Awakening the "sleeping" scientific big data contains huge value
The era of big data is coming with an unstoppable trend.
Recently, the State Council issued and announced the "Action Outline on Promoting the Development of Big Data", proposing to vigorously develop the big data industry. This means that the national level has a clear understanding of the importance of big data. At the same time, big data-related industries will inevitably usher in a new development peak.
As a branch of big data, scientific big data is undoubtedly unique. How can big data from scientific research become socialized? Can the data accumulated by scientists become a product? How to accelerate the transformation of scientific big data? At the 2015 Scientific Data Conference held recently, participating experts discussed this issue.
Scientific data contains huge value
The arrival of the big data era seems to be beyond people’s imagination. The speed of data accumulation and growth seems to exceed people's expectations.
Guo Huadong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Google’s daily computing data is 20PB (1PB is 1 petabyte, equal to 250 bytes). The amount of data generated by CERN is about 15PB every day, and global changes The amount of data is expected to reach 350PB in 2030.
Scientific data contains great value. For example, space earth big data obtained from ocean satellites, meteorological satellites, resource satellites, etc. play an important role in protecting the ecological environment, assessing land resources, and preventing natural disasters.
For another example, the Cold and Drought Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has conducted decades of research in cold and arid regions of my country and has accumulated a large amount of data. This data is of great value to governments and enterprises.
Zhang Yaonan, deputy director of the Cold and Drought Area Scientific Data Center of the Institute of Cold and Drought, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that currently, the Institute has deployed more than 50,000 observation points across the country, covering nearly two-thirds of the country’s land area. A considerable amount of data has been accumulated on glaciers, frozen soil, snow, deserts, plateau atmosphere, ecological environment, hydrology and soil, and inland river basins in cold and arid areas. But “how to socialize scientific data is a problem that needs to be solved and urgently needs to be explored.”
Statistics from the International Data Corporation show that China currently has 14% of the world’s data volume, but its data utilization rate is less than 0.4%. A large amount of data is still "sleeping" and has not fully utilized its value.
Unavoidable obstacles
Scientists have not made efforts to socialize scientific data. For example, the Institute of Remote Sensing and Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has established China Remote Sensing Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Remote Sensing), aiming to accelerate the transformation and industrialization of remote sensing and space information technology achievements of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and provide big data-related services to the outside world.
However, Ren Fuhu, a researcher at the Institute of Remote Sensing of the Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Remote Sensing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that due to industry protection, policy factors and other reasons, the current degree of openness of scientific data is not enough, which affects its socialization process. .
In addition, although most scientific data are provided by scientists, the generation and accumulation of scientific data are inseparable from the support of national science and technology plans and fund projects. This leads to a practical problem: once scientific data is opened and shared to generate value, the revenue sharing situation is difficult to handle. Whether money goes to individual scientists or to the government is a vexing question. Once scientists cannot obtain adequate income, their enthusiasm will also be affected.
Wu Yu, a researcher who has been engaged in informatization work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for a long time, said that the current research on materials genome has achieved a certain degree of progress, which is the result of the open utilization of scientific data. But we cannot forget the risk issues in opening up. "Information security issues cannot be ignored. The leakage of some data will have serious consequences. However, we do not need to be overly afraid of this problem."
Actively embrace the market
The socialization of scientific data is undoubtedly the general trend. So, how to provide "acceleration" for it?
“There is no doubt that scientific data must actively embrace the market. The data provided by scientific researchers must be aimed at corporate needs.
"Ren Fuhu said that at the same time, a good market mechanism must be formed to allow scientists to obtain benefits.
Fudan University Professor Zhu Yangyong also said that as long as society has needs, scientific data can be traded; as long as it is traded, it can Generate value. As for the income of scientists, we can refer to the practice of patent transfer and allow scientists and institutions to obtain reasonable compensation from enterprises through technology shares.
Wu Yu believes that it is necessary to accelerate the promotion of scientific data for innovation. Providing impetus for development, scientific data has great potential in fields such as smart manufacturing and biotechnology. “As for the value of scientific data to be reflected, at the government level, we can consider establishing a corresponding government procurement system to allow the government to purchase services. ”
Zhang Yaonan said that in the specific process of socializing scientific data, professional talents cannot be absent. The sources of scientific data are relatively narrow, and all sectors of society have previously had little understanding of the social and economic effects of scientific data. Therefore, , specialized talents are needed to promote the socialization of scientific data. “In short, we must pay attention to the science popularization and marketing of scientific data. ”
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