China to strengthen security, management of scientific data

China will strengthen and standardize the management of scientific data to guarantee data security and enhance data sharing, according to measures issued by the General Office of the State Council.

The measures are expected to provide better support to national scientific and technological innovation, economic and social development, as well as state security.

China has seen a scientific data boom in both quantity and quality, with growing input in science and technology research in recent years.

The data have not only impacted many scientific fields, such as bioscience, astronomy, geoscience and physics, but have also triggered important revolutions in research methods.

Scientific and technological innovation has become more dependent on large, reliable sets of scientific data. China still has a lot of work to do in developing, utilizing, opening, sharing and protecting data.

The measures, which prioritize data security and focus on data sharing, require those who own the data to be responsible for data management.

The measures also ordered strengthening supervision of the use and sharing of scientific data.

The data users and producers must act in line with related standards to improve protection of intellectual property, according to the measures.

The data generated from scientific programs must be collected and reported, so that they can be managed in a standard fashion and stored long term in data centers, according to the measures.