WASHINGTON– July 12 2024 –The Global Data Alliance applauds the commitment to cross-border access to science and technology reflected G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Declaration. The Declaration highlights the importance of cross-border exchange of knowledge, ideas, information, and other data for purposes of advancing science and R&D. The Declaration also reaffirmed the commitment of G7 economies to promote open science, FAIR data principles, and international partnerships. The Declaration reaffirms that all G7 economies:
- Highly value and promote scientific research for its innovation and problem-solving results in addition to its public value in pushing the frontiers of knowledge and developing strong human capital…
- [Recognized that] open science facilitates the creation of new knowledge within the global scientific community, and enhances efficiency and innovation in research, fostering and permitting appropriate access to curated and trusted data, source codes, and knowledge.
- Promote collaboration, … across the global scientific community, to expand open science with equitable and responsible dissemination of scientific knowledge and appropriate research outputs, including open and public access to publicly funded scholarly publications and scientific data. We continue to promote the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles as a best practice…
The declaration also identified several priority areas for collaboration, such as ocean digital twins, application of AI tools in scientific endeavor, and the deployment of supercomputing capacity to help “tackle global societal challenges, including by predicting, mitigating, and effectively managing natural disasters and pandemics.”
Finally, the Declaration calls for closer collaboration with the African Union (AU) and UNESCO to support meaningful G7-Africa collaborations in science and technology – expressing the G7’s aim of aligning efforts with the needs of African countries, also in view of the AU Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2034 to be adopted in 2025.