Ocean Data Sharing: questions to Adam Leadbetter

Since February, you have been the new lead manager of the Decade Coordination Office (DCO) for Ocean Data Sharing (ODS). You succeed Jan-Bart Calewaert, a marine data expert well known in the Ocean Hackathon® community. Could you briefly introduce yourself?

I have been working in marine and environmental data management for about twenty years, as a data manager at the British Oceanographic Data Centre, leading the data management team at Ireland's Marine Institute and immediately before joining DCO-Ocean Data Sharing founding an environmental sustainability data and insights team in a multi-national consumer electronics company. Throughout my career I have been actively involved in technical developments in European and global data networks including SeaDataNet, EMODnet and the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange.

Adam Leadbetter (credit: Adam Leadbetter)

Some members of our community may not be very familiar with the various international bodies. Could you explain what the Decade Coordination Office (DCO) for Ocean Data Sharing (ODS) is?

Within the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, there are thirteen distributed coordination bodies providing targeted support for thematic or regional issues to programmes, projects and contributions in the Decade. DCO-ODS is the thematic coordination body, supporting the Decade on ocean data and information management and sharing issues.

This year, you’re joining Ocean Hackathon^® as a global data partner. Concretely, what resources, tools, and data will you make available to the Ocean Hackathon^® teams?

We are encouraging data producers in the Decade to point others to their data through the Ocean Data Information System, ODIS, which has been developed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. We bring the knowledge of this data catalogue system and other data activities in the Decade and across IOC to the Ocean Hackathon^® teams. We also bring our Data Sharing Toolkit and encourage the Ocean Hackathon^® Teams to share the outputs of their projects through our toolkit to the wider ocean community.

Ocean Hackathon 2023, Brest edition

As you know, the teams will be spread worldwide and will need data relevant to their local marine areas. Could you tell us more about the geographical coverage of the data you will provide?

ODIS has a global reach and so the datasets also cover large areas of the global ocean.

Beyond Ocean Hackathon®, is there any news or upcoming event you would like to share with us?

We'd like readers to follow along with our Community of Practice on LinkedIn by following the DCO-ODS page.