Espri

Ensemble des Services pour la Recherche à l'IPSL

Continuity of access:

The repository has a continuity plan to ensure ongoing access to and preservation of its holdings

The data hosted by the ESPRI repository comes from several types of users:

  • IPSL departments or laboratories
  • Research teams or projects linked to national RIs such as DATA-TERRA or CLIMERI-France, or European projects such as IS-ENES or Copernicus (C3S, CAMS).

Data custody depends on the data source. For data and metadata produced by IPSL, the ESPRI repository is the only custodian. For instance, ESPRI is the official and unique repository for data and metadata produced by SIRTA, the IPSL observatory. In the context of CMIP and CORDEX projects, ESPRI repository is designated as the only official custodian for French data and metadata produced by French modeling groups.  In some other projects, ESPRI repository can be the primary custodian, as for example, in the scope of data collected during field campaigns. In this case, ESPRI has the responsibility of hosting, assigning DOIs and distributing the qualified data.

ESPRI does not systematically hold the source data of the research projects, however, it can be an official repository of it. Therefore ESPRI is a primary custodian when organizing data campaigns in France, or replicating reference simulations from other CMIP/CORDEX modeling groups.

Data custody has been detailed in the ESPRI Data Management Plan.

For some of the repository datasets there is a formal agreement with other data centers to preserve data production. For instance : AERIS, COPERNICUS, international infrastructure ESGF. Please refer to the ESGF link below. 

Initially, the ESPRI data center was built to meet the internal needs of IPSL for data hosting and management. The first mission entrusted to ESPRI by the IPSL direction is therefore to ensure the preservation of the data of the IPSL services and laboratories, for which ESPRI constitutes the primary data storage and distribution center. To guarantee the data center’s capacity to ensure data preservation, an IT infrastructure has been developed and is maintained by IPSL. The recurrent financing of this infrastructure is ensured on the one hand by the different national guardianships and on the other hand by contributions coming from different projects.

The mission of DATA-TERRA and CLIMERI-France RIs is to develop a global system for accessing and processing data, products and services for Earth system observation and modeling. To fulfill this role, these RIs federate thematically-specialized data centers.  Within those two infrastructures, ESPRI plays a dual role in the management of observation and modeling data of the climate system. In this context, ESPRI’s mission is to host, process and distribute data from teams and projects related to the two RIs. For these projects, the duration of data storage and associated services is defined according to the needs of the projects. For non-reproducible data, such as data from field campaigns or from long-term observatories, ESPRI is committed to ensuring long-term hosting and access (15 to 20 years). For the medium-term project Copernicus C3S, ESPRI guarantees redundant access to climate simulations with its European partners.

The medium and long-term stability of the ESPRI data center is ensured by the support of the IPSL’s institutional authorities (or guardianships) such as the CNRS, SU, UVSQ and the Ecole Polytechnique. We get financial support on the one hand, with annual allocations dedicated to data management activities. On the other hand, the support is also measurable in terms of human resources, with the recruitment of permanent positions for engineers assigned to the data center.

ESPRI also benefits from multiple funding from RIs funding agencies (CNRS, CNES) and projects (ANR, Horizon Europe) to ensure its missions of hosting, processing and distribution of data. This mutualisation of funding provides a certain guarantee of sustainability.

The participation of the ESPRI data center in national and European  RIs allows to cover the low risk of disappearance or termination of the data center activity. These infrastructures are built on federations of national and European data centers. If necessary, ESPRI’s data repository activities could be taken over by one or more data centers of these infrastructures. In the framework of IS-ENES, the infrastructure is natively designed to ensure redundancy of storage and data services between the European centers – of which ESPRI is one of the nodes.

At the national level, ESPRI participates in the 8-year+ funded GAIA-DATA project, supported by the IRs CLIMERI-France, DATA-TERRA and the National Center for Biodiversity Data (PNDB), to develop an integrated and distributed platform of services/data for the observation, modeling and understanding of the Earth System, biodiversity and the Environment. The funding obtained ensures the sustainability of ESPRI’s activities over the next 8 years and aims at building a sustainable platform for which the 21 participating organizations are committed to support the equipment with positions and recurrent funding.