Date: 7-8 May 2019
Venue: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS (Beijing, China)
Principal Promoters: World Data System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS
Web Site: http://www.wds-china.org/meeting201905.html

Building on the common understanding achieved at the 2017 WDS Asia–-Oceania Conference, a second Conference was held on 6–7 May 2019 at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, in Beijing, China. On this occasion, we had more than 120 participants from 14 countries in attendance, and about 50 papers (oral and posters) were presented. The main objective of the 2019 Conference was to reinforce the collaborations in Asia–-Oceania that began in the first Conference and at the same time progress activities of strategic importance to the WDS mission-oriented activities. The realization of the 2019 Conference was that building the envisaged network to involve more people from more countries would be a gradual process; especially, when it comes from Southeast Asia. With the 20th Meeting of the WDS Scientific Committee held in conjunction with the Conference, this was a notable opportunity to impart information to the Conference participants on the projects of WDS, including the procedure to become certified as trustworthy by obtaining the CoreTrustSeal for Data Repositories6, a certification standard cocreated by WDS that promotes sustainable and trustworthy data infrastructures.