations. “CSC can be our link to other networks, paving the way for other networks to join APA. Every member organization is a member of another network, and we would like to disseminate information between these networks. We do not necessarily strive to have all of them as APA members, but we want to know what is going on and being discussed in other networks relating to long-term preservation.”

At the moment, APA has a few collaboration projects outside Europe, but they are not very advanced, as yet. “For example, in the United States, Canada, and Australia, they are struggling with the same problems, so it would make sense to combine our forces and work together. First, however, we must have the collaboration within Europe to work fluently, and after that we can reach further, beyond Europe,” says Spek.

Tiina Raivo

Additional information

Alliance for permanent access

Strategy for a European Data Infrastructure