Continuity Plan

PANGAEA has operated for nearly 30 years now by its host institutions the University Bremen/MARUM and the Alfred Wegener Institute - Helmholtz Center for Polar- and Marine Research. In the AWI/MARUM formal and legally binding cooperation agreement (AMAR) both host institutions ensure long term support for PANGAEAs personnel and technical infrastructure. This cooperation agreement has been extended and updated in 2022 and again legally signed by the directors of AWI and MARUM in April 2022. The signed cooperation agreement can be made available on request (in German).

The cooperation agreement guarantees the further development and operation of the international data information system PANGAEA (Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science) as a service for science, politics and society in the long term.

Stated in the cooperation agreement is that the contractual partners support each other in their designated areas of competence in the curation, archiving and publication of scientific data. The decision-making in PANGAEA  takes place in the steering committee (SC). The SC advises and decides on general strategic questions, concepts and investments. It meets 2-3 times a year and is prepared by the general manager of PANGAEA. It consists of the MARUM and AWI directors, the MARUM administration manager and the general manager of PANGAEA.

The cooperation agreement of the contractual partners (AMAR) includes the following succession planning:

• Ensuring the long-term integrity, availability and effective usability of the data;
• Technical operation of PANGAEA;
• Joint conception and technical development of PANGAEA;
• Further development and operation of the editorial workflow;
• Development of sustainable business models for the publication of scientific data;
• Training of data curators and data managers;
• Teaching and training events on the importance and handling of scientific data;
• Involvement and participation in international consortia and projects;
• Raising third-party funds in all PANGAEA-relevant areas;
• Cooperation with publishers, libraries, other data centers and infrastructure networks;
• External presentation, taking into account the supporting institutions;

This agreement includes that all data in PANGAEA will be accessible via programmatic access and the webpage for at least 10 years in case PANGAEA is discontinued. In case of the decommissioning of PANGAEA only the submission and editorial system will be terminated, the database and delivery of the data will not be compromised.