Global Data for Global Science: The new ICSU World Data System
Mustapha Mokrane in IAHS Newsletter 105.
Birth of the ICSU-WDS Concept
The International Geophysical Year in 1957–1958 saw the creation by the International Council for Science (ICSU) of the World Data Centres (WDCs) and Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical data analysis Services (FAGS). Charged with managing the data gathered by this global project and making those available to the scientific community, both the WDCs and FAGS remained largely unchanged for 50 years.