WDS
ENDORSEMENTSBelow are the initiatives that WDS proudly supports. Each endorsement reflects WDS’s commitment to advancing important issues and promoting positive change within the data repository community and beyond.
Endorsements are an integral part of WDS’s action plan, integrated into Objective Three of the 2025-2027 Action Plan: Demonstrating global leadership in data governance. Through these endorsements, WDS emulates and serves as a role model for best practices in data governance.
Our endorsements are carefully reviewed and approved by the WDS Scientific Committee (SC), composed of leading scientists and experts in the field of data.
We invite you to explore this page to learn more about the initiatives we endorse and understand the values that drive our supporting efforts.
November 2025 – The Word Data System (WDS) Scientific Committee endorses the statement issued by the International Science Council (ISC) and its Affiliated Bodies, “Safeguarding and Enhancing International Scientific Collaboration for Climate Action.” This call to action urges governments, funders, and the global research community to maintain strong support for international scientific research and collaboration in addressing climate change—one of humanity’s most pressing and complex challenges.
WDS encourages all members of the scientific community, policymakers, and stakeholders to read and share the full ISC statement: https://council.science/statements/climate-science/.
April 2025 – The Word Data System (WDS) has announced its endorsement of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, joining a growing international movement to advance open, actionable, and equitable science. The Barcelona Declaration calls for collective action to make research outputs—such as data, software, and methods—openly available and reusable, fostering transparency, collaboration, and innovation across disciplines. WDS’s endorsement reflects its ongoing commitment to supporting global research communities and promoting the principles of open science and responsible data stewardship. Please visit their website for more information about the Declaration and its signatories.
December 2023 – Word Data System (WDS) endorsed the Open Climate Campaign, a four-year initiative launched in August 2022 by Creative Commons, SPARC, and EIFL, with funding from Arcadia. The campaign aims to make open sharing of research outputs the norm in climate science, addressing the pressing challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. By supporting this campaign, WDS emphasizes the importance of openly sharing research to accelerate progress in combating climate change through effective knowledge sharing and collaboration across disciplines and regions. WDS encourages its members and partners to participate in the campaign and plans to host annual webinars to discuss data and progressive actions in climate conversations. Please visit the Creative Commons website for more information on the continuing work for open climate.
December 2023 – Word Data System (WDS) announced that our Scientific Committee had approved the endorsement of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), an initiative designed to improve the ways scholarly research is assessed. DORA, published in 2013, understands the pressing need to improve practices in research assessment and recommends the need for using journal-based metrics to obtain funding. The statement also expresses the need to assess research on its own merits rather than the journal in which it is published.
December 2023 – The Word Data System (WDS) endorsed the Joint Statement on Research Data, a collaborative initiative by the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), DataCite, and Crossref. This endorsement underscores WDS’s commitment to enhancing the discoverability, linkage, reuse, and citation of research data, thereby promoting open science and research integrity. By supporting this statement, WDS aims to inspire its members and the broader research community to adopt best practices in data collection and stewardship. To further this mission, WDS hosted a webinar featuring representatives from STM, DataCite, and Crossref, discussing the significance of the joint statement and its implications for data infrastructure.