Background

The Polar Environment Data Science Center (PEDSC) has been newly launched in 2017 as one of the centers belonging to the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research (DS) of the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS).

The ROIS has been established in 2004 as an Inter-university Research Institute Corporation, consisting of four national institutes (the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), the National Institute of Informatics (NII), the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM) and the National Institute of Genetics (NIG)). The third term of the ROIS has started since 2016. The DS has been established in 2016 at the start of the third term as a flagship platform of the ROIS, whose purpose is to strengthen the function of the ROIS to promote the support activities for universities and other external communities.

Main purpose of the DS is to support the activities for the data sharing, data analysis, and data scientist human resource development in universities and other external communities, responding to the needs of the times for the Open science and Data centric science.

The PEDSC is a center of the DS to support the data activities associated with polar science. Planning phase for the PEDSC started in 2015, and a preparatory office was made in the NIPR in 2016. After the detailed planning for the schedule and structure of the PEDSC in the preparatory office, the PEDSC has been formally launched in 2017. The PEDSC has a close relationship with the scientific observation and research activities of the NIPR. The main purpose of the PEDSC is to strengthen and further promote the opening and sharing of the polar science data for further broader communities, closely collaborating with the polar science research community leaded by the NIPR.

In October 2026 (FY2026), amid the rapidly changing landscape surrounding AI, the DS was renamed the Co-creation Center for Future Science Systems (CCFSS) to explore and implement new approaches to science.As one of the constituent centers of the CCFSS, the PEDSC will continue to serve as the national data center for polar regions. We will play a central role in data activities in polar science while providing support to external communities, including universities, from a data science perspective, especially from the use of AI. Through these activities, we aim to create new data-driven polar science and continue contributing to research on the global environment.

Goals

The purpose of the Polar Environment Data Science Center (PEDSC) is to promote the publishing and sharing of the diverse scientific data obtained through observation and research activities in the Antarctic and Arctic regions, so as to generate further scientific outputs, and to strengthen collaboration with universities and other external communities -including support, from a data-science perspective, that makes use of AI. Internationally, the PEDSC is also expected to have the role of a national data center for polar science in Japan. Its goals are to play a central role in the data activities of polar science research in Japan, to create a new, data-centric polar science, and to contribute to the advancement of global environmental studies