Two research institutions affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Science and Technology Information Center of the Ministry of Higher Education and Innovations of Uzbekistan in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on October 11 to boost open science framework strategic cooperation. 

The two CAS institutions, the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) and the Central Asia Drug Discovery and Development Center, will build and promote the Silk-Road scientific data community on ScienceDB and the Central Asia node of the Common Science and Technology Resource Identification (CSTR), together with their Uzbekistan counterpart.

As a general scientific data storage and publishing platform, Science Data Bank (ScienceDB) provides services such as scientific data storage, long-term preservation, publication, sharing and acquisition to global scientific researchers, research teams, academic journals and publishers, research institutions and universities.  

It is committed to promoting the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of scientific data (FAIR principles), and promote the cultivation and healthy development of a cultural atmosphere for data sharing in the scientific research community. 

The Common Science and Technology Resource Identification (CSTR) is a contributor to the unique identifier of global technology resources and a practitioner of global open science. 

The CSTR platform (https://www.cstr.cn) provides unique identification services for global scientific data, academic papers, research institutions, researchers, research instruments, patents and other technological resources. 

It is an important carrier for China’s national standards to achieve interoperability with partners in Uzbekistan, and use information resources to support research and policy innovation of both sides. 

Since the adoption of Recommendation on Open Science by UNESCO in 2021, Open Science has entered a new stage of global consensus. Relying on the above mentioned platforms, through the MoU, all the participants will serve the construction of the “Digital Silk Road”, deepen scientific and technological cooperation between China and Uzbekistan, promote the open sharing of scientific data in Central Asia, and depict a new vision of scientific data co-construction and sharing.

MoU Signing Ceremony (Image by CNIC)