IASSIST
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| IASSIST | |
|---|---|
| Name | IASSIST |
| Formation | 1977 |
| Type | Professional association |
| Headquarters | International |
| Region served | Worldwide |
| Languages | English |
| Leader title | President |
IASSIST is an international association of professionals working with data in the social sciences, humanities, and related fields. It brings together data librarians, archivists, information specialists, researchers, and technologists from institutions such as Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Oxford, and University of Toronto. The organization is known for convening conferences and facilitating training that serve communities connected to World Bank, United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund, and national statistical agencies.
History
Founded in the late 1970s, the association emerged during a period marked by developments at institutions like ICPSR, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, European Data Archive, UK Data Service, and Australian Data Archive. Early formative exchanges involved librarians and archivists from Library of Congress, Bibliothèque nationale de France, National Diet Library (Japan), Statistisches Bundesamt, and Statistics Canada. Growth through the 1980s and 1990s paralleled initiatives at UNESCO, Council of Europe, European Commission, OECD Publishing, and academic centers such as Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The association adapted to digital transformations prompted by projects at CERN, Internet Archive, World Wide Web Consortium, Digital Public Library of America, and DataCite.
Mission and Activities
The association’s mission emphasizes stewardship, access, and reuse of research data, resonating with policies from National Science Foundation, European Research Council, Horizon 2020, Plan S, and Wellcome Trust. Activities include promoting best practices reflected in standards by Dublin Core, ISO, OAIS, FAIR Principles developers, and identifiers like ORCID, DOI, and ISNI. The organization supports training informed by curricula at Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Yale University, and Princeton University. It advances metadata conventions and preservation strategies used by PLOS, Springer Nature, Elsevier, and repositories like Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, and Harvard Dataverse.
Membership and Organization
Members come from academic, governmental, and private organizations including British Library, National Archives (UK), National Archives and Records Administration, German National Library, Canadian Research Data Centre Network, RAND Corporation, Pew Research Center, Brookings Institution, and technology firms such as Google, Microsoft Research, Amazon Web Services, IBM Research, and Meta Platforms. Governance has involved leaders with ties to International Council on Archives, Association of Research Libraries, Society of American Archivists, American Library Association, and regional bodies like European Data Protection Board and African Open Science Platform. Financial and advisory relationships have connected the association to foundations including Rockefeller Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Conferences and Workshops
Annual conferences and regional workshops have been hosted at venues such as University of Chicago, University of California, Los Angeles, University of British Columbia, University of Edinburgh, University of Amsterdam, University of Cape Town, and Peking University. These events feature panels and tutorials with contributors from National Institutes of Health, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, SAGE Publications, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and research infrastructures like PRACE, GEANT, ELIXIR, and GÉANT. Collaborations for capacity-building have aligned with initiatives by World Health Organization, International Labor Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and regional networks such as Latin American Studies Association and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Publications and Resources
The association produces conference proceedings, training materials, and community guidelines that interact with bibliographic and repository systems used by Scopus, Web of Science, CrossRef, PubMed Central, and SSRN. Resources reference methodologies and tools developed at RStudio, The Carpentries, GitHub, Jupyter Project, and OpenRefine. The association’s outputs have complemented archival description standards promoted by Encoded Archival Description, MODS, and preservation practices from LOCKSS and Portico.
Collaborations and Partnerships
Partnerships span international agencies and academic consortia including European Space Agency, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, CERN Open Data, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Data Store, and domain repositories like GenBank, Protein Data Bank, and Social Science One. The association has worked with funders and infrastructures such as Wellcome Trust Open Research, SPARC, DataONE, CORDIS, and national initiatives like Research Councils UK and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Impact and Notable Projects
Notable impacts include contributions to data management planning practices adopted by European Research Area, standards work influencing Data Documentation Initiative, and community-led projects interoperating with Scholarly Communication, OpenAIRE, CORE, and Re3data. Projects have facilitated data citation practices recognized by publishers like Nature Publishing Group and Science (journal), and influenced policy at agencies including US National Archives, UKRI, German Research Foundation, and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Capacity-building efforts have supported regional data infrastructures such as Latin American Open Data Initiative and African Data Science Academy, and fostered interoperability with systems used by ICIJ and ProPublica.