Addressing global environmental and societal challenges—ranging from climate change, natural hazards, and biodiversity loss—requires interdisciplinary Earth System Science based on transparent, reproducible, and collaborative research. The rapidly growing volume and diversity of data, coupled with increasing demands for interoperability and societal relevance, the need for robust and user-oriented Research Data Infrastructures (RDIs) and Virtual Research Environments (VREs) as essential components of modern Earth system research is more pressing than ever.
This session explores how data infrastructures and platforms can enhance interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research by integrating perspectives from Open Science, the FAIR and CARE data principles, sustainable software development, and virtual research environments. Our session is focused on bridging the gap between user needs and sustainable, interoperable solutions by combining technical innovation with cultural change, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building. Scientific unions, research infrastructures, and international frameworks play a pivotal role in facilitating this transformation incentivising open and collaborative research practices.
We invite contributions that demonstrate practical and scalable solutions for integrating, discovering, analysing, and reusing heterogeneous Earth system data across disciplines and scales. We seek contributions showcasing operational platforms, standards, and concrete use cases that turn open data into actionable knowledge.
Topics include user-driven research infrastructures and virtual research environments (VREs); semantic technologies, ontologies, and machine-actionable metadata for interoperability; cross-domain data fusion and stakeholder engagement; sustainable, reusable software components; and robust operational and sustainability models for data centres and infrastructures. We particularly encourage contributions addressing training, documentation, and co-design, as well as innovative approaches to FAIR data practices, collaboration, public engagement, and citizen science.
By highlighting success stories, lessons learned, and mature tools—from metadata and standards to fully operational platforms—this session aims to accelerate the shift from open to truly collaborative science and empower the next generation of Earth and environmental data scientists.
Dafina Kikaj, Jonas Sølvsteen