Simon Hodson

Simon Hodson is an expert on data policy issues and research data management who has led and contributed to scores of influential reports on big data best practices. Dr. Hodson has been Executive Director of CODATA since August 2013.

Simon is an expert on data policy issues and research data management. He has contributed to influential reports on Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies and to the Science International Accord on Open Data in a Big Data World.  As part of his CODATA role, Simon is closely involved in a CODATA initiative to improve the coordination of standards for data integration and interoperability for interdisciplinary research and in the coordination of the CODATA Data Policy Committee.

Additionally, Simon leads and participates in numerous projects, Working Groups, and Steering Groups. Currently (February 2017), this includes the following roles:

• Project Director, African Open Science Platform Project;
• Chair, European Commission’s Expert Group on FAIR Data, which is preparing a report and guidelines on how to make FAIR data a reality; and
• Co-chair, GEO Data Sharing Working Group, to which CODATA has made a long-term contribution.

Simon is also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dryad Data Repository, a not-for-profit initiative to make the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable; and he sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of CESSDA ERIC, the European data infrastructure for the social sciences.  He is a former co-chair of the OECD Global Science Forum and CODATA Project on Sustainable Business Models for Research Data Repositories.

Simon has a strong research background, as well as considerable project and programme management experience.  From 2009 to 2013, as Programme Manager, he led two successful phases of Jisc's innovative Managing Research Data programme in the UK.