The 18^th International CODATA Conference — "Frontiers of Scientific and Technical Data"— took place 29 September-3 October 2002 at the Hotel Delta Centre-Ville, downtown Montreal. This four-day Conference was hosted by the Canadian and US National Committees for CODATA.

CODATA 2002 continued CODATA's 36-year tradition of serving international science by holding an open and exciting conference on the latest advances in scientific and technical data.

CODATA 2002 addressed important interdisciplinary issues in scientific and technical data management and dissemination.

CODATA 2002 featured six Keynote plenary lectures by some of the most renowned scientists and data experts in the world, addressing cross-cutting themes focusing on issues such as:

CODATA 2002 involved twenty-four invited speakers from different scientific disciplines expanding on the themes presented during the plenary sessions.

CODATA 2002 involved 35 parallel sessions-with approximately 200 contributed oral and poster papers covering topics such as:

Physical Science Data	Social Science Data
Biological Science Data	Informatics and Technology
Earth and Environmental Data	Data Science
Medical and Health Data	Data Policy
	Technical Demonstrations

CODATA 2002 was designed to excite the scientific community with new ideas in data science and expose data specialists to the complexity and variety of scientific data needs among their colleagues in other disciplines, creating an environment where ideas were exchanged, synergies emerge and partnerships begun.

To ensure high quality and an interdisciplinary focus of CODATA 2002 an International Scientific Program Committee was established:

Co-Chairmen:

Prof. Harlan Onsrud (USA)
Dr. Gordon Wood (Canada)

Topic	Member	Country
Physical Science Data	Dr. Marcelle Gaune-Escard	France
Biological Science Data	Dr. Takashi Kunisawa	Japan
Earth and Environmental Data	Prof. Liu Chuang	China
Medical andHealth Data	Dr. Elliot Siegel	USA
Social Science Data	Dr. David Johnson	USA
Informatics and Technology	Mr. Glen Newton	Canada
Data Policy	Dr. Paul F. Uhlir	USA
Data 2015	Dr. John R. Rodgers	Canada
Engineering Data	Dr. Aleksandr Jovanovic	Germany