The CCCA Data Centre (CCCA-DZ) was founded in 2015 to establish a national archive for climate-relevant research data. Since its launch, the CCCA-DZ has played a significant role in the storage and management of scientific data across CCCA's research areas. In particular, through the data backup mandate for ACRP projects between the CCCA and the Climate and Energy Fund, the CCCA-DZ has played a key role in the provision and securing of data for ACRP projects.
With the ageing infrastructure, the continuously evolving requirements in the area of data infrastructure, and limited available funding, it is unfortunately no longer possible to keep the current CCCA-DZ web presence (https://data.ccca.ac.at/) running in the long term. Despite these circumstances, it will continue to be possible for the CCCA community to make research data publicly and freely accessible in the future.
As presented, amongst other occasions, at the CCCA General Assembly on 14 March 2024, the establishment of GeoSphere Austria in 2023, its statutory mandate to build and operate a high-quality data infrastructure on a long-term basis, and its willingness to open this data infrastructure to the (climate) research community now means that a long-term, secure data infrastructure is available in the form of the GeoSphere Austria Datahub. This data infrastructure is intended to serve in the future as the central platform for the storage, management, and exchange of research data across CCCA's research areas, and to also take over the tasks of the CCCA-DZ. Through modern technologies and open standards, the GeoSphere Austria Datahub will offer an efficient and secure solution to meet the needs of the research community and to facilitate access to valuable data.
All data that were previously available via the CCCA Data Centre have already been migrated to the GeoSphere Austria data infrastructure. Data providers were asked to review the data and metadata of their respective datasets and to submit any requested changes where necessary (this option continues to be available). The new datasets have been assigned DOIs and can be found via the CCCA section of the GeoSphere Datahub (https://data.hub.geosphere.at/group/ccca-daten).
As the continuation of the data services offered by the CCCA via the GeoSphere Austria Datahub is secured on a long-term basis, the CCCA Board decided at its meeting on 19 June 2024 that the current web presence of the CCCA Data Centre (https://data.ccca.ac.at/) will be taken offline on 31 August 2024. Comments regarding this matter can be sent to datenzentrum@ccca.ac.at until 31 July 2024.
Anyone wishing to upload data to the GeoSphere Austria Datahub in the future is invited to get in touch with Matthias Schwarz (matthias.schwarz@ccca.ac.at) or the GeoSphere Austria Datahub team via the contact form (https://data.hub.geosphere.at/contact).
The collaboration between the GeoSphere Austria Datahub and the CCCA will continue to be coordinated and organised, amongst other means, through the CCCA Data Centre Working Group. We warmly invite anyone who would like to actively contribute to shaping the data services to get involved in the CCCA Data Centre Working Group (https://ccca.ac.at/netzwerkaktivitaeten/ccca-arbeitsgruppen/ag-datenzentrum).
