DataNet, or Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partner was a research program of the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure. The office announced a request for proposals with this title on September 28, 2007. The lead paragraph of its synopsis describes the program as:

Science and engineering research and education are increasingly digital and increasingly data-intensive. Digital data are not only the output of research but provide input to new hypotheses, enabling new scientific insights and driving innovation. Therein lies one of the major challenges of this scientific generation: how to develop the new methods, management structures and technologies to manage the diversity, size, and complexity of current and future data sets and data streams. This solicitation addresses that challenge by creating a set of exemplar national and global data research infrastructure organizations (dubbed DataNet Partners) that provide unique opportunities to communities of researchers to advance science and/or engineering research and learning.

The introduction in the solicitation goes on to say:

Chapter 3 (Data, Data Analysis, and Visualization) o
NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st century Discovery
presents a vision in which “science and engineering digital data are routinely deposited in well-documented form, are regularly and easily consulted and analyzed by specialists and non-specialists alike, are openly accessible while suitably protected, and are reliably preserved.” The goal of this solicitation is to catalyze the development of a system of science and engineering data collections that is open, extensible and evolvable.

The initial plan called for a $100 million initiative: five awards of $20 million each over five years with the possibility of continuing funding. Awards were given in two rounds. In the first round, for which full proposals were due on March 21, 2008, two DataNet proposals were awarded. DataONE, led by William Michener at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25, ...

covers ecology, evolutionary, and earth science. The Data Conservancy, led by Sayeed Choudhury of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

, focuses on astronomy, earth science, life sciences, and social science. For the second round, preliminary proposals were due on October 6, 2008, and full proposals on February 16, 2009. Awards from the second round were greatly delayed, and funding was reduced substantially from $20 million per project to $8 million. Funding for three second round projects began in Fall 2011. SEAD: Sustainable Environment through Actionable Data, led by Margaret Hedstrom of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, seeks to provide data curation software and services for the "long tail" of small- and medium-scale data producers in the domain of sustainability science. The DataNet Federation Consortium, led by Reagan Moore of the University of North Carolina, uses the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) to provide data grid infrastructure for science and engineering. ''Terra Populus'', led by Steven Ruggles of the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

focuses on tools for data integration across the domains of social science and environmental data, allowing interoperability of the three major data formats used in these domains: microdata, areal data, and raster data.

References

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External links

DataONE

Data Conservancy

SEAD Sustainable Environment - Actionable Data

DataNet Federation Consortium

Terra Populus: Integrated Data on Population and the Environment
National Science Foundation Science and technology in the United States Information retrieval organizations Digital library projects