A common language

Penny Jones interviews an unnamed (?!) official of the EU. "[Q] What are some of the challenges seen with getting member country systems to relate? [A] There is a long history of successful management of research data in Europe. These include ESO, ESA, EBI and CERN. However, most data initiatives address the needs of a specific discipline: very few serve generic multidisciplinary activities. The open access concept has been garnering increased attention in the scientific world and with the OpenAIRE initiative (FP7 open access pilot) the EC creates significant potential for synergy at European level. Areas with potential for future joint development include: shared data storage, data shipment, data access, preservation, publishing and citation...."