The UK Polar Data Centre has been awarded Core Trust Seal certification.
The Core Trust Seal is an initiative of the World Data System of the International Science Council (WDS) and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA). It is an international, community based, non-governmental, and non-profit organisation promoting sustainable and trustworthy data infrastructures.
To be awarded Core Trust Seal certification, a data repository has to supply evidence demonstrating that it is following good practices and meeting certain standards. In practise, this means undertaking an internal self-assessment which is then reviewed by community peers. A copy of the UK PDC’s assessment can be viewed here.
It takes a lot of resources to collect scientific data, and as such data should be carefully managed, curated, and archived to preserve their value for future use. Certification is a way of ensuring that data repositories are reliable and durable so that they can continue to share data for a long time to come. This helps the entire data community; researchers, repositories, and end-users, to improve the quality and transparency of their processes, and to increase awareness of, and compliance with, established standards.